snakes

[Nick The Man]

why are recording snakes differant from stage snakes

would it be a bad thing to record useing a stage snake?

 

[Nick The Man]

i just think having all the cables run into one box is much more versitile and organized

 

[Track Rat]

Functionally, they're the same. Snakes built for live sound have stage returns built into them to get back from the mixer to the mains and monitor amps that set on stage. And the stage end is terminated into a stage "box" rather than into a plate that would mounted into a wall. And something ment for an average home studio woun't be 100' long. That being said, a stage snake will work like a champ.

 

[easychair]

For running from the studio to the control room, they are very good tools, and no different except for the box. Snakes with fans at both ends are often called patch or interconnect snakes, as they are meant to connect pieces of gear like mixers and recorders together, rather than to plug in a bunch of mics.

 

[easychair]

Snakes built for live sound have stage returns built into them to get back from the mixer to the mains and monitor amps that set on stage.

Oh, yeah, and they have returns.

Those can be pretty useful in the studio as well, such as for sending headphone mixes back to the musos.

 

[xstatic]

Often times recording snakes are actually built out of better cabling. They are also built with different configurations. For live sound it is important to have extremely long lengths that if built out of higher quality cabling would be outrageously expensive. I recently got a quote on a new snake for one of my live rigs. It was nearly $8000. I can not imagine how much more expensive it would have been had it used some of the high end cabling that is used in many studios. However, a snake designed for live use could certainly still be used to record. If you really want to know if it will affect you, I would reccomend buying a singal mic cable made of the same parts from one company (whichever company is making your snake that is designed for live use), and one cable made of the same components of that of a recording snake. See for yourself if you can notice a difference. If you can, than your answer will be clear. Pricing can also vary a lot between all the different manufacturers. In pricing my new snake I came up with a bid as low as $4400, and as high is $8200 for very similar configurations. You would most likely not need to spend nearly as much. The one I am looking at has a $150 foot trunk with MASS connectors at each end for FOH, a 12' MASS to fan out, a 75' MASS to fan out split for monitors, a third MASS split for recording, 48 mono channels with ground lift switches and Jensen transformers, 8 returns with ground lifts and Jensen transformers, and 4 prewired multipin outputs for subsnakes.

If you need a price comparison for any cabling, drop me a PM

 

[Treeline]

sssss-ssss-sss-ss-s

Those things are definitely worth the effort and money.

JGourd showed me a cool way to roll 'em up - just pick up a garden hose reel with a crank and take out the plumbing. Instant stage snake reel for twenty bucks. Works like a charm.

 

[Treeline]

The one I am looking at has a $150 foot trunk with MASS connectors at each end for FOH, a 12' MASS to fan out, a 75' MASS to fan out split for monitors, a third MASS split for recording, 48 mono channels with ground lift switches and Jensen transformers, 8 returns with ground lifts and Jensen transformers, and 4 prewired multipin outputs for subsnakes.

Holy smokes! Does it come with its own forklift?? That's some snake!

 

[xstatic]

Personally, I don't use reels for my stuff for a good reason. First, a plastic reel wouldn't last long on a truck. Second, thats a very large reel for a big snake. Third, what happens if you only need 80 feet of a 150 foot snake? You have to uncoil the whole thing to get the other end free. When I coil my snakes I leave about 10 to fifteen feet of slack out of the box at the stage end, then I coil the rest in so that the FOH tail lands on top. That way at every show I only pull what I need and the rest can stay protected in its road case. My snake head will be rack mountable so I would always need at least a few feet of slack at the stage end. Fourth, if the snake is on a reel, that would leave the snake box hanging and would put constant unnecessary pressure on the stage box end. Typically, once you invest that much in a snake, you really should have a good sturdy road case to protect it both during transport, and during shows.

Also, I just noticed a possibly misleading typo in my post. It says "a $150 foot trunk". It should read " a 150 foot trunk". It is not $150 a foot

 

[Adam P]

I think that if you've got a setup that will be set up and torn down fairly frequently, a stage snake would work perfectly fine. For example, I do my recording at my friend's house because I don't have the room at my place, and his mom has put up with bands playing in her basement for the last 10 years. Right now we're on the lookout for a stage snake about 50 feet in length with 16 XLR sends and 4 TRS returns, reason being that our tracking room is in the basement, and we want to set up a "control room" in the extra bedroom on the 2nd floor, and we could just hoist the snake cable up through the laundry chute to get from the basement to the second floor. Since we dont want to leave the cable in their all the time, I think a snake would be the easiest solution, as we'd only be hoisting one cable for all our cable runs. If you were doing a permanent install through walls or something, though, recording grade snake cable to wall plates would probably be the way to go. I've even heard the case made for using individual mic lines for each point on the wall panel, so that you're not SOL if one of the channels goes bad.

By the way, Xstatic has given me some excellent quotes on quality patch snakes before, but I opted to pick up the soldering iron and learn how to do it myself. If thats not for you, though, hit him up.

 

[Nick The Man]

whoa a ton of feed back

thanks guys

 

[Kasey]

i use a stage snake (90' long) because my studio is in the basement and the piano us upstairs, so i just run that crazy long cable all the way up to the piano to record. I use it in the studio though too, even if its long its more organized having one box to plug everything into in the middle of the studio

 

[Nick The Man]

I use it in the studio though too, even if its long its more organized having one box to plug everything into in the middle of the studio

yeah thats what i think