XLR connections to bind them all...

NashBackslash

NashBackslash

New member
I've been meaning to ask this question for a very long time but never got around it. :)

Some time ago, some friends who were in a band were recording their EP and I tagged along just to check the studio out and see how the guys are doing (being good friends and all).

There was something in that studio that really struck me at the time - the owner had 32-port XLR plates installed in his control and live rooms, and he sent STEREO headphone mixes through those XLR ports, with the help of custom soldered stereo-XLR connectors.

And for miked guitar cabinets, he placed the amp head inside the control room (so that the player can sit in the control room, in front of the monitors, and tweak his amp easily), while the cabinet was inside the isolated live room. The head's output is connected to the cabinet using those XLR ports (again, with custom soldered connectors).

I never thought this was possible. Most studios I have seen have separate ports for speaker connections and headphone connections. But the studio owner I'm talking about had nothing but XLR connections, and tons of connectors for different kinds of connections.

Has anyone else done this before? I'm interested in hearing your experiences. I have one question in mind right now; would the above technique degrade the audio signal? And in what ways? Was it even a good idea in the first place?
 
Yeah you could easily send a stereo signal through an XLR cable/connector.
Quality would virtually not be effected.
It's just a matter of hooking it up really. Most people would stay with stereo 1/4" since that's the standard for all studio gear's headphone jacks.
So basically there is no issue doing it that way. It could be convenient since adding extensions would simply mean adding an XLR cable with locking ends. 1/4" extension cables usually suck.

Although I would be slightly concerned running a guitar head though the snake since there'd be some crosstalk. But if he's using a balanced mic and cable it would reject virtually all crosstalk if there even was any to begin with.

I for one would not want to puts 30+ watts through my snake or any of my signal grade cables.

Although I will have the guitar player / head in the control room with a 1/4" speaker cable leading to the cab in the tracking room. Or if we want feedback, the guitarist will just stay in the tracking room with the cab.
 
He was running his 100 watts head through the snake. I am guessing he was using shielded XLR cables because there were no crosstalks or any terrible hissing or anything as far as I can remember. He was recording some high-gain metal sounds and the signal was clean. I remember the end product sounding pretty good. :)

Would doing that (100 watts) for extended periods of time damage the XLR cables?
 
NashBackslash said:
He was running his 100 watts head through the snake. I am guessing he was using shielded XLR cables because there were no crosstalks or any terrible hissing or anything as far as I can remember. He was recording some high-gain metal sounds and the signal was clean. I remember the end product sounding pretty good. :)

Would doing that (100 watts) for extended periods of time damage the XLR cables?
Click to expand...
There are a lot of factors involved in overpowering a wire. Generally, it shouldn't hurt the wire. But I'd rather be safe than sorry. I know I've persobally felt speaker jacks get warm on PA gear before. I'd hate to melt a snake.

As far as cross talk and shielding, yes his snake was most likely shielded. There is another thing called CMRR using differential (balanced) signals like XLR. That helps reduce noise by a lot. Differential signals are actually what make long cable runs with your average mic very low noise.

I imagine his set up works just fine, albeit a little unconventional.
 
NashBackslash said:
There was something in that studio that really struck me at the time - the owner had 32-port XLR plates installed in his control and live rooms, and he sent STEREO headphone mixes through those XLR ports, with the help of custom soldered stereo-XLR connectors.
Click to expand...

They don't need to be custom- a regular-wired XLR connector will carry a stereo signal. Unless you mean he had custom adapters.
 
If he went to all that trouble he probably used some beefier wire for the guitar amp feeds into the live room, and may have isolated that portion of wiring away from mic signals as well when installing the cabling.
 
He had several custom adapters for various uses - speaker cabinets, headphone sockets, etc. A complete arsenal of adaptors for all the connections one would ever use.
 
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