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Making Connections
Recording studios have so many cables and connectors, its easy to become confused. what plugs into what? Let’s consider cable first. They carry electric signals from one audio component to another. Cables are usually made of one or two insulated conductors (wires) surrounded by a fine-wire shield is a soft plastic or rubber insulating jacket.
Cables are used in either balanced or unbalanced transmission systems. A balanced system, like those used for microphones, has a cable that uses two conductors to carry the signal, surrounded by a shield. An unbalanced system, such as a guitar, output has a single conductor surrounded by a shield. In this case, both the center conductor and shield carry the signal. Recording equipment also has balanced or unbalanced connectors. Be sure your cables match your equipment. Balanced equipment has a three-pin (XLR-type) connector. Unbalanced equipment has either a inch phone jack (found in most electric guitars and amps) or phono (RCA) jack (the center/sleeve type you find on the back of your stereo equipment). A jack is a receptacle. A plug inserts into a jack. The balanced line system rejects hum better than an unbalanced system, but an unbalanced line that’s less than 10 feet long usually provides adequate hum rejection, and also costs less.
Signal Levels A cable carries one of these three signal levels or voltages:
i) Mic Level (about 2 millivolts, or .002 volt)
ii) Line Level (0.316 volt or -10 dBv for unbalanced equipment, 1.23 volts or +4 dBv for balanced equipment - there’s a 14dB difference between these two signal levels)
iii) Speaker level (about 1 - 1,000 watts, or about 3 - 20 volts)
When you lay out cables, you should separate mic cables from line level cables, and keep these separate from speaker cables and power cords. Noise or hum may occur if high level and low level signals are run together. Speaker cables are normally made of lamp cord (zip cord). To avoid wasting power, speaker cables should be as short as possible, and should be heavy gauge (between 12 and 16 gauge). Number 12 gauge is thicker than 14; 14 is thicker than 16.
Connectors Several types of connectors are used in audio: The 1/4-inch phone plug (also referred to as the TS plug) is used with cables for unbalanced synthesizers and electric instruments. The tip terminal (T) is soldered to the cable’s center conductor and the sleeve terminal (S) is soldered to the cable’s shield.
The RCA or phono plug is used to connect unbalanced line level signals. The center pin is soldered to the cable’s center conductor and the cup terminal is soldered to the cable’s shield.
The three-pin professional audio connector (sometimes called XLR-type) is used with cables for microphones and balanced recording equipment. The female connector (with holes) plugs into equipment outputs. The male connector (with pins) plugs into equipment inputs. Pin 1 is soldered to the cable shield, pin2 is soldered to the “hot” (in polarity) lead (usually red), and pin3 is soldered to the remaining lead. This wiring applies to both female and male connectors.
The stereo phone plug (also referred to as the TRS plug) is used with stereo headphones and with some balanced line level cables. For headphones, the tip terminal (T) is soldered to the left channel lead, the ring terminal (R) is soldered to the right channel lead, and the sleeve terminal (S) is soldered to the common lead. For balanced line level cables, the sleeve terminal is soldered to the shield, the tip terminal is soldered to the "hot" (in-polarity) lead, and the ring terminal is soldered to the remaining lead.
Some mixers have insert jacks that are stereo phone jacks; each jack accepts a stereo phone plug. Tip is the send signal to an audio device input; ring is the return signal from the device output, and sleeve is ground. These signals are unbalanced.
Cable Types Cables are classified according to their function. In a studio you’ll see several types of cables. Here are the most common:
- Mic Cable : Female XLR to two-conductor shielded cable to male XLR
- Snake : A box with multiple female XLR’s, wired to a thick multi-conductor cable, wired to several male XLR’s
- Unbalanced patch cord : Phone (TS) to single conductor shielded cable to phone (TS). Or, phono to cable to phono. Patch cords connect the mixing console to external devices such as an effect unit, DAT recorder, cassette deck, power amp, etc. Patch cords are also used in a patch bay, an array of connectors wired to equipment inputs and outputs.
- Guitar cord : Phone plug to one-conductor shielded cable to phone plug. It is similar to an unbalanced patch cord though usually longer and sturdier.
- Speaker cord : Banana plug to two conductor zip cord to banana plug. Each end of the cable might have a phone plug or bare wires in place of the banana connector.
- Balanced patch cord : Stereo phone (tip/ring/sleeve) to two-conductor shielded cable to stereo phone. This type of cord is also used unbalanced into tip/ring/sleeve insert jacks. Professional balanced equipment is interconnected female XLR on one end and a male XLR on the other.
- MIDI cable : Five-pin DIN connector to two-conductor shielded cable to a five-pin DIN connector.
Equipment Connections The instruction manuals for your equipment tell how to connect your components. Use the shortest possible cables to reduce hum, but make sure they are long enough so that you will be able to make changes. Label all your cables on both ends according to what they plug into. For example, "Mixer Channel 2 Monitor Out" or "Reverb In". That way, if you temporarily change connections, or the cable becomes unplugged, you'll know where to plug it back in. Finally, the studio should be wired properly to prevent ground loops.
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