100' Wire Snake construction

[Scott Brochu]

I am eventually going to build a stage snake with a few sends and a few returns xlr/1/4. What is the wire Ga and type of wire people use for this?
Needs;
100', mic (vox & instruments)

Also going to build a break out box (I think that's what it is called) to clean up the mess of wires all over the place.
The box is for one wire to travel to the front of stage and from that break to each side of the stage for mains and subs. VS daisy chaining them, which we do now. I don't know if it's better but sure will be neater.

[gdougherty]

Head over to Audiopile.net. You can buy a good quality snake there for less than it would cost to build your own. I've been pondering eventually picking up one of their 24x12 100-150' snakes. From there, pickup one of their subsnakes. I love their 8x4 30-50' subsnakes with my SAC system. Purchasing a 30' 12x0 subsnake was one of the happiest things I'd done before I switched to SAC and stopped using snakes most of the time.

[Scott Brochu]

Cool!
But it is not what I need.
Also IF I make my own (I still might) can I return the signal that is going to the mains and subs with the send snake?
Other words I will have xlr and 1/4" instruments sends with the signal for speakers coming back in the same wire. Is this a good thing or bad?

[Bill Fitzmaurice]

Other words I will have xlr and 1/4" instruments sends with the signal for speakers coming back in the same wire. Is this a good thing or bad?

You don't run speakers through a snake, only mic level ins and line level outs.

[gdougherty]

Cool!
But it is not what I need.
Also IF I make my own (I still might) can I return the signal that is going to the mains and subs with the send snake?
Other words I will have xlr and 1/4" instruments sends with the signal for speakers coming back in the same wire. Is this a good thing or bad?

Unless they're balanced line level, don't run the instruments down the snake. You want a DI in front of things like that. If you make your own you can do whatever you want as long as you've got enough channels in the multi-pair bundle. Multi-pair in any decent channel count is going to be pricey even in a bulk spool. Don't be surprised if it's at least $3/ft unless you only need a few channels. Even 8 channel runs about $1.50.

Look around audiopile's site at what they have available. More than likely they've got what you're wanting or at least something that could be easily modified to meet your needs.

If you're looking to run your signal from amps at FOH back to the stage for speakers you can with special snakes that include speaker cabling, but it's likely not heavy enough gauge for such a long run. If you were going to run 100' speaker cables they should ideally be 10ga.

[Scott Brochu]

I am still in the planing stages of this snake and I am now leaning towards the bought'n one's.
So it looks like I will have 2 snakes. But I can build the small box for speaker signal to front of stage.

We do not have a FOH sound person. Some day my wife might...but....
So that's why for the 100' other than that we always set up the same way board on the left of me and no farther than 15' feet away from everyone. Except for the bass player he's like 43' away cause he always shits himself True though.

I made a small one for me (thanks Tim) but just a group of xlr's and 1/4" all wire tied together. tacky but easy to set up my mics for drums and signal back in forth between mixers.

[Tom Smit]

Cool!
But it is not what I need.
Also IF I make my own (I still might) can I return the signal that is going to the mains and subs with the send snake?
Other words I will have xlr and 1/4" instruments sends with the signal for speakers coming back in the same wire. Is this a good thing or bad?

I don't know if you quite understand so I'll try to make it a little more clear. XLR cable (mics, DI's) plug into the box on stage so that you can "Send" the signal to the board. At the board it gets mixed to the appropriate outputs which might be XLR (main out's) and/or 1/4" (buss and/or moniter). In this way you "Return" the signal on different pairs again. At the box on stage, plug one end of the appropriate cable into the box(return), with the other end into the amp channel ("times" how many 'returns'-to -amp channels that you need). Each "send", and each "return" has it's very own cable pair.

[Radian]

Except for the bass player he's like 43' away cause he always shits himself True though.

I just fell off my couch! Priceless!

[Mark Coward]

I am still in the planing stages of this snake and I am now leaning towards the bought'n one's.
So it looks like I will have 2 snakes. But I can build the small box for speaker signal to front of stage.

We do not have a FOH sound person. Some day my wife might...but....
So that's why for the 100' other than that we always set up the same way board on the left of me and no farther than 15' feet away from everyone. Except for the bass player he's like 43' away cause he always shits himself True though.

I made a small one for me (thanks Tim) but just a group of xlr's and 1/4" all wire tied together. tacky but easy to set up my mics for drums and signal back in forth between mixers.

It's also cheaper to modify a factory made snake, say you get an 8 ch x 30' XLR M to XLR F. If you need a return, just reverse the ends on one of the leads. If you need 1/4" TS, or TRS, or even a split TRS to two TS for an insert you can easily convert.

Something like this can come in handy as well, this one is loaded with XLR but can take Speakon or 1/4".


http://cgi.ebay.com/12-Channel-Female-X ... 2ea6b180c5

I have one of these panels in my rack with speakon connectors for mains & monitors, so I don't have to go in the back to connect speakers. My mains are wired 4 conductor, so the tops and subs can run from a single cable.

[Scott Brochu]

I have been thinking of making some sort of break out box for the sound signal going to the subs and tops via snake. All speakons.
Is this the wire that I need to build a snake going to the middle of the stage out front from the board.
I would like to send to monitors/4, subs/4, tops/4. Some are daisy chained so is this possible with this wire? but as many wires as I need?
and when I connect do I hook up one wire to each speakon with no ground? I am use to 2 wires per wire one on each pole.
http://cgi.ebay.com/Horizon-Speaker-Sna ... 3354bbaaa9

[nolimitzbass]

Well, I take it this will be for your band. In my band, we use a 16 channel snake, 100ft. long (16 sends / 4 returns) on stage. With no soundman, just put the stage box in a place on stage where the mic cables won't reach the mixer ( more than one cable needed ) and use the snake to get everything from there to the mixer. Our guitarist runs our sound from his side, so no need for his gear to go to the snake. We place the snake box between the drums and bass rig, so both can reach the box with just one cable. You can run the snake behind all the instruments to the mixer which cleans up the stage. I think you'll be better off to buy than build as these things do tend to get exspenive. I hope this helps.

[gdougherty]

I have been thinking of making some sort of break out box for the sound signal going to the subs and tops via snake. All speakons.
Is this the wire that I need to build a snake going to the middle of the stage out front from the board.
I would like to send to monitors/4, subs/4, tops/4. Some are daisy chained so is this possible with this wire? but as many wires as I need?
and when I connect do I hook up one wire to each speakon with no ground? I am use to 2 wires per wire one on each pole.
http://cgi.ebay.com/Horizon-Speaker-Sna ... 3354bbaaa9

I prefer not to tie all my speaker lines together unless they're feeding the same location. It's much more versatile for me that way. The 4 channel might be decent for a monitor run to put stuff out onstage centrally, then have short cables from there to monitor positions but it'll be a little less ideal for larger stages. Another option would be to designate monitors as a particular channel. Example, 4 monitors, number them 1-4. Use NL8 connectors and daisy chain all the monitors together. Each monitor passes all signals through to an output jack and uses the appropriate pair for itself. On the amp rack you just have a single NL8 connector for all 4 monitor channels. Then you could just have various lengths of speaker cable and use whatever's needed to chain everything around the stage. Kind of like how you'd run a power distribution snake.