Cables. Who cares? Custom Cables?

A couple things.

First of all, I think it's great if you're going to do this. You can make a couple bucks and everybody else can save a couple bucks and get some nice cables.

Second, if anyone is interested at all: Go on ebay and buy a weller soldering iron. I got a temperature controllable one for about $70. If you're going to solder, get a nice iron. Then go to Markertek.com. Buy Canare star quad for $.36/foot in any color you want. Then buy some Neutrik connectors and you're in business. In about 4 custom cables, you'll have paid for the soldering iron, not to mention learning how to solder and make cables.

Of course, I tried to make some XLR -> TA3F cables the other day. F*** that! I ordered some from B&H the next day. It's not worth my time . I'll buy some of those from you Matt. The thing is, I make a fair amount of cables at work, many with small connectors (like 3 pin lemo), but they are much easier to work with when it is a well designed connector. TA3F's might be small, but they strike me as a bit cheap and very cramped in design.

Those Neutrik pro rca plugs are expensive (and a bit large). Are the XLR XX connectors some new model? How are they different from the X connectors? Anyway, after looking at the Neutrik site, it might be worth getting the EMC XLR connectors for better RF immunity.

Last thing, Canare star quad is great, but if you need truly flexible cable, I got some cable from a company called Wireworks (wireworks.com). I think the model is Musilux. Mind you, it's not starquad, so it might not be the best choice for on location recording, but holy crap it's so supple and nice. It doesn't use a metal braid for a shield. Instead, it has a layer of conductive rubber. As a result, it's incredibly flexible and has very little memory (it straightens out very easily and doesn't develop kinks). If you have an application that you need it for, it's great stuff. I use it at home to record stuff since it's much more pleasant to deal with than star quad in every day use.
 
No offense but if one more person implys that I'll be "making a couple bucks" on this I'm not going to do it. Doing an $11 cable for somebody and charging $16-17 on it is not money. Making a $4 cable and charging $27 for it... now THAT is money. If somebody knows of a pro shop that would have put 3 Vishay 1% resistors in each of a pair of color coded cables (cable/connectors) in my exact length and then charged me $50 or less... PLEASE post it!

Markertek has "Home of the Unique and Hard to Find!" on their bright orange catalog... and then it says "Americas Largest Full Line Stocking Canare Distributor"... and then it says "Generation XX Neutrik is HERE!" I couldn't get half the colors I wanted, none of the Neutriks, and no special color jacket... or the trim rings. Maybe they're low on stock right now? I got everything elsewhere on the net... and paid a little more for all of it. When they stock what I need I may buy from them... maybe not. I found a small shop in Connecticut that's just a little higher on almost everything, but I'll probably keep getting stuff from them anyway. Redco Audio.

If you want resistors in any grade, brand, quality then it's Newark... and you have to get $25 worth of them to avoid a $5 penalty... and they don't get really cheap until you get 200 of each value.

I said earlier in this thread and I can't emphasise ENOUGH that if you just want a generic STARQUAD cable with Neutrik connectors you should just get it from Markertek. Take note... Markertek IS cheap on those.

I should have put "mixer cables" in the thread title because it won't be as valuable for members to pay me the same as they'd pay Markertek for basic cables... and honestly I'd planned on just making unique and specialized cables... such as the attenuation cables.

I've already got the Weller and a soldering station... plus the third hands. I appreciate your input on the wire... I'll check that out. What do you think of WBT Silver Solder? Right now I have Kester, but I'm intrigued by the WBT. Also do you know the temp on your tips at work? Is it around 750?

I appreciate any technical input you guys can provide... and in case I wasn't clear enough earlier (I've said this a couple times now)... had I realized that I could have got a lot closer to the cables I wanted from Markertek instead of paying a premium at Trew (and not getting what I wanted)... this thread wouldn't be here. The only reason I'm still doing it is because I'm going to make the exact cables I wanted and I thought I may be able to help out some forum buddies at the same time.

EDIT: Does anybody want to go in on a red and white spool of MusiLUX with me? It only comes in 500' spools and I just want 100' of each. We'll have to devide up the cost accordingly... which is around $500 with shipping... but I'll pay the shipping if you'll take the other $400 worth of cable.
 
I have been reading this thread for a while and have kept quiet, but now I have to go ahead and chime in. Matt has been a very valuable member to this community and has made many contributions not to mention numerous services availble including professional lights at rock bottom prices, cables at cost, and microphone and audio advice for free. If you search the archives you will see that Matt has helped almost everyone here in answering the question of what mic should I buy, and even played along with the awfull 'ultimate kit' thread.

The simple fact that he has made his experience available to everyone on the board in answering questions and allowing others to learn from his experience is one of the reasons why this community is so valuable. Now the guy goes ahead and takes his passion to DIY projects and offers the community some great pricing and service for his cables and people accuse him of all sorts of things bothers me. With the time invested I know he is making no cash. Hell, I would pay twice what he is asking for this service because I know what I will be getting will be quality.

From someone who has bought things from Matt in the past and turned to him in almost every audio situation that can arrise I will say that he is one of the most honest, dedicated, and hard working people I know.

If you like the idea of what he is doing here, then contact him and he will deliver what you are looking for. If you don't like the product, already have cables, or are not interested, leave the thread alone.

There are good people left in the world that rather than trying to hoard the knowledge they have gained from experience share it with, let's be honest, complete freaking strangers. Matt is doing this. I fully support him and will remain a customer to him in all his enterprises.

If you have a problem with what I have said, PM me. Don't thread jack this topic.
 
Yankee... I appreciate any input on the thread and I don't think kidtexas was taking a shot at me.

The only thing that bugs me is when people think I'm making money while I think I'm doing favors. There's a guy that recently bought a pair of lights and he said something about "making me rich" by representing me on 'em. In reality it's almost like making change... you give me a dollar and I'll give you 10 dimes or 4 quarters or 100 pennies. In real business you need to budget for around $50 per man hour ($66 is the real figure) just to cover everything that happens. If you make less then you can sustain a hobby or play around in business, but the business won't make it.

Charging somebody $5-$10 labor on a cable (depending on the cable) is not making money. I don't want people thinking I'm some dork who thinks that's money... if anything you can think I'm a dork for my jokes. The only thing I cared about was the money comment. Some of the other stuff was good info... and I'm not hiding details on cable construction and actually mentioned Markertek earlier in the thread. I'd WAY rather somebody buy stuff from Markertek and build their own cables or else buy a basic XLR from Markertek... as I said I imagined that there would be some people like me who wanted something very specific.

Also believe it or not... I've got some MusiLUX on the way. I'll post about it after it gets here. It's pricey, but I think a noodle-soft boom cable could be a cool thing if you don't have internal CC. A cable that soft could also be cool inside a mixer bag. I'll post pics and details after I make some of those.
 
MattinSTL said:
No offense but if one more person implys that I'll be "making a couple bucks" on this I'm not going to do it. Doing an $11 cable for somebody and charging $16-17 on it is not money. Making a $4 cable and charging $27 for it... now THAT is money.
Click to expand...

Haha, no no, I wasn't taking a shot at you. When I said a couple of bucks, I literally meant a couple. 2. About all you could get with that is a happy meal; it might save you from eating those oregano sandwiches you've mentioned :p

As for Markertek, I've only ever ordered standard stuff from them and they've always had it. Who knows.

I can send you a couple feet of Musilux if you want to play around with it. Though I see you already bought some.

I think it's great you're doing this! I hope people take you up on you're wonderful offer. I will. Crap here's what I want:

1x 2 foot white xlr (m to f)
1x 2 foot red xlr (m to f)
1x 10' 5 pin xlr cable (black)
2x 5 pin xlr -> 2 3 pin xlr breakout cables (8 inches or so) - of the appropriate sex to breakout the 10' cable on each end (black but with color coded rings)

I'll buy some of that cable too. Maybe not 400' feet, but 50' or 100' of each.

As far as solder and soldering goes: I don't remember what solder I have at home, but I think it was Kester stuff recommended for electronics. At work we use whatever is lying around, but we aren't really concerned about "audiophile" type issues since the cables typically carry signals of > 10 V and we ain't listening to them. The iron that I use at work is a Weller WTCPT. I think it is 600, 700, or 800 degrees depending on the tip. At home I have something similar or the same as a WES51. It's got a knob on it that lets me set the temp from 350 - 850, but I think I usually have it around 650-700 for cables. It's not like there are any real sensitive parts in wire.

Not that I ever did this, but I always thought it might be a good idea if you were making a ton of cables. Whenever I solder XLR's (or just about anything), I always feel like I need a third hand. If you were doing cable connectors, it might be useful to get a chunk of wood, drill some appropriately sized holes, and bolt on some bulkhead connectors of the other sex. That way you could take you cable end connector, slip it into the bulkhead connector on the wood, and have it stay put while you solder. I don't know, might work, might be a waste of time.
 
I appreciate the suggestions... really. I knew you were trying to be helpful in the first post and that's why I didn't get offended. I recently turned Yankee onto the Oktava mics and I think he's trying to watch my back? :grin: When I bitched about the money comment I think it sounded like I was pissed... but I was serious. My life is windfall or dispair... it's crazy. I'll make a ****-load of cash at one time and then nothing for a while... how do you think I have so much time to kill on this forum?:cheesy:

I think you'll be surprised when you see how I'm doing the cables... but really I don't think you'd get a bad cable from Markertek either... Since it's just a couple bucks (really!) I only want to do spefically technical or specifically candy cables. So you better want something unique if I'm doing it. (and honestly it's not like I'm doing something that anybody else couldn't do... I just didn't find anyone when I needed them).

I've got a third hand (that was supposed to be here... shoulda' had that on my Markertek order with the Pro-Fi connectors) but the wood suggestion is good too... that'll give me a fourth hand.

I can't wait for the cable to get here. I'm excited to see something new since I never considered anything but StarQuad. Let me check out the cable first and you aren't committed to buying a bunch off me just because you made the suggestion... but give me a week to play with it and then let me know if you're serious. Maybe I can get a few people lined up and we can split the 500' spools.
 
I've already got a **** load of orange Musilux, I was looking for some other colors without spending $250 a roll. It's great stuff. However, I am new to the audio for video world (and will never be a professional). As a result, I don't know how vital the noise rejection properties of Star Quad are.

As far as cable orders go, candy cables is where I'm at. I don't really have the need for crazy right angle attenuated adapter cables (yet). Some really nice short XLR cables for the mixer bag would be money (color coded like you say - I've got a Petrol Eargonizer and once everything is in the bag, damn if I can sort out what is channel 1 or 2). I've also had a hard time finding the 5 pin -> 2 3 pin xlr cables out there, but then again, I haven't looked that hard. I finally got my figure 8 mike and recorder, so I'm only now looking into a nice 1 cable stereo solution.
 
> 1 ground
> 2 ch1 audio +
> 3 ch1 audio -
> 4 ch2 audio +
> 5 ch2 audio -
> 6 return audio L
> 7 return audio R
IF YOU INTEND MAKE SNAKES MATT
THATS LOOK LIKE THE COMMON CONFIGURATION FOR USA 7 PIN XLR BRAKE OUT


>
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top