Members ulank Posted December 27, 2006 Members Share Posted December 27, 2006 My Shure Drum Mic pack came in yesterday (Beta 52, 3 sm57's + clips, etc.) I was all excited to get things set up when I realized I was one XLR cable short (where did all my cables go!? ). So, I decided to do the nasty and head over to GC to get some cables, as well as another mic stand so we can keep the kit miked up and still run vocals through the PA. I stroll into the Pro Audio section, locate the cables I want and a GC dude walks by. "How you doin man? Finding everything all right?" "Yep, just getting some cables. But I also need a mic stand." "Cool, lemme show you what we have...what's your name man?" "Ulank." "Ulank, hi, I'm Bud." *extends hand for hand shake* *handshake* We look at some mic stands, I tell him which one I want and he says he'll go grab one from the back and meet me at the register. He comes back, and I've got 150 feet of XLR cable and the mic stand. He rings me up for a whopping $238!! That's more than half I paid for the whole mic pack! I know good cable ain't cheap and I did buy the "nice" mic stand, so the I wasn't totally shocked, but all I could think is how much money I'm forking over to GC for "accessories" compared to what I just paid for actual gear. So I hand the guy my debit card and he takes it and that's when I notice that his hands are riddled with massive freaking warts all over the place!!! All I can think is "DUDE! If your hands look like the damn plague, don't be offering handshakes to people!" Dammit. I gave $238 dollars to the devil and possibly contracted a skin disorder to boot! Hold me. I feel so cold now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members WillyRay Posted December 27, 2006 Members Share Posted December 27, 2006 Originally posted by ulank Hold me. No. Reminds me of that story of the guy with no arms standing at the urinal... /w Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members FitchFY Posted December 27, 2006 Members Share Posted December 27, 2006 Originally posted by ulank Dammit. I gave $238 dollars to the devil and possibly contracted a skin disorder to boot! Hold me. I feel so cold now. Ditto, man. I ain't holding you for anything less than $238. You might have warts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Old Steve Posted December 27, 2006 Members Share Posted December 27, 2006 I suppose you could learn to make your own cables, or at least repair cheap ones. As for the hand thing, I'd call the store and leave an anonymous tip. The guy's a walking biohazard. Maybe his manager will buy him some warts-away or something. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members RockBass Posted December 27, 2006 Members Share Posted December 27, 2006 I would cut my losses and just start applying Compound W on my wrist. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members FitchFY Posted December 27, 2006 Members Share Posted December 27, 2006 If Bruce Campbell has taught me anything, it's that your only hope is to lop your hand off at the wrist with a chainsaw and then chase it around with a shotgun. It's what Jesus would have wanted. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members RockBass Posted December 27, 2006 Members Share Posted December 27, 2006 Originally posted by FitchFY If Bruce Campbell has taught me anything, it's that your only hope is to lop your hand off at the wrist with a chainsaw and then chase it around with a shotgun. It's what Jesus would have wanted. "Hail to the king, Baby!" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Pearl Player Posted December 27, 2006 Members Share Posted December 27, 2006 I have to ask.... HOW much was just the mic cable... LOL And 150ft? My god LOL And I would not use a really expensive cable in Live environments. They are just a bit to fragile for my tastes. Now in a studio environment. Yea they are cool. But for road work. Nope I cant remember the last time I bought a mic cable. Have always made my own. I use Beldon Star Quad, Low-Impedance Cable to make all of our mic cables. And I prefer The Neutrik connectors. But on the other hand. Since I work for a sound company we buy that stuff in bulk. Now as far as GC goes. you know where they make the big bucks at.. The accesories like Cables and stuff.. Most of the profits in that kind of environment are like that. You would be amazed at the markup of that kind of stuff... Do the math, Even from GC you can get the connectors for about 15 bucks, Both ends... And wire aint that expensive! Also if you get it from someplace else other than GC. Find a local electonics parts company to buy stuff like premade cables or the components to build your own. As Far as the warts are concerned.... Well your on your own there.... Mike Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Old Steve Posted December 27, 2006 Members Share Posted December 27, 2006 Originally posted by Pearl Player I have to ask.... HOW much was just the mic cable... LOL And 150ft? My god LOLAnd I would not use a really expensive cable in Live environments. They are just a bit to fragile for my tastes. Now in a studio environment. Yea they are cool. But for road work. NopeI cant remember the last time I bought a mic cable. Have always made my own.I use Beldon Star Quad, Low-Impedance Cable to make all of our mic cables. And I prefer The Neutrik connectors. But on the other hand. Since I work for a sound company we buy that stuff in bulk. Now as far as GC goes. you know where they make the big bucks at.. The accesories like Cables and stuff.. Most of the profits in that kind of environment are like that. You would be amazed at the markup of that kind of stuff... Do the math, Even from GC you can get the connectors for about 15 bucks, Both ends... And wire aint that expensive! Also if you get it from someplace else other than GC. Find a local electonics parts company to buy stuff like premade cables or the components to build your own.As Far as the warts are concerned.... Well your on your own there....Mike I too agree that cheap cables generally are a better deal for live work than some fancy-schmancy Monster cables with special Oxeygen-free copper that was shorn from magical metallic sheep, or whatever they're using. Just bring a couple extras and you're all set. One of these days, I'll spend the time to really learn how to solder properly. I'm guessing here, but if you bought 150' of cables in 15' increments for $19.95 a pop, you'd be closing in on $200 pretty quick. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members ulank Posted December 27, 2006 Author Members Share Posted December 27, 2006 I hear ya all on the cables, and the prices and all that. You're all correct. Thing is, I had been planning to order a whole slew of cables from my bassist's old sound shop, or just order connectors (Neutrik) and raw cable (Belden) from them and have him make them; but I thought I had enough cable to at least mess with stuff for now. Since I didn't, and I just HAD to play with my new toys, I sucked it up and went to GC. If I had just one more cable at my house, I would have never made the trip and would still have my hygiene today. I measured out my entire basement and came to the conclusion that 40 feet is about the shortest I can go with to run cable from my kit to my VS2480, and they only had lengths of 50' and 25'. Since we have band practice tomorrow, and I wanted to be able to keep the drum mics set up and do vocals, I got some extra cables - all in all, two 50 footers I can use for the kit and two 25 footers for vocals. I got the livewire cables with neutrik connectors and they were basically $1 a foot, which is pretty much what I expected. But still. And now having two OH mics, my stand situation got all screwed up, so I "had" to get that as well. That's what makes this worse. This was just supposed to be a "quick trip" to GC to get what I needed to have fun and it turned into a nightmare. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members ulank Posted December 27, 2006 Author Members Share Posted December 27, 2006 Originally posted by Old Steve fancy-schmancy Monster cables Never. I hate monster cable. Most overpriced pile of crap cables out there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Pearl Player Posted December 27, 2006 Members Share Posted December 27, 2006 Hmmm, As I reach for my slide rule... LOL Lets see thats 18 additional connections. Each adding resistance to the run, Each changing the Capacitance of the run... Classic RC filter... Gets Wire specs... Connector Specs.... Forget anything above 16 Khz.. LOL Mic level at 600 ohms! LOL For the sake of imaginary Logistics of the situation... LOL If you need 150 feet Use it... LOL dont daisy chain mic cables... Line level Ok you can get away with that.But If I only need 30 feet to make the connection. What am I going to do with the extra 120 feet.. The noise beast lives there. My longest cable in inventory is 100ft. Anyway following that math of 10 15 foot cables ok... But still... with a 150 foot cable.. LOL thats only 2 of the 8 dollar retail connectors. And assembly costs are way less... Only 2 connectors to solder or crimp (I hate crimped cables by the way). In 90% of my stage work.. I rarely use more than the standard 20 footers we use.. Thats why they make stage snakes.. LOL My run to the FOH position is a snake. Goes to a box via a multipin connector with splitters for each channel in the box. The box has a connector for a fanout for the Monitor mixer, Then too Multipin connector to stage boxes. So for drums, I have a 16 channel box that sits behind the drummer. Shorter runs use mic cables to directly plug into the inputs on the Main Box... Longer runs (ie other side of the stage, Drummer) go through the stage snakes. So in the long run... LOL That 150 foot cable would have cost me like 30 bucks and taken about 20 minutes to make.. LOL Oh is it time to wish ya a happy new year yet? Mike (disclaimer: The above post may contain nuts, Sarcasm Even) Appology issued in Advance! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Old Steve Posted December 27, 2006 Members Share Posted December 27, 2006 I've been in similar situations...you know you're getting screwed and there's a better deal out there, but you want it NOW and you end up paying through the nose for convenience. Kind of like paying $12.50 for a popcorn and coke at the movies that probably cost them $0.38 total. Oh well, that's life. On the upside, unless you have some open scrapes or sores on YOUR hands, and as long as you washed them after Mr. Boilmaster put his mitts of death on you, you'll probably be ok. Still....yuck. Just as a precaution, I wouldn't be touching my privates for a few weeks. Good luck with that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members ulank Posted December 27, 2006 Author Members Share Posted December 27, 2006 Originally posted by Pearl Player Hmmm, As I reach for my slide rule... LOL Lets see thats 18 additional connections. Each adding resistance to the run, Each changing the Capacitance of the run... Classic RC filter... Gets Wire specs... Connector Specs.... Forget anything above 16 Khz.. LOL Mic level at 600 ohms! LOL For the sake of imaginary Logistics of the situation... LOL If you need 150 feet Use it... LOL dont daisy chain mic cables... Line level Ok you can get away with that. But If I only need 30 feet to make the connection. What am I going to do with the extra 120 feet.. The noise beast lives there. My longest cable in inventory is 100ft. Anyway following that math of 10 15 foot cables ok... But still... with a 150 foot cable.. LOL thats only 2 of the 8 dollar retail connectors. And assembly costs are way less... Only 2 connectors to solder or crimp (I hate crimped cables by the way). In 90% of my stage work.. I rarely use more than the standard 20 footers we use.. Thats why they make stage snakes.. LOL My run to the FOH position is a snake. Goes to a box via a multipin connector with splitters for each channel in the box. The box has a connector for a fanout for the Monitor mixer, Then too Multipin connector to stage boxes. So for drums, I have a 16 channel box that sits behind the drummer. Shorter runs use mic cables to directly plug into the inputs on the Main Box... Longer runs (ie other side of the stage, Drummer) go through the stage snakes. So in the long run... LOL That 150 foot cable would have cost me like 30 bucks and taken about 20 minutes to make.. LOL Oh is it time to wish ya a happy new year yet? Mike (disclaimer: The above post may contain nuts, Sarcasm Even) Appology issued in Advance! Nice work. No, it's not 150 feet of continuous cable and I'm not daisy chaining them. Just the sum of all the cable I was buying at the time. I actually pondered the snake thing too, but my basement isn't that big and I'm still in the early stages of getting the studio together so I don't want to commit to that route until I know exactly how I want things laid out. (plus, as I've found, there's no such thing as having too much extra cable laying around.) In the meantime, I also don't want a small intestine of cables all over my floor, so I have to route them from my kit, to the wall, along the wall, around the inside of a closet and up to the Roland. 5 feet here, 7 feet there, another 3 feet somewhere else, etc. and I'm up to 20+ feet of cable before I even consider where it has to end up in the room. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members ulank Posted December 27, 2006 Author Members Share Posted December 27, 2006 Originally posted by Old Steve I wouldn't be touching my privates for a few weeks. Crap, it's a little late for that. But yah, I scrubbed my hand as soon as I got home. No bumps...yet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members boomerweps Posted December 27, 2006 Members Share Posted December 27, 2006 Well, you wanted to hook it all up NOW! and paid the price. Livewires at GC are like Monster-in-training, half the cost is recouping advertising. There's not a darn thing wrong with linking a few cables for length as needed. NO ONE can notice in a live setting and few in a studio setting. Even the $25 for 10 20ft MF ones work adaquately. Stock up! Best price I've found for 30 to 50 footers has been from smaller shop Peavey dealers. If you have the $ to spend on so few mic cables, you would be far better off to get a sub-snake. You can find some decent 50 foot ones on ebay or from www.audiopile.com. I haven't paid over $100 including shipping for any of my sub snakes. If I remember correctly including shipping, 6x50 proco $65, 4x30 custom box $40, 6x25 whirwind mini-6 $100 (those were all ebay) & 8x50 A/V Link from MF new for $80 (my 1st one, have to baby this cable a little, soft sheathing & crappy strain reliefs, put it on a small reel). Boomerweps Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members RockBass Posted December 27, 2006 Members Share Posted December 27, 2006 Originally posted by Old Steve Still....yuck. Just as a precaution, I wouldn't be touching my privates for a few weeks. Good luck with that. As an added precaution, I won't be touching your privates for a few weeks either. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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