Cable organizer - holder?

O

OldCorpse

Rockin the Boat
I now have a bunch of cables of all kinds (mostly XLR mic cables) and lengths and I really have no idea how to store them rationally. Right now they sit in a milk crate higgedly piggedly all more mixed up than a dog's breakfast. My molars hurt just looking at them. I'd love some kind of container that can store them so I can take one glance and know what is what, so I don't have to dig through, and is very quick to reach and access and also can be conveniently transportable. Throwing them all in a big bag is even worse than the milk crate, because it becomes the bag of mystery. Here's what I'd love:

1)Transportable

2)At a glance

3)Super fast access

I've seen a cable bag on B&H, and it's sort of the right idea, but the bag is very small, and I have a bunch of 25' and 15' cables and this just won't do: Tenba Cable Duo 8 Cable Pouch

What do you use when you go out into the field on a production gig and need to have your cables with you - do you wrap each different one on each leg, arms and torso for fast access? Do you hang it all inside your long trench coat like a Christmas tree and then open it up flasher style? I'm tearing my hair out.

Can you point me to some solution so I can still retain a few hairs on my head?
 
well my cables are over and under coiled and tied. It's not like you have that many different kinds. I generally have them in one of those collapsable roll around hanging file boxes that cost ~$15 at your local office supply. Or if I'm carrying less then just in the "too the gig" bag.

You don't really need to carry a bunch with you at a gig since you are generally laying them out back to a central location, live shows music recording etc. So grab what you need get to where you want to end up and lay your way back. Now you are back to whee your cables are so... repeat.

On shoots I've only done 1 - 3 sources and one of those is usually a wireless and one is a boom. So no need to take the cable box out of the car.

Not sure why you would want to carry them all around with you.

If you really need to carry a ton of different lengths (I have 50' and 25'), color code them.
 
Thanks, Scott. I was just thinking how it's hard sometimes to anticipate all the kinds of cables you might need. It seems there's always something you might need right now. Of course you should probably have a bag with just various pads, polarity reversers, XLR to TRS ends and bobs. I was thinking of having something like maybe a garment bag you could unzip and have coiled cables hanging from velcro carabiner snaps. That way you could just hang the whole thing and it would be neatly organized and visible at a glance. But maybe that's overkill.
 
Ziplock plastic bags with labels? They can be a pain to find in all the right sizes to suit every cable, and they're not super sturdy, but they're real cheap and easy to use.
 
Like Scott, my cables are coiled and tied with the usual Velcro ties, then placed in a canvas or zippered bag. Without the Velcro ties to hold them together, it would be a snakes nest. For a typical docu shoot, I normally carry three 25', two 50' a few 3 and 10' links and a 25' ENG snake.
 
Yeah, I have seen the ThinkTank 20 and 30, but they are small. However, I followed the link and they have the 50 which might be just big enough... out of stock for now. Thank you!
 
I use zip lock freezer bags to hold adapters and splitters etc. So one bag is all BNC (don't bring that often anymore) one is XLR turnarounds, one is XLR to TRS, one is XLR pads and phase inverters, one is 1/4 everything, etc. All of those go into an old shure microphone soft case. But a small canvas tool bag would work just as well. The small tool bags are REALLY handy. You can get them at all the usual suspects like Harbor Freight, Lowes, Home Desperate, et all.
They come in a variety of sizes down to small pouches.

I don't use the pouches much because at that size having it see through is really helpful.

You do want the thickest ziplocks you can get, the freezer ones seem to hold up well.

The other plus is you can easily pull out connectors you know you won't need. Since I do a lot of post and video and word clock were critical I ended up with a lot of BNC (50 & 75 Ohm) which I hardly ever use now. So that usually gets pulled. XLR splitters are also a rarity. And I have a slew of XLR to TRS short cables that only come if I'm doing a sit down and using the "big" mixer into Boom Recorder.

At home I have a bunch of those transparent bin boxes that most stuff like cables go into.
 
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