running headphone signal over a long distance for recording

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billyofcourse

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Recently in the process of setting up a recording rig at my house. Picked up a snake to put the drum kit across the house from the computer and was wondering what the best solution would be for running a headphone signal across the house to the drummer. thanks in advance!
 
Does the snake have an extra 1/4" TS or TRS line you could plug the phones into? That would be the simplest.
Otherwise, you can get 1/4' extension cables. I have a 20' one I use for headphone monitoring...not to concerned with any minor sound signal degredation in an unbalanced signal, since it's just to monitor while recording other parts.
 
You can also take one of the XLR lines and turn it into a stereo headphone line....just change out the connectors or make some XLR to phone jumpers.
Then just have a decent headphone amp to power them.
 
Most snakes have returns on them, use the return to send the signal to a headphone amp in the drum room. If you don't have a headphone amp, you can just plug the headphone out of the interface into the return on the snake and plug the headphones directly into the snare in the drum room.
 
Farview said:
Most snakes have returns on them, use the return to send the signal to a headphone amp in the drum room. If you don't have a headphone amp, you can just plug the headphone out of the interface into the return on the snake and plug the headphones directly into the snare in the drum room.
Click to expand...

I like to see that work!:eek:

I think "snare" should have been "snake". Just one letter off. I got confused.

Not nit-picking, just had to read it a few times before I understood what you were really trying to say!:thumbs up:

Yours is the exact suggestion I was about to make, BTW.

My whole studio is wired up this way, to the hilt.
 
I do alot of posting from my phone, so stuff like that happens. I did mean snake.
 
pegger said:
Does the snake have an extra 1/4" TS or TRS line you could plug the phones into? That would be the simplest.
Otherwise, you can get 1/4' extension cables. I have a 20' one I use for headphone monitoring...not to concerned with any minor sound signal degredation in an unbalanced signal, since it's just to monitor while recording other parts.
Click to expand...

Yup on this. My snake has 2 1/4" lines. I use a male trs to female ts splitter out of my phone amp, and a 2 male ts to female trs splitter out of the snake. Works great. I also run 20' extension cables on the other phones and have no problems.
 
Yes, headphone amps are very tolerant of long lines since they are really tiny power amps and are very stable (some line outputs would not take kindly to such a long and hence highly capacitive load) .

Note for the future: Install as much CAT5e cable as you can. The unshielded stuff(UTP) can run headphone signal, line signal, basic video, VGA, SPDIF, AES and a pair can run HDMI. In addition of course to network data and telephones. The shielded version (FTP) can carry mic signals as well.
I have also had good results sending MIDI down far longer lines than the 5mtrs or so is the reckoned maximum. But that is experimental.

Dave.
 
Yup. This is a very common requirement for me. I feed line level up the snake and into a headphone amp at the stage end. This gives whoever is going to be using the feed full control of their own levels as well.
 
I actually run headphone cabling around the studio using Alarm Cable. I plug into the headphone amp in the control room and them run alarm cable to small boxes with stereo jacks in them that can be moved around the recording room. Alarm cable comes in various core numbers, so you can have 2, 3 or 4 different headphone sends depending on the headphone amp.
Alan.
 
ecc83 said:
Yes, headphone amps are very tolerant of long lines since they are really tiny power amps and are very stable (some line outputs would not take kindly to such a long and hence highly capacitive load) .

Note for the future: Install as much CAT5e cable as you can. The unshielded stuff(UTP) can run headphone signal, line signal, basic video, VGA, SPDIF, AES and a pair can run HDMI. In addition of course to network data and telephones. The shielded version (FTP) can carry mic signals as well.
I have also had good results sending MIDI down far longer lines than the 5mtrs or so is the reckoned maximum. But that is experimental.

Dave.
Click to expand...

Kinda nitpicky of me, but as an IT guy, I gotta...
It's actually STP, not FTP. STP and UTP are shielded/unshielded twisted pair, FTP is File Transfer Protocol. ;)
 
MrWrenchey said:
Kinda nitpicky of me, but as an IT guy, I gotta...
It's actually STP, not FTP. STP and UTP are shielded/unshielded twisted pair, FTP is File Transfer Protocol. ;)
Click to expand...

Well then "IT and "Network" peeps should sort out their respective vocabularies! "FTP" is short for "Foil Twisted Pairs"
I shall find a mnfc'trs page!


CAT 5e UTP and FTP Patch Cable from Bryant Unlimited

Mind you! There is another picky guy over at Tom's Hardware!
Dave.
 
Let's add FST (foil screened twin) to this mess of initials since I use tons of it for permanent wiring.
 
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