Splitting mic cables and phantom power.

S

spankenstein

New member
For recording live shows I would like to just intercept the mics that the FOH is using anyway.

Can I use just a Y cable? If so... what about phantom power?

If I'm looking at this the wrong way could someone please point me in the proper direction?
 
Maybe too obvious but have you got a spare aux on the FOH desk? You can get get a totally independent or fader-dependent (pre- or post-aux) depending on your desk.
 
noisedude said:
Maybe too obvious but have you got a spare aux on the FOH desk? You can get get a totally independent or fader-dependent (pre- or post-aux) depending on your desk.
Click to expand...
But then he's stuck with the EQ from the desk.......... (sure - pre-post, but that doesn't usually bypass EQ)

The proper way, as I mentioned, is to use a splitter.......
 
I know! I was just making a suggestion. I've heard reasonably good recordings made of aux sends (and some dreadful ones too ... ). Of course it only works if you have a sound guy who doesn't mind sharing the desk whilst you work on different mixes.
 
Found this site: http://www.whirlwindusa.com/tech06split.html

Very informative along with a nice little wiring diagram! I think I'm going to be doing some splitter making.

The parrallel splitter is just a Y cable but since I have NO idea knowing what I'm going to be working with I'm going for the transformer isolated one.

I have also heard some good off the board recordings... but I don't want to be held hostage by a potentially bad FOH.
 
yeah sure - i guess i was kinda assuming a fixed venue or gear list! The article looks interesting, I think I'll give it a read and maybe reach for the soldering iron.
 
I hope it's a really small band or you have a big budget. Splitting 20 mics isn't cheap. The ART PhantomIII is one of the cheapest splitters with phantom power. They will split two mics for $40 (that is dirt cheap for splitters). Not sure if they are any good or not. You could get a bunch of them and rack them. Luckily most live mics are dynamics so you may only need 2-4 channels of phantom power. It's often just the drum OH's that are condensors.

Sonusman made a 24ch splitter with transformers and it cost around $8k as I recall.
 
Wow... transformers are expensive! Whirwind ones are $40. Jensens are $50.

For 16 in 32 out (16 isolated 16 direct) it's coming up to around $950. Definitely more costly than I was expecting.
 
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