Making Quality XLR Cables #4 - Quad Mic Cables (Public)
Вставка
- Опубліковано 12 лип 2024
- In this video I terminate a quad conductor mic cable and discuss various aspects of making mic cables, tinning, shrink wrap tricks, and more
The video provides a step-by-step guide on how to make quad mic cables that allow multiple microphones to connect to a single input. The process involves using braided shields, neutral connectors, and strain relief to ensure proper labeling, easy pairing of wires, and clean soldering of the wires to the connector. The video also highlights the importance of using clean and wet solder and offers tips on how to test the shrink wrap and check every possible fault for an XLR cable. By following these guidelines, users can create high-quality XLR cables that are resistant to humidity and corrosion.
Part 1 Making XLR Cables- • Making XLR Cables #1 -...
Part 2 Stripping and Shields - • Making XLR Cables #2 -...
Part 3 Quality and Faults - • Making XLR Cables #3 -...
Part 4 Making a Quad Cable - • Making Quality XLR Cab...
Part 5 Soldering Irons - • Making Quality XLR Cab...
Part 6 Gold or Silver Connectors - • Gold vs Silver (Nickel...
If you like this and other videos I do, please join this channel to get access to more videos, early access to videos as well as to be able to join my weekly zoom chats:
/ @daverat
Also check out:
www.soundtools.com
www.ratsoundsales.com/
ratsound.com/daveswordpress/d...
www.ratsound.com/
00:00 Into
00:11 What is a quad mic cable and usage
00:50 Connector type and advantages
02:18 Preparation for the build and loading connector parts on the cable
04:13 Strip length and stripping the jacket
06:14 Pre rigging the conductors
06:55 Stripping the internal quad wires
07:45 Tinning the ends
09:10 Trimming the ends
09:46 Tinning the female connector
10:10 Soldering the female connector - no shrink
10:42 Inspecting the connection
11:15 Checking the strain relief
11:41 Assemble
12:10 Preparing the male cable end
14:05 Tinning the male end
14:35 Preparing the shrink wrap
15:30 Trimming the ends
15:48 Tinning the connector cups
16:00 Soldering to the connector - with shrink
17:00 Soldering the ground wire with shrink
18:18 Heat to the shrink wrap
18:43 Overall shrink
19:35 How much does shrink wrap shrink?
21:37 Assemble
22:00 Testing the cable with a meter
22:36 Testing with the SoundTools XLR Sniffer/Sender soundtools.com
23:22 Outro
As a VERY small time operator, I truly appreciate stuff like this. I learned on-the-job doing gratis work for a non-profit. To cut costs I bought a 1000' roll of XLR and a box full of Neutriks and relied on soldering skills I learned in high school electronics class almost 30 years prior. Even so, those cables are very robust. Not quads, but I didn't go bargain basement on the cable. If I ever need to expand or replace, now I have new skills learned from a real pro. Thank you Dave and UA-cam.
Awesome and thank you Brian!
@@DaveRat Solved !! Thank you very much
🤙👍🤙
Excellent video. Your attention to detail and the explanation of tips and tricks that you have obviously learned by doing for many years, is excellent! For example, the rubber band over the needle nose pliers to create a hold for the connector is a great idea. I like the explanation of the heat sink on the ground to keep the heat shrink tubing from shrinking wile soldering. I have experienced the same. Thank you. Incidentally, I learned how to solder from a Heathkit course (anyone remember Heathkit) LOL. Learning how to solder correctly is invaluable. Thank you!
So cool and thank you Jason!
thanx so much Rat... so helpful and down to earth!
Using the pliers as a heat sync is genius! That part always drove me nuts! Such simplicity with pliers and a rubber band! Great content as always!
Thank you Michael!
Great well-done informing video once again about the basics of pro sound that most take for grande. Also, that XLR test tool is awesome as I've used mine several times already. It saves lots of time. Well done. Thanks!
Thank you Christopher!
Great video Dave. Always neat to see a real pro at work.
👍
Thanks for doing these vids!! So many people still are rubbish at soldering - so much over-stripping, cold joints, etc. I will say after soldering 1000s of cables in my life - the rubber bands on the needle nose was new to me. (DOH!) what a great little tip.
At the production/install company I worked for in the 90s, we added a piece of heat shrink that went over all the conductors and the end of the overall jacket just to provide more bite to the connector’s strain relief - but that was largely due to the old Switchcraft A3M/F days.
Oh. We also used “spaghetti” on the drain wire/shield (wasn’t heat shrinkable). That stuff was invaluable.
Yes, new connectors have much better grips. But yes, the extra overall shrink does reduce failure at the connector joint.
Yes, we use the spaghetti mainly on the drain wire with foil shielded cable
Thank you sir! Just saw every parts about XLR cables - extremely useful. I was wondered about chassis ground and quad cable soldering - everything was covered in your lessons. I'm not a PRO - just DIY guy doing audio for myself and friends. So now i was instantly upgraded my knowledge. Thanks again, good luck!
Awesome!!
Thanks for the video. Consise info that is useful to a lot of people.
It funny because I solder in the opposite order so I can manipulate the cable a little easier till I attach the shield. I also like to fully tin the shield and signal cables on most of my cables to avoid oxidation.
Love the pliers with the rubber band helping hands not always very helpful. I ended up making a panel with 2-1/4, 2-male and 2- female connectors along with wiring diagrams to help ease the process and get less crossed wires..
Definitely will be sharing your video for tips to people learning.
👍
I'd really love to see how you handle the braided shielding on the Canare star quad, especially the poking a hole and pulling through method that you described. I've heard others mention it but haven't seen it demonstrated. It's the most available cable stock to me and aside from the PITA shield, I really like it. I've had reasonable success with the picking method if I use my ESD tweezers which seem to be just the right taper and point to separate the braids, but it's still a pain when I have a big ol' pile of cables to do.
Will ponder doing a canare build
Your videos aren't only interesting and informative, they are strangely meditative too. 😎
I love that and don't know why but appreciated
@@DaveRat It must be that calm energy you are exuding. 🙂
👍🤙👍
Odd how I'm just about to sit down and make a bunch of mic cables when this pops up in my suggested list. It's amazing how much better AND cheaper home-made cables can be.
Perfect!!!
I really like your channel. I really wanted to learn how to make/fix my own cables. This is a big help.
👍🤙👍
@@DaveRat Thanks Dave, you are the man. 🤘👍🤘
Cool cool Lorne
Wow great stuff I made cables but this is fantastic thanks so much!
Thank you Wayne!
Nice! Happy 4th Dave. :)
Thank you and happy 4th!
Very cool 😎
🔧🤙🔧
I've soldered stuff for 50+ years, including a zillion XLRs and I still learned a few new tricks here, pretty neat! :)
But didn't Hughes Aircraft go metric long ago just like NASA?
Anyway, thanks for managing to make a soldering instruction video both entertaining and informative! Greetings from Sweden 😀
Thank you!
THANKS DAVE
👍
A suggestion for holding the plugs...... Make up a board with a Male and Female panel socket mounted in it. So it sits under it's own weight on the bench.
its best for soldering Male connectors if you get a bit over benerous with the heat you melt the plastic and the pins get out of alignment. Plugged into a female socket while doing this holds them in place and the extra metal in the female helps take away the extra heat.
👍👍👍
The canare quad shield is the worst. I usually use the point of my multi-meter probe. Nice video!
👍
Very informative video, Dave. What brand/model of wire stripper were you using?
So thankful for you sharing your genius!
I didn't catch it, but what sizes of shrink tubing are you using for everything?
Treat tubing almost always shrinks to 1/2 the diameter. So your shrink tubing size should be slightly under twice the diameter of whatever you're shrinking,
@@DaveRat thank you sir!
Hey Dave. What conditions warrant shrinking individual terminals? I really appreciate you sharing your expertise in audio engineering. This video and your recent panning video were really helpful. I was going spend money on tools to make an upcoming installation more efficient, but took several thing off of my list after watching this. The needle nose and rubber bands is brilliant! It's like a 4 in one tool , and I happen to have several pair scattered about various tool bags. Thank you for saving me time and money.
Very cool. As far as shrink, modern XLR connectors offer great support so the need for sharing for strength is near eliminated and the cable will fail at the strain relief before the solder joint. I only use shrink if the cable has really thin conductors, like terminations cat5e to XLR
@@DaveRat Makes sense. Something else I can take off the list!
👍🤙👍
Thanks for this great info! What brand is the slide on cable tie?
The shrink wrap? Not sure of the brand, we buy in bulk, but it's not hard to find and all the brands seem similar.
Search for transparent shrink wrap tubing
Great video, Dave. What do you suggest for cable and ends? I have read articles regarding cable quality and ends. Who makes the good stuff? Not necessarily the most expensive. Thanks Dave
For our SoundTools products we standardized in Neutrik as a quality connectors reasonably priced and excellent selection of products. That said, for our rental department, we use Apmphenol XLRs at the will print a little rat in the strain relief and the connectors are robust and slightly less expensive.
We also have quite a few whirlwind connectors on our older multipin tails. All work well and no specific issues.
I have had issues with cheap imitation connectors cracking and strain reliefs slipping and such.
@@DaveRat Thanks Dave. Much appreciated.
👍
Neutrik is best I’ve found.
👍
Personally, I believe it does make a different for short runs if there are devices at the DJ booth such as cell phone chargers and laptop chargers. Which is every single time at music festivals. Quad Star will protect the signal if the charger cables touch cross the wires.
Thanks! Would love to see how to make BNCs.
Hmmm, I have not made enough over the years to offer guidance of value
Ah. I see. I´m the movie biz, and need to fix a few timecode cables which use BNC connectors. I have tried, but found the BNC signal pin to be really hard to solder… But thanks for sharing! Learnt some nice tricks here. Like the rubberband on the plier!
👍
Quick answer is crimp or cry. If that is out of the question due to availability / cost of the proper crimp tool, then to solder the pin use an iron and centre conductor that are very lightly tinned, clamp the cable so the hole in the side of the pin is facing up and apply the iron, then solder to the hole. If all goes well, all the solder will wick into the hole, leaving no lumps on the pin to prevent it fitting into the body.
Awesome, thank you Dougal!
When you worked for Hughes Aircraft, did you have any involvement with their audio division? They made these very interesting speakers called the Hughes SRS Labs ORB1 and ORB2. A friends dad who worked did some industrial design work for Hughes got me a pair after i saw the ones he had and just had to have them. I'd never seen a speaker with an upward firing tweeter and downward firing woofer across conical baffles before. I'll always regret selling them years ago since apparently they were quite rare and the sound division shut down soon after i got them.
Dave, have you ever tried to measure/quantify the additional common mode rejection achieved by a quad cable vs. a normal cable (assuming there is already a good shield)?
I have not but will add it to the list
Benchmark Media produced a good video showing real measurements.
👍🔧👍
Dave, how much of the signal will a quad cable lose or gain, compared to only the standard 2 + shield cable?
It won't lose or gain any more signal, the wire gauge determines that. The quad cable will be slightly better at rejecting interference noise with an improved common mode rejection.
Phone lines in the analog era also were twisted for the same reason, interference and noise reduction. Cause as we know: there is no transmission channel without noise ;)
👍👍
What is the supplier for those pop revetted cable wraps/Velcro? Great videos…
Thank you and wish I knew. I found them on old cables
Ok cool. I found something similar on Amazon called Cord-lox, but they use plastic rivets. Thanks
👍🤙👍
Hi, thanks for your explanations. I would like to move from my wireless monitoring to a wired system. But I use two channels for a better mix. I thought of making with a quad balanced microphone cable two xlr female from each of the console outputs to 1 xlr male to, for example a Behringer powerplay p2 or similar, for a single connector if possible and thus avoid having two cables for my monitoring plus that of my instrument. Its viable ? Could you help me with a diagram or in some way? Thanks in advance.
Yes it's viable but you should ask an audio forum for assist. I try and help with stuff that other people can not do so. This is something that many people can do
Hello , thank you for this video , i have build my own cable using your method using the same cable and connector but surprisingly, the sound is lower and less clear than an unbalanced connexion, is it normal ? i checked the gable with a tester and nothing is wrong . have you an idea ?
Sounds like you have pin1 and pin 2 reversed on one side
Hey Dave! Love your videos! Quick question. I’m making my own mini xlr cables for my camera mics and am using the mogami 2893 mini quad cable. I’m straight on doing regular xlr cables with mogami 2534 but this cable has the copper ground looking thicker wire, a clear coated wire, one black, one red and one blue. Which wires go together and to which pins on the 3 pin mini xlr tabs. Thanks so much for any help!
Hmmm, that's 4 wire cable and so connect the blue to shield, trim extra shield wires if necessary and go to pin1, red to 2 And black to 3
@@DaveRat shield meaning the clear coated wire? I really appreciate the help. I followed your videos closely and they were such a huge help. Just wasn’t sure if the black should go to the clear coated and the red and blue should go together, etc. Also should I clip off the larger copper bare wires altogether . Is confusing!
Oh, 5 wires. And it's quad, ok, giive me a minute
@@DaveRat the 5th wire is the larger bare copper wiring that I twisted together like you would for a regular xlr.
@@DaveRat I really appreciate your help!
I made up 5 quad cables for my tom mics, and my stripping job wasnt so great. Does the occasional absence of 1-3 copper strands on one leg of a twisted pair make much of a difference?
The issue is a bit, losing the strands but also if strands are breaking off it is often an indication that the strands were scored which makes it easy for them to break. The occurs from sharp strippers. And often other strands will break later at the weak point. And the more that break, the weaker it gets.
That said, when soldering, making sure solder flows around the weak point where the cuts are can help a lot to add strength.
I've made a few TS 1/4" guitar cables using StarQuad cable. I use 3x conductors + shield for ground and then the last conductor is the positive. somehow they have less microphonics/cable noise but still can't make a bass player perform any better 🤣
To make a bass player perform better, use a longer cable. Much much longer.
Interesting, I would have to test to see what is going on with that wiring and the impact
@@dougaltolan3017 RF cables are better and cheap, Ultraflex 7 Paoloni are extended in various recording places.
An other magistral video, many thanks for share Dave. Cheers from Spain!
Dave have you ever test for any difference in sound and noise rejection, when the shield is connected to the XLR shells, versus not connected?
There can be humm or buzz in non connected shells with extended XLR cables that have very low levels and high gain or in very noisy rf environments
But when XLR cables are plugged to mics or gear, the gear will have the shield of the chassis or mic housing connected to pin 1 and the will ground the xlr shell.
Conversely, grounded XLR shells will connect any metal they touch to pin 1 and this can cause issues if the touch a AC ground that is different than the audio ground and cause a buzz or humm
So. There are advantages and issues to connecting the shell to pin 1 in the cable. I have found connecting the shell to rarely be beneficial but is something to be aware of when troubleshooting as an option to solve issues
@@DaveRat This could make a cool new video series for you! Get the neutrik EMC XLR series NC3MXX-EMC, NC3FXX-EMC, connects pin 1 to shell thru a tiny cap, and puts a tiny ferrite bead over line 1. Compare to every combo of pin 1 connected to shell or disconnected on F side or M side of cable. AES48 standard 2019 and Behringer CTS200 shows fault when pin 1 connects to shell on male (output) XLR! Test by bringing cell phones and wifi and wireless mic transmitters and 60 cycle hum big power supply transformers (RF and EMI) near ungrounded and half grounded (telescoping ground) cables!
Interesting, not an area of expertise but will ponder that
@@DaveRat Huh?! I thought you’re the sound guy who tries things out in different ways, to compare how they sound and compare expectation with reality?!
Not against doing it but also not a topic I have had any real world issues with or heard any odd or doubtful myths about.
Creating powerful ot a variety of RF noise for interferences and testing is an interesting endeavor that I don't know enough about to do with stuff laying around.
The topics I choose tend to be either something I know a lot about and can offer a unique, useful or simplified perspective or topics that are of widespread high level interest that I hear lots of requests for or things I see people doing unless than ideal ways.
As far as shell sheilding, so far I have not seen a high interest, I have not experienced issues with it and I don't know an exceptional amount about RF.
That said, capacitive, inductive and resistive chassis grounding methods are interesting an I have seen them used on some gear.
Having a resistor with a choke to the shell seems to be a way of making the shell not buzz when touched and not connected to gear when the gain on the pre amp is high and also, when there is a high RF environment, the resistor choke low pass filter helps reduce the RF picked up from the shell from being sent to pin 1 ground, on longer cables.
Perhaps I will find the time to dive into learning more on the topic, I will ask the channel members.
I would never use pliers for holding a connector while soldering. Maybe only in emergency case on the road, when nothing else is available.
In some cases the pliers act as a heatsink, so its harder to solder the contact.
Also the pliers have too less weight.
I use a 5kg machine vice... that clamps everything from an 1/8" stereo jack to a fully equiped 5U patchpanel ;-)
Ahhh, so you rock the portable touring setup!
Hi Dave, I noticed that in previous videos you put the white wires in pin 2, In this one you put it on pin 3. I know its ok as long as you go from Pin 2 to Pin 2 and from Pin 3 to Pin 3 but shouldn`t you have a standard. I use Canare Quad and although they use blue wires (don`t know why) I just tend to be "colorblind" and look at them as black
Yeah, that's all a mess. Black tends to be ground in signal wires and a hot in ac electricity and shield is ground in signal and when I started in sound it was pin 3 XLR hot which meant black was pin 2. but with pin 2 hot black should now be pin 3 and white pin 2. And we have cables from all ages and sooooo. for XLR the proper wiring as my daughter tells me is:
Twho
2(wh)o
as in
pin 2 is wh(ite)
But me and my old ways and all my exposure to AC electricity wiring will make black hot to pin 2 on occasion
Yes, I`m even older than you and lived that. I also do a bit of teaching here in Venezuela (Though I`m peruvian), I don`t know if you have done it but with all the music devices with stereo mini plug output a lot of people get use those stereo mini plug cables, put on one side a 1/4" inch adaptor and plug it in the console. You could explain the problems with that. Do you have an email?
Drat@aol.com
I know I'm telling grandma how to suck eggs (telling you something you already know).
But is there any reason why you don't use clear glue heat shrink for everything?
As you'll be able to see if there's any damaged or corroded cables (green death) and the glue will give extra support n make everything even more rigid n less likely to break?
That would protect even more yet I think shrink is already overkill in most applications. Adding glue shrink makes it messy and even harder to repair.
I think that for situations that extreme, the XLR is probably not the optimal connector for the job.
@@DaveRat you get heat shrink that's got glue in it so when you heat the shrink up. The glue warms up and melts And when it cools down. It goes back to normal.
It's only sticky when it's heat shrink hot. You can see it better as well because the glue stick to the surface n makes it clear
I have some brand guitar cables from bullet and monster cable, they both use that nasty glue. I like those cables as they are pretty good but I love to solder my own and I do it for mics and other stuff that use xlr connectors. When I make my own cables, I like to use clear heat shrink if any and leave an “insulation gap”, pretty sure Dave knows what I’m talking about, using black heat shrink or glue is wrong, at least in my book, as they don’t allow for inspectability.
I think for most applications the glue is a messy overkill. But can have it's applications.
For the 1000s (literally) of cables we deploy at Rat Sound for concerts, we don't use shrink on XLRs and have a very low failure rate. With failures typically due to being stretched or cut or mashed. A good solder job will typically last longer than the connectors and cable
👍
that cable is mogami neglex 2534
Awesome and thank you!