Werd. Colored zip-ties at the connectors are great for this purpose: cheap, plentiful, and don't really get in the way or snag on much. Last pretty much forever, as well.
Peace,
Greg
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Cable management *on stage*: Any tricks you can suggest?
- Thread starter John Bigboote
- Start date
Werd. Colored zip-ties at the connectors are great for this purpose: cheap, plentiful, and don't really get in the way or snag on much. Last pretty much forever, as well.
Peace,
Greg
Look at it before you unwrap it to make sure an end hasn't passed itself through the coil. Really, that's all there is to it. Since much of the entertainment biz wraps cable this way if you deal with enough cable it becomes second nature to look. Fishing out that series of overhand loops will get you mocked every time. As you've discovered it's just practice.
But having wrapped thousands of cables both over/under and in straight coils for many years I've come to the conclusion that for most musicians it doesn't make much difference in mic or guitar cords as long as the coil is wrapped neatly. The heavier the cable the more difference wrapping it over/under makes kink-wise. The trade off is over/under takes up more room in a case which in long runs of big cable can be the difference between closing the case lid or not.
Something that works well for keeping a long guitar cable neat on stage is to completely unwrap then re-wrap it in a figure 8 it on the floor. This allows it to play out with by far the least amount of kinking. I don't know a lot of players who do it for themselves but it's something most first call backline techs do automatically.
As far as keeping your whole stage clean most of it's common sense and most of it has been said.
I'll add a couple of points and reiterate a few more:
>Leave slack at an item that might or will move.
>Loom your cable (taping them together) where it makes sense. Only use good quality PVC electrical tape for this. Zip ties work ok for short ones but will shred your hands on longer runs. Looming can create a perfectly functional poor man's snake especially for something like a drum kit. Even if you have a real FOH snake you might want to loom an AC cable onto it for FOH power. Looming also works well for a set of cables patching a rack.
>Always coil cables clockwise. It's how it comes off the spool and doing it counterclockwise is an unnecessary fight.
>To secure the coil use velcro ties when practical and tape when you you feel it's not. PVC electrical tape works well for heavy cables like looms, snakes, socapex etc. For a lot of cables though (especially heavier ones or looms) a permanently attached piece of string works best. Black #5 sash cord is the industry standard for this but anything strong like 3mm accessory cord or paracord works fine. String cable ties are cheap, reusable, long lasting and very effective.
>Identify cables with P-Touch labels and cover them with clear heat shrink. This is also good for marking your cables with your name so they stay your cables.
>Use pieces of black carpet or gaffers tape (or both) for cable runs across traffic areas.
>Cheap tape is a waste of money.
>Crappy cable looks like crap.
>A few pieces of black duvetyne can go a long way in dressing your stage to look neat and clean.
I just use 6-inch velcro wraps. I carefully coil every cable the same diameter so they fit in the rolling suitcase the same every time. It takes a little more time to tear down, but really speeds up setup time. I've trained the singers to wind them properly, and that saves a half hour at tear-down. Another anal thing I do is put a half-inch width of shrink-wrap on the Neutrik XLRs of each cable (I think ¾-inch is the right size). Blue is for 15-footers, red for 30-footers, yellow for 10- and 50-footers. When everything is pretty much connected, I gather groups of mic cables and tape them down out of standing areas with gaffer's tape. NEVER, EVER use duct tape - unless, of course, you like sticky gum all over your cables.
When wrapping a long cable, the best way is to start in the middle and wrap to an end, then flip the coil around in your hand and wrap to the other end.
Jazzdogg
Less barking, more wagging!
I use four 8-channel signal snakes and a speaker snake. The cables and XLR jacks on all of the stage boxes are numbered and color-coded; XLR cables and DI's are also color coded:
Drums = yellow;
Vox = red;
Backline = blue;
Yellow snake runs from FOH to drums. It is stored in a "yellow" carry case with the drum mics and the drum loom that connects the mics to the stage box/snake.
Red snake connects downstage mics to FOH. It is stored in a carry case with vox mics and mic cables.
Blue snake connects backline instruments & vox. It is stored in a carry case, along with XLR and 1/4" cables, several DI's, and backline mics.
I also use an A/C umbilical to which several two- and four-gang Edison boxes are connected.
The first thing I do on stage when I get to the gig is position FOH cabs, stage monitors, amp rack, cab snake, A/C umbilical, and stage snakes. Gaff tape secures snake cables to the stage. Separate, color-coded, snakes and cables make it much easier to delegate/communicate when I have help.
Next, I run & gaff speaker cables. Then, I set up the drum loom and mics, followed by instrument DI's and mic cables.
As each band member sets up their gear, they are responsible for connecting their instruments and mics to their respective snake boxes.
While they're doing that, I'm making all of the connections at FOH.
When I see a Yellow cable labeled #1, it's kick drum; Red #1 is lead vox; Blue #1 is bass, etc.
I also use a snake to send signals from FOH to the on-stage amp rack that powers stage monitors, FOH cabs, and subs.
If I were using a separate monitor mixer, I'd run a 32-channel snake with several returns from FOH to monitor world.
When I provide sound for my brother's jazz big band, I use snake #4 to mic the horn section.
Hope this helps a little.
Drums = yellow;
Vox = red;
Backline = blue;
Yellow snake runs from FOH to drums. It is stored in a "yellow" carry case with the drum mics and the drum loom that connects the mics to the stage box/snake.
Red snake connects downstage mics to FOH. It is stored in a carry case with vox mics and mic cables.
Blue snake connects backline instruments & vox. It is stored in a carry case, along with XLR and 1/4" cables, several DI's, and backline mics.
I also use an A/C umbilical to which several two- and four-gang Edison boxes are connected.
The first thing I do on stage when I get to the gig is position FOH cabs, stage monitors, amp rack, cab snake, A/C umbilical, and stage snakes. Gaff tape secures snake cables to the stage. Separate, color-coded, snakes and cables make it much easier to delegate/communicate when I have help.
Next, I run & gaff speaker cables. Then, I set up the drum loom and mics, followed by instrument DI's and mic cables.
As each band member sets up their gear, they are responsible for connecting their instruments and mics to their respective snake boxes.
While they're doing that, I'm making all of the connections at FOH.
When I see a Yellow cable labeled #1, it's kick drum; Red #1 is lead vox; Blue #1 is bass, etc.
I also use a snake to send signals from FOH to the on-stage amp rack that powers stage monitors, FOH cabs, and subs.
If I were using a separate monitor mixer, I'd run a 32-channel snake with several returns from FOH to monitor world.
When I provide sound for my brother's jazz big band, I use snake #4 to mic the horn section.
Hope this helps a little.
Unless the end you are holding happens to have fallen through the loop, in which case when you toss it out it will have a bunch of overhand knots in it. I only use the "roadie wrap" if at least one end of the cable is tethered so that cannot happen. Otherwise, for instrument cables I use the single twist method with Velcro ties and for mic cables I roll them up end to end on a couple of those orange plastic spools.
EDIT: I gather the mic cables last at the end of a gig when they are just lying around with nothing on them and not connected to anything but the snake. I go to the snake head and get someone to hold and turn the spool as I unplug mic cables from the snake and connect their male ends to what's on the spool while keeping a bit of tension so that the cables wrap neatly. We can wrap a stageful of mic cables in a couple of minutes. The first time I tried this I was amazed at how smoothly the mic cables pulled through the seeming spaghetti bowl of wires on stage.
Try it and see
I'm curious too so why don't you just tell us? It's not something you ever see done by professional stagehands and I want to know what the big advantage is.
Update: spent all night wrapping one 12' cable. Apparently, one arm is shorter than the other, could not find "center"...expect more updates as this situation develops...
maybe my chi was off
Depends on how the cable behaves. Sometimes the cable twists over on the floor as you coil it and all is well. Sometimes it does not, and halfway through you have to flop it around like a jump rope so you can finish the job. If the cable is not free of all obstructions, the second scenario is quite likely. Instead of finding out that a long cable is gonna be a putz, I prefer to invest the 1.25 extra seconds it takes to start at the center and flip the coil around when I reach the first end.
