Custom Cables?

[Splosh 0]

Morning Peeps...... http://www.dj-forum.co.uk/html//emoticons/biggrin.gif (But probably afternoon by the time you peeps have read it!)

 

I came to a very blunt conclusion last night that some of my cables are just tooooo long, and that if I ever really want to be properly "neat" with my set up, they just have to be shorter.......

 

The main problem is running cables from mixer to crossover to amp etc....

I am soon to flightcase all of the above, but I will encounter other problems with so many wire touching in such a short space I am bound to start getting interferance or feedback on something.....

 

I have always taken bits and bobs to a local retailer for fixing or customising etc.. but the cost is starting to spiral outta controll...... http://www.dj-forum.co.uk/html//emoticons/omg.gif

 

So...... How easy is it to customise the length of the cables??? (I am not a massively dab hand with things like this) so be honest..... I can rewire home stereo cable etc... but never attempted XLR's.....

 

Adding to this, am I going to be upsetting anything by having the cables so short????? Ideally it would be great to have just enough length to get from one base to the other (without stretching of course)...... Or should I allow more??

 

 

Any advice greatly recieved.....

 

 

Splosh

www.2jsroadshow.co.uk

 

 

[High Fidelity 0]

In my experience, the shorter the cable the better, particularly with signal cables.

 

If you're flight casing your gear then cables of just the right length is the ideal way to go.

 

Making your own leads isn't that difficult, depending on how good you are with a soldering iron. I make all my own, but then again, I was a TV & Electronics engineer for a long time.

 

A couple of things that I can't work without though nowadays is a small table top vice, and an illuminated magnifier (one of those that clamps to the bench/table top and has a light built in to it). But that's because I'm getting old.

Edited December 13, 2005 by High Fidelity

[DJ Marky Marc 0]

short is good, but not too short, you don't want to find you can link things together if your setup changes and things move

[norty303 0]

Any leads that run inside your rack should be able to reach comfortably from top to bottom to allow for changes. You can easily cable tie or velcro loose loops together to keep them neat. Speaker runs should be kept as short as possible too, especially on subs that take a lot of power (e.g. 1k+) and ensure that they're of sufficient thickness (normally 2.5 to 4mm cross-sectional area).

[Gruff 0]

A word of caution when wiring up your own XLR leads, it can be vitally important that the polarity is correct if using phantom power (for use with condensor mics) as a wrongly wired lead could blow a dynamic mic.

[djwynn 0]

Always keep two cables the same length, For example speaker cables. As using different lengths can cause out of sync sound. So if left channel was 5M and right channel was 10M the left channel would react quicker thus the right channel being out of sync.

 

This rules applies to all cables both sound and light.