Multicore (stage box)

[Geraint]

Hi,any help on this topic would be much appreciated, its very long winded, and im a guitarist, not a sound tech which adds even more problems,, but here we go
the band i play in have progressed, and we are now playing clubs, we have been micing and mixing our drummer up, into a spare desk, and then feeding out of that desk into one channel on our main desk,"a spirit folio 8 mono/2 stereo mixer" in addition we have 4 vocal mics via xlr, 2 keyboards on off which is linked to the stereo phono out of the headphone socket, the other directly underneath to the stereo channel in the folio, from the keyboards headphone socket, 2 acoustic guitars via jack leads, 1 bass guitar via jack leads, and one electric guitar linked to the reamining stereo socket on the desk, via the headphone socket on my gt5..so it looks like this
folio mono channel 1,,vocs xlr
"""""""""""""""""""""""" 2,,vocs xlr
"""""""""""""""""""""""" 3 vocs xlr
"""""""""""""""""""""""" 4 vocs xlr
"""""""""""""""""""""""" 5 acoustic jack
"""""""""""""""""""""""" 6 acoustic jack
"""""""""""""""""""""""" 7 bass jack
"""""""""""""""""""""""" 8 drums, via jack that have been mixed via another desk
folio stereo channel 9/10 keys 1 and 2 connected via 1x mini stereo splitter to 2 mono,,and the other connected mini stereo spliiter to phones,
"""""""stereo channel 11/12 lexicon vocal effects to the phono, and the remaining electric guitar from roland gt5 headphone, to the remainin stereo inputs on the desk,

whew!! anyhow that is our current set up, and its causing a nightmare with leads, and soon some one is bound to trip over one, so i have decided to try to sort this out via a multicore, but all of them only have xlr connectors on them,
but our keyboards guitars etc use phono and jackleads, is it wise to buy a shed load of convertors to convert these,, as it would have to be converted on both ends of the multicore, or would it be better to buy a bigger desk with more xlr inputs?,and would i need di boxes? but money as always bieng an issue, it would be great if i could keep spending to a minimum,,

sorry for the novel, and the lack of knowledge,,,but anyhelp would be great

cheers

G,

[TrevCircleStudios]

xlr converter plugs are the cheapest option and will work fine.

[Geraint]

Thanks Trev,,
Sorry to ask, but obviously your the man to ask, DI Boses? the multicore i will be buying will be a 15 metre one, i have heared that the di boxes are needed to increase the signal strength because of the distance?
however the leads we use now are approx 10 metre and i cant tell if there is any loss in all honesty!
and still cant fathom out why its frowned upon to build stage boxes with at least a few jack inserts?
again sorry for bieng an idiot but ive been one from birth

[TrevCircleStudios]

increase the strength on what? You arent going to put passive instruments direct into the stage box are you?

[Davey]

This guy might be able to help

http://www.morganacousticsltd.co.uk/

[ecc83]

Whoa up a minute Geraint!

Stage snakes are not my area but you are proposing to put a mixture of passive (mics, spook juice don't count) and powered devices, keys, FX boxes, down a multicore that, AFAIK has a common shield.

This is a recipe for the Mother of all hum lopps and, with respect, you do not seem to be the guy to sort that!

I would stay with what you have but look at "looming up" the setup with cable ties or maybe that plastic stuff they use on computer rats nests. If it turns out that you need longer runs, make them up in various coloured cables and label everything to death!

Passive DI'ed guitar will go way further than 15 mtrs and if the guitarist uses local pedals there would be no sensible limit(this assumes the DI feeds a mic input.)

I would suggest that stageboxes have just XLR's for the same reason patchbays have just TRS. The connectors are electrically identical but serve slightly different purposes. Usually best to do same with same.

Dave.

[Dave Boulden]

Originally Posted by ecc83

Stage snakes are not my area but you are proposing to put a mixture of passive (mics, spook juice don't count) and powered devices, keys, FX boxes, down a multicore that, AFAIK has a common shield.

Dave, no, stage boxes don't have a common shield (unless you count armouring if an armoured cable is used, but then the armour isn't electrically connected). Every stage box and snake I've ever used has had separately jacketed and screened balanced cable cores with the main outer sheath actually just doing the job of bundling them together.

We regularly use a 16-way stage box which carries drum mike, vocal mike and stereo keyboard feeds (all balanced) with no issues.

[ecc83]

Hi Dave,
Yes I can see that each cables' shield goes to pin one but what then is the convention for the combined XLR bodies? Are they just left floating or is there a separate, "not pin one" earth wire?

There was a thread about this in "another place" and I seem to remember the matter was never satisfactorily resolved. I can see there is no problem with a mic since it is the end of the line and its casing never gets earthed again I just was worried about other mains powered kit.

But as I said, not my field!

Dave.

[Dave Boulden]

I don't think there is any specific allowance for overall sheilding... kind of a moot point given that some of the newer stage boxes are plastic bodied anyway (those trapezoidal cross-section jobbies). Each of the bundled cores is treated as though it is a separate mic cable (which it truly is) and so would be wired exactly the same as a standard mic cable... and since that is good for low-level dynamics right through to phantom powered condensers, I can't see that balanced line-level gear would be treated any differently with the earth connections being made via pin one as per normal.

[Mustang1]

If it helps, you can get stageboxes with multicore cable which are arranged with XLR inputs on stage and also some return sockets on the box which are usually TRS sockets and used for either foldback monitors or main P.A feeds out of the mixer. If you don't need all of the TRS return sockets you could use them as inputs with jack plugs and keep adaptors to a minimum.

My limited experience with stageboxes and multicores is that there has been no problem with a 20 metre length for mike inputs and anything that is connectd to a D.I box. (not had experience of keyboard direct connections though!)