Studio rewire hell !!

I'm in the middle of it - after 7 years as an "evolving" setup it's time to cut down and streamline everything !
My 32-8 bus is out and packed up/stored as of yesterday, I'm now looking at the back of 2 x 6 foot high racks
and a million cables to remove, clean and re-wire !!  ( I'm going to end up with less than 50 so that's positive )

Nothing was labeled either ......

WHAT HAVE I DONE !!!

Marty.

Make the best of it Marty.  It's funny.  I have 32ch/8bus that is only used for routing, talkback and volume control.  I guess I am waiting for the one client who can afford old school mixing.

perfect. nothing better than starting from scratch. now you can wire it all up in a perfectly obvious and clear way so when, in a few years, you do some rework, a simple and OBVIOUS pattern can be followed.

amorris@home said:

perfect. nothing better than starting from scratch. now you can wire it all up in a perfectly obvious and clear way so when, in a few years, you do some rework, a simple and OBVIOUS pattern can be followed.

Click to expand...

Just finished the second complete rewire in 5 years--pulled out the console too.  Too much of a time crunch to re-use the many significant lengths of cable, so I ended up stringing new.  :-\  Now I'm left with a Home Depot Contractor garbage bag full of Mogami I can't bear to part with.  :'(  So it's into the storage area I refer to as "Purgatory" with all the stuff "I just *know* I'm gonna use someday."  :

-bob

Take 200 tie-wraps and call me in the morning :wink:
Mike

please dont remind me to do this at my place...
arghhhh i've been thinking about doing it about 2 years....
;D ;D ;D

The best $100 I ever spent.
http://www.bradyid.com/idpal?WT.srch=1&gclid=CJXHkOzjupoCFQOaFQodDXpwcA

Gold said:

The best $100 I ever spent.
http://www.bradyid.com/idpal?WT.srch=1&gclid=CJXHkOzjupoCFQOaFQodDXpwcA

Click to expand...

I think I need that.  I keep on thinking of desoldering and labeling with clear wire sleeves.  That would solve my cable mysteries....

That is NOT fun at all.

Recently I had to rip out a rack that had "evolved" in short order as it was blocking a closet that had a water meter in it and we got a surprise upgrade from the water company. - Yippy. 
It took a week to get it workable and a month to put the little ancillary hook ups back. Always by wondering why this or that did not work, tracing it out and reconnecting.

I feel for you Marty.

Two days in and I'm nearly there !!!
Almost killed myself trying to lift the 32-8 bus out on my own and getting it back in it's box with those styrofoam 'end cheeks"
was almost "Monty python" funny !!!

Just have to wire my unbalanced inserts to a few "balancing/de-balancing" box's ( Peavey IA8410 - fantastic idea ) but don't have long enough
TRS insert cables .... gggrrrr !!
One of my monitor amps has gone down so I'm swopping it out for a good HiFi amp that's 100w per channel - will be fine.

Now have 12 channels instead of 64 and a few dozen cables instead of over 200 !!!
Have Stereo Pico/1176/SSL9k/ Green pre and D-AOC all wired up properly at last for DIY goodness

Just need to get that bloody "summing box" done then asap !

Marty.

MartyMart said:

Two days in and I'm nearly there !!!
Almost killed myself trying to lift the 32-8 bus out on my own and getting it back in it's box with those styrofoam 'end cheeks"
was almost "Monty python" funny !!!

Click to expand...

Good think you didn't have to take it on an expedition to the 2 peaks of Mt Kilimanjaro.

guavatone said:

I think I need that. 

Click to expand...

The first affordable cable labeler  I remember came out about six years ago. Before that they were all $500 and up. I've been through many other products. The 3M tabs that you write on. No ink known to man actually works including the provided marker. Unreadable after six months. The rolls of colored or numbered tape don't stick very well and the numbers or colors wear off unless heat shrinked. They are okay for keeping track of things before cables are dressed but no permanent solution. These labels stick even if they don't go all the way around the cable. The expensive labelers will print on heat shrink and other fancy materials as well as act as a printer for computer databases.

man that blows.


I just finished my patchbays and now I am thinking of getting a console or switching to a bigger HD system from my 002.  I can see the pain a head of me and it sucks.

Good luck and fast fingers!

I have been down that road one to many times. Not doing a rewire but a wire. the more you can label the easier it makes it when it's all done. Plus plastic zip ties look good and make it all neat and clean.  I have tried all kinds of things for labeling cables. I am down to doing p-touch labels with clear heatshirk over them to keep them in place.

finished yet Marty?

just ripped mine to bits getting a mobile rig together, the wrong idea I believe

Iain

Gold said:

guavatone said:

I think I need that. 

Click to expand...

The first affordable cable labeler  I remember came out about six years ago. Before that they were all $500 and up. I've been through many other products. The 3M tabs that you write on. No ink known to man actually works including the provided marker. Unreadable after six months. The rolls of colored or numbered tape don't stick very well and the numbers or colors wear off unless heat shrinked. They are okay for keeping track of things before cables are dressed but no permanent solution. These labels stick even if they don't go all the way around the cable. The expensive labelers will print on heat shrink and other fancy materials as well as act as a printer for computer databases.

Click to expand...

http://www.bradyid.com/tls2200 and the correct labels and you will be set for the life of the cable. Industrial Standard..

lofi said:

finished yet Marty?

just ripped mine to bits getting a mobile rig together, the wrong idea I believe

Iain

Click to expand...

I'm away for a few days in Europe but have almost finished, just need to wire up some extra DAW outputs
to run mixes through a few goodies like the Pico comp and the GSSL.
I was very short of xlr cables so just blew £150 on a bunch of short ones for in the rack.
I gained a ton of space so I'm happy about it

MM.

I work at an audio-post studio.  I've rewired every room here at least twice.  2 rooms I've gutted entirely, which was a great feeling when it came time to reinstall.  One room, had the gear updated more than 4 times, first a 32-8, then a Pro Control, then a D-Command.  Each time new wiring was just thrown into the mix.  All just put on the patch bay. 

My boss is no signal flow wiz, so one day there was a snafu with him not being able to get the session, an ISDN and a client phone patch to work right.  So guess what happened.  He flipped and blamed the gear.  All of it came out, probably a good 150 pounds of cable for a 4 mic preamp, 4 compressor room.  New wiring whips were made and all installed with a new patchbay.  All works wonderfully now.  But that is the part of the job I hate. 

I'm designing 3 new control rooms, a control makeover, and a new live room, at the moment.  In about 7 months, I'll be in wiring hell again.  So Mart, enjoy the pain.

The best gear I ever bought was enough patchbays to have any input/insert/output patched to anything else and then wire it all up.  I did it all with ebay purchased cable and TT patchbays(quality stuff too).  I probably have 300+ patch points now.  It took a month of evenings to get all of the cables terminated and attached to the patchbays. 

I don't know how any studio can function without them.