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[Dustin Campbell]

Thanks Everybody - great suggestions - I like the audiophile cases, this will be the ticket also I will be using color tape to differentiate lenths also I will separate power and cables for signal to power - I also like the idea of sub snakes like one for drums.  Keep the ideas coming - I am trying to make set up and tear down as efficient as possible - like a military drill

[Helge A Bentsen]

I have XLR cables in 3 different lengths. 3/6/9m bundled together with straps in bundles of 10 and 5(9m). BXX color coded for length and my name/email under a XXCR clear ring in the male end. 30x3/5m + 20x9m.

All my LK37-cables are 7.5m long, bundled together with straps with my logo.
I find that 5m is too short and 10m too long for most stages I frequent with my own cables.
I have a small road case for XLR and 6 LK37 stage boxes, four of them have feedthrough connectors so I can link them, 10x 7.5m LK37 cables and 4x LK37->12 XLRM fanouts 7.5m long.

With this system I can do a reasonable sized stage and festival setup with one 12 ch drop for drums, one 12ch drop with two boxes in parallel on USL/USR for amps and stuff, doesn't matter with side of the stage the bass player want his amp, I can plug in on both.
One 12ch drop with two boxes in parallel along the front for vocals/DI-boxes/stuff and a box in spare if anyone brings a lot of channels somewhere.

My M32 has XLR inputs so I patch this manually, my SD8 has LK37 connectors permanently wired with passive split out for FOH/monitors if needed.

Built the whole system during a 3-week gig where I had a LOT of paid waiting time, we were doing rehearsals for days without audio so I brought my tools and parts on the gig.

[Tim McCulloch]

Thanks Everybody - great suggestions - I like the audiophile cases, this will be the ticket also I will be using color tape to differentiate lenths also I will separate power and cables for signal to power - I also like the idea of sub snakes like one for drums.  Keep the ideas coming - I am trying to make set up and tear down as efficient as possible - like a military drill

The military bands and entertainment units DO drill.  BTW, most of their cases lack wheels (the Air Force, anyway).

Sub snakes help in that you don't need to deal with longer cables or add cables to make the full run to side stage or where ever your input box is.  For a lot of basic rock/blues/country bands I drop a 12 channel subsnake at the drum kit and a 6 or 8 channel down front center.  The 12 covers the drum kit, bass, couple of GTR inputs, maybe a keyboard or acoustic gtr.  The down front subby handles my front line vocals, acoustic DI or horn mics, etc. that's why it's 6 or 8 channels.

I have a saved scene/snapshot on our consoles labeled "Band in 16".  I don't pre-eq the inputs except to engage the HPF on vocal inputs, have Subs aux send engaged but turned down, signal routing done, that kind of thing.  It saves at least 15 minutes over starting with a blank desk.

[Sam Costa]

Hello All,
Wish I was at Namm but I have been wrestling with cable management issues, differentiating lenths, separating power, I have been using egg crates and would like to switch t something else- basically I want to fully audit and organize and change the paradigm of my cable system or lack there of.  Any ideas welcome show pics too please of your cable storage -This is for live band sound-- Thanks All

I've always used the 8" velcro straps on all my cables (if you need longer ones you can always join two straps for larger cables)
They work great, easy to install and replace if needed and extremely inexpensive on eBay/Amazon.

[Rob Spence]

For my B rig (smaller one), I mostly only use 10’ & 20’ XLR cables. 10’ ones have black Velcro & the 20’ have gray. If I know there may be some longer runs I may pack some 50’ (orange) or 100’ (white).

The A rig uses a few 10’ and a couple of right angle 20’ marked as above. The majority are 30’ and are tied with trik line.



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[David Smeaton]

A friend of mine keeps all his XLR cables on a garden hose reel and just daisy chains them together.  He then just pulls a cable off one at a time as he needs them.  Packing away, he just joins them together and then winds them on to the drum, one at a time.  I think he only uses a couple of different lengths, but I couldn't swear to that. 

[W. Mark Hellinger]

For my standard band project system I pack two cases for XLR and Speakon cables.  One case is our "primary cable trunk", which gets loaded into the venue, and the other is our "supplement cable trunk", which typically stays in the Sprinter van.  We generally set-up basically the same, and all 5 band members pitch-in on set-up and tear-down with assigned tasks.  We generally utilize our own stage rug, which is a Persian style... we know where everything sets-up on the pattern of the rug.  We generally use the gear show to show with the exception of varying lengths of AC power feed cables to the stage, and with the exception of venues where the production gear is in-house, but even then we supply our own mics, stands, and DI's.  Back to the trunks:  When we're set-up the primary cable trunk should be empty... because it contains everything we should need and nothing we don't need.

Also, I'm a big fan of colored rings on the XLR cables.  For instance, our lead singer gal knows an XLR cable with a red ring (signifying 20ft. length) is appropriate for her mic.  I've even labeled the mic stands for consistency (so that everybody's stands are just the way "they" left it).  All our Speakon cables are 4 pole 13ga. even though some of the applications only require 2 pole and could likely run on lighter gauge cable, but keeping it all same-same minimizes mis-patches.

Generally our set-up or tear-down time is nominally 25 - 30 minutes from or to the van... including backline, instruments, everything mic-ed or DI-ed, bi-amped 3-way FOH stacks, 4 monitors, a couple of 4-bar PAR-56 trees, and some stage accoutrements and a bit of merch display.

I won't suggest our method is how it ought to be, but it works for us.

[Dave Garoutte]

Wow, excellent cat-herding!

[Jeffrey l jones]

I use a heavy duty tote type bin from Lowe’s. I use color Velcro straps from amazon to distinguish lengths.

[Lyle Williams]

My lengths are always such that you can tell what the length is by size and weight.  Eg 0.5, 1, 2, 5, 10, 25, 50, 100 metres.  When you oick up any of these it is obvious what the length is and you couldn't mistake it for any other length I have.

Ownership of power cables is marked on the test-n-tag tags.  Other cables are marked with blue paint on the connectors.  I have nearly 300 cables.

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