cable reels - yeah or nay

[pounce]

came up in a thread today. i've seen people use them for mic cables before. more often i see people under/over the cable and use a specific case for the cables. maybe it's because of the SR companies i have worked with, and they've all always over/undered the cables, color coded them for length, and used a specific box to store audio cables of all types.

i'm not sure if there are any specific technical plusses or minuses either way, or just what i'm used to and therefore like better. any reason why one is better than the other? i do not prefer the cable reels at all.

[Tim Halligan]

For the short stuff...nope.

For the long stuff that gets used on OB's, cable reels are a godsend.

Doing over/under on 250m cables is just tedious...


YMMV



Cheers,
Tim

[clicktrack]

Cable reels are great, but only for multicore IMHO. Or those situations where the sheer weight of the cable makes it too ungainly.

We use a motorized cable reel for our main snake...400' of 58-pr. Yeah...lugging that beast around without a reel would have got me out of this business right quick!!!

Cable reels for mic cables I think is a waste of time.

Mic cables get memory and as long as you treat the cable the same way and don't do some of the deadly sins (tugging on it to free it from a bundle). Use a nice over under or coil-twist approach and use that consistantly, and, if not stolen, your cables will live to a ripe old age of usability.

[ggunn]

i do not prefer the cable reels at all.

I do. I never leave home (for a gig) without them.

What I dislike about the over-under method is that if the cable end comes out of the coil the wrong way when you uncoil it, then you've got a bunch of overhand knots in the cable.

The only downside to the cable reels I have found is that if a cable comes loose when you are winding fast, the end of it will hit you hard. Depending on which way you are reeling, it's face or nuts, take your pick. That's why I always have someone else feed the cables in when I am winding them up. That, and to pull a little tension so that they wrap tight.

Oh, and another hardware store tip... Get some Velcro cable ties instead of tying that knot to secure coiled up cables. That knot will eventually fatigue the metal in the cables and/or give you a permanent kink in them near the ends. An alternative is those pony tail holders with the two balls.

[pounce]

most of the broadcast guys i know use them for their little snakes. the ones i've seen have been smaller snakes and the reels work fine for that. for theatre or rock and roll i don't don't want to even mess with them.

[clicktrack]

most of the broadcast guys i know use them for their little snakes. the ones i've seen have been smaller snakes and the reels work fine for that. for theatre or rock and roll i don't don't want to even mess with them.

Agree totally.

[burnsy]

I do hope the over under isnt refeering to being wrapped over your shoulder then under your arm because that is very very very wrong!!!

We have a mix of both but the touring stuff seem to mostly use multicores then break off from that.

On the AV side of thingswe used a lot of reels. I do think I prefer reels but it has to be a good one as crap ones make life even harder.

[pounce]

I do hope the over under isnt refeering to being wrapped over your shoulder then under your arm because that is very very very wrong!!!

We have a mix of both but the touring stuff seem to mostly use multicores then break off from that.

On the AV side of thingswe used a lot of reels. I do think I prefer reels but it has to be a good one as crap ones make life even harder.

no, over/under is never the around your arm thing. never!

here is an explanation...


http://stagecraft.theprices.net/gallery/cablewrap/cablewrap-qt.html

[burnsy]

Oh yeah thats how we do it but I was never told it was the over under technique , does the cable have to be coiled to a cheesy soundtrack for it to work or ?

But yeah back to topic I think reels are great things but can be very messy if you leave monkey crew with them

[rockdart]

Oh, and another hardware store tip... Get some Velcro cable ties instead of tying that knot to secure coiled up cables. That knot will eventually fatigue the metal in the cables and/or give you a permanent kink in them near the ends. An alternative is those pony tail holders with the two balls.

If you have any friends that work in the IT business setting up new machines, let them know that you'll take all the velcro cable ties they got - they're perfect for the job. Tapered at one end to be able to get through a pre-made slot so you can wrap it through to anchor it to the cable whereever you deem best suited.

I've got yards of the stuff - and they're about 10" long individually.

And the best part is that it was all FREE!

[ggunn]

If you have any friends that work in the IT business setting up new machines, let them know that you'll take all the velcro cable ties they got - they're perfect for the job. Tapered at one end to be able to get through a pre-made slot so you can wrap it through to anchor it to the cable whereever you deem best suited.

I've got yards of the stuff - and they're about 10" long individually.

And the best part is that it was all FREE!

The ones at Home Depot were really cheap - a couple of bucks for a dozen or so. Rainbow colors, too. ;^)

[G. Hoffman]

For any small cable - i.e., mic cable, DMX cable (they're NOT the same thing), BNC cables, patch cables, A/C cables, etc. - over/under with either tie line or color coded Velcro. For audio or data snakes, I don't MIND reals, but I think they take longer. I wouldn't want to try them for Socopex A/C runs, though, or long feeder runs. I DO like reals for longer runs of the Cat 5. That stuff always feels too delicate to just throw in a box, you know?

As for the complaint about the weight of a long snake run, what do you think hands are for? The good crews are the ones where, every time I pickup a run of Soco, one of the hands says, "can I get that for you?"


Gabriel

[dnafe]

no, over/under is never the around your arm thing. never!


I know I'm gonna get blasted for this.

In gerneral I would have to agree, especially when dealing with inexperienced help but I have a technique of hand/elbow wrapping that I have used for years with nary a busted cable...it's all in the gentle twist as you wind.


(edit: there goes any credibilty I may have had)

[floodstage]

For any small cable - i.e., mic cable, DMX cable (they're NOT the same thing)...........


What is the difference between a mic cable and a DMX cable?
I have a minimal light rig and small DMX controller and I use mic cables for them and they work fine. Am I risking damage or something? I use a channel of my audio snake to run from the stage to the board for that matter.

[Tim Armstrong]

We started using a different cable wrap technique last year, after seeing another band using it:

The "half" wrap. You take the cable and put one end together wiith the other end, halving the length. Repeat until the cable bundle is between two and three feet long, and tie the whole thing into a simple knot.

When you want to unwrap the cable, you untie the knot and it falls out into an unkinked state. Very nice!

Cheers, Tim

[Johnny]

I know I'm gonna get blasted for this.

In gerneral I would have to agree, especially when dealing with inexperienced help but I have a technique of hand/elbow wrapping that I have used for years with nary a busted cable...it's all in the gentle twist as you wind.


(edit: there goes any credibilty I may have had)

ANATHEMA!!!

[pounce]

What is the difference between a mic cable and a DMX cable?
I have a minimal light rig and small DMX controller and I use mic cables for them and they work fine. Am I risking damage or something? I use a channel of my audio snake to run from the stage to the board for that matter.

capacitance

dmx is a digital signal, so it's much the same as how in the studio i use true digital cables for aes/ebu and not standard mic cables although they look alike.

and yes, you can usually get by with standard mic cables, at least in short runs, but i easily see why it's preferable to have proper dmx cables with the right capacitance for the job.

[Droolbucket]

We started using a different cable wrap technique last year, after seeing another band using it:

The "half" wrap. You take the cable and put one end together wiith the other end, halving the length. Repeat until the cable bundle is between two and three feet long, and tie the whole thing into a simple knot.

When you want to unwrap the cable, you untie the knot and it falls out into an unkinked state. Very nice!

Cheers, Tim

That's funny... I just started running sound for a band who wraps their cables the same way. I haven't done that with my own cables, as I have too much money invested in velcro!:lol:

I have to admit, opening up their road case and seeing all those knotted cables threw me for a loop... in every band I've ever been in, a faulty cable gets knotted to show it needs repair. I flipped open the case lid, and thought, "Don't these guys EVER do maintenance?!?" :very happy:

Droolbucket

[bunnerabb]

I know I'm gonna get blasted for this.

In gerneral I would have to agree, especially when dealing with inexperienced help but I have a technique of hand/elbow wrapping that I have used for years with nary a busted cable...it's all in the gentle twist as you wind.


(edit: there goes any credibilty I may have had)

gah!

Noooooo!

The cubit method is.. I dunno. I mean, the problem is the people who use it and aren't feeling the cabling - wrap the shit like clothesline. If you do your own and , you know... no worries... cool.

[pounce]

well, cables are a likely place for failure in a sound system. i guess things like wrapping them funny makes me nervous as i can easily imagine that kind of thing being the cause of them failing more quickly or more often than they ought to. i don't want to hear audio cutting in and out during a show just because of handling cables the wrong way. i'm sure i'm being a little overly cautious, but my preference for over/undering cables will tend to keep them working better longer than some of the alternatives.

[dnafe]

gah!

Noooooo!

The cubit method is.. I dunno. I mean, the problem is the people who use it and aren't feeling the cabling - wrap the shit like clothesline. If you do your own and , you know... no worries... cool.


Agree with you totally, ya still have to caress the kinks outta the cable or your fucked.

As for the knot method, I've done it that way at times so busted cables now get the double knot treatment.

[AxeSlash]

We basically invented a few rules:

1. Anyone caught over/undering (or "backwinding" as we call it) any type of cable thinner than 10mm in diameter (i.e. mic cable, thin coax, XLR speaker cable etc) gets castrated with a rusty penknife
2. Any cables longer than 15-20m can be backwound...as long as that is how they were to start with (no point having to de-twist an entire 20m mic cable just to wind it a different way)
3. Anything longer than 50m (or less for some of the heavy-ass mains) should be on a reel
4. Multicores are figure o' 8'd or backwound into a trunk with 10m of the stage end left out until last, then that's coiled on top of the FOH end
5. Any cables that ARE backwound must be taped/velcro'd up so that it's easy to see which end of the cable to pull from which side.

Most people ignore no. 5 and I hate them for it.

Backwinding is fine for large diameter cables (e.g. heavy mains, socapex etc) because you can usually see quite easily which side to the pull the cable from - hence no knottage - and also it's better for the various cores inside it, which can be vulnerable to twisting.

We had an old Van Damme 32-pair multicore that started out it's life at a straight 50m and was finally sold on with a spring-effect useable length of about 30m. Partly due to the crap design of the cable we used, but compounded by lack of backwinding.

For tieing cables up, we just use a strip of double sided velcro cable tied on (make a hole in the centre of the velcro with an old knackered soldering iron nib).

'Course the disadvantage is when you come to get out and all the velcro has all stuck together at the stage box end, often resulting in some time spent disentangling it all.

[G. Hoffman]

What is the difference between a mic cable and a DMX cable?
I have a minimal light rig and small DMX controller and I use mic cables for them and they work fine. Am I risking damage or something? I use a channel of my audio snake to run from the stage to the board for that matter.

capacitance

dmx is a digital signal, so it's much the same as how in the studio i use true digital cables for aes/ebu and not standard mic cables although they look alike.

and yes, you can usually get by with standard mic cables, at least in short runs, but i easily see why it's preferable to have proper dmx cables with the right capacitance for the job.



For short runs (or for simple runs, such as a small conventional rig) mic cable will be fine, though it gives me the same kind of cringe that I get when I see people using duct tape instead of gaff to tape down cables. It's just so....wrong.

In long runs or with a large number of Moving fixtures, and particularly with certain (mostly older) brands and models of moving fixtures, you can get all kinds of data errors that will drive you nuts, which could have been avoided by simply by using the right cables in the first place.

For a small conventional rig, I wouldn't worry about it too much, but I also get the hebbie jebbies at the idea of using the audio snake for lighting data (can you say ground loop?) I've done it from time to time, but every time I suggest it I get dirty looks from the sound guys.


Gabriel

[G. Hoffman]

2. Any cables longer than 15-20m can be backwound...as long as that is how they were to start with



That's the real thing. Any cable which I wrap gets wound the way it is used to being wound. Around here, that usually means over/under, BUT they usually aren't perfect. Sometimes you get two or three wraps in a row which all want to go over, or all want to go under. The best thing for the cable ends is to let them go the way they want to go naturally, because each time you do something other than it's natural wrap you are stressing the solder joints, and I used to do maintenance in a theater where I had to fix all the broken fuckers.

And why is it, by the way, that it is always the center connector in the 32-pair Socopex that breaks? :Mad:


Gabriel

[G. Hoffman]

Oh, and the fact that we all have opinions (some of them apparently strong opinions if there are people becoming lock-jawed castratos over the issue) probably means we need to get real lives.


Gabriel

[Jason Phair]

Velcro for securing a wound cable absolutely sucks.



I use trick line. Clove hitch it to the male side, so it's not dangling obnoxiously in front of the star's face, and then just give it a shoelaces tie when you're done wrapping.


Lighting cable gets the clove hitch on the female side, so you can tie it off when it's in the truss.

[Dr. Bob]

Jason's dead on!!

Use color coded tape for differnt lengths... also take a sharpie to connectors or label printer for the name (on the male end).

[bunnerabb]

If you print out labels with XLR 10' / 20' Etc... then slip them over the ends and put clear heat shrink over them and heat shrink it, voila.

[Dr. Bob]

If you print out labels with XLR 10' / 20' Etc... then slip them over the ends and put clear heat shrink over them and heat shrink it, voila.

Well too, if you put YOUR name (or the Co name) on em'... they have a tendancy not to walk off as easily either.

I like the color codes the best for length... you can see that easier in low light and when they're in a pile... but I like the idea of adding the length to the label... that way when the tape comes off you can still ID the length.

[Jason Phair]

I use both methods of labelling. Company name gets labelled/heatshrinked (heatshrunk?). We also colour code for length, though. A stripe at either end, and the same code on the ends of the tie line, to keep it from fraying. This way I can tell at a glance, without having to dig through and read ;).

Also, we colour code mic kits by buying numbered, coloured cables.