does a 50' stage snake belong in home recording?

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mofat

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Sorry if this is a dumb question. I got a 16x4 50 foot (could be 25') stage snake long ago and was thinking one day, I will incorporate it into my amateur recording one day. But it got me thinking that the length and multi cable connection may reduce audio quality. So should I just get rid of it or just use it for karaoke only? What do u think?
 
mofat said:
Sorry if this is a dumb question. I got a 16x4 50 foot (could be 25') stage snake long ago and was thinking one day, I will incorporate it into my amateur recording one day. But it got me thinking that the length and multi cable connection may reduce audio quality. So should I just get rid of it or just use it for karaoke only? What do u think?
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The snake is useful in recording if there is a big distance between recording room and recorder. Length and mulit cable connection will not, of themselves, impact on audio quality. (There may be an impact if, say, the cable is damaged).

Most likely, though, there will be no practical use for it.
 
Its kind of clunky if your home studio is all in one room. But if you have a live room and a control room, they make a lot of sense.
50' should not cause any degradation problems assuming the snake is a quality one and not an import from china.
 
I have a 10 mtr (about 30 feet) multi core from the control room to the rear of the recording room and there is no problem at all, is is however canare cable not cheap stuff. For reference, some Chinese cable is actually OK, check out the shielding and core thickness before buying. Also I have done some live location recording using over 100 feet of multi core with no problems, again good cable (belden).

Alan.
 
In an earlier life one of my jobs was reeling out audio cable for outside broadcasts on golf courses, and sometimes I'd join 4 or 5 100m reels together and quality is fine. 600Ohm audio transmission is a tried and tested system, and on the longer lengths just a bit of HF eq restores neutrality. I've got snakes of all lengths and up to 50m they are transparent. For what it's worth, I've never heard any Chinese ones that sound bad. The differences are practical ones. They're a bit less sturdy, and need more care soldering, but they don't sound bad.
 
Thx guys for ur inputs. I guess its worth keeping then. It's a live wire brand, so I think that's decent quality.
 
I've made my own impulse files.

I find that the most difficult part is capturing an impulse that is not contaminated by unwanted sounds. For example, I wanted to capture a natural outdoors sound, and where I live is rural and generally quiet. But quiet is relative, and rural quiet is actually very noisy with birds tweeting, a dog barking in the distance, a car driving down the road half a mile away and so on.
 
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