if your doing cable troughs in your studio,

GroupDIY Audio Forum

Help Support GroupDIY Audio Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

pucho812

Well-known member
Joined
Oct 4, 2004
Messages
14,830
Location
third stone from the sun
Take the fu*king time to cut  access the entire length of the trough.  Make sure the trough area is clean cut before running cable. Urgh... been dealing with  private studio build that because the owner said walking across any trough access will cause the floor to creak and that is a no no we are not cutting access the entire length of the trough. So I am running guitar and speaker lines from live room to control room and one of the speaker wires gets caught at a point I can't see. It got caught on a part of the wall where I had to do a 45 degree run and form what I could feel the wall had some dry wall missing. It then got torn up as the house engineer and myself jostled it back and forth in an attempt to free it.  In the grand scheme of things it can be re run, its only 55 ft and can be re done. In the bigger picture I am wondering how many other potential cables and or snakes got caught on the same thing as we were running stuff across the same points.

Lucky the contractor is going to cut the trough as I originally wanted. But I am wondering how much may or may not need to be re done. More over what is it poeple in attempt to save cash do dumb shit that ultimately costs more in time and cash.  when it all could have been avoided.
 
Would running dedicated conduits ahead of time help ?  It would seem that steel conduit would not only protect the cables inside but would help prevent noise from induction.
As an aside, it amazes me that when I clicked on your post to read it, the adverts that popped up underneath from Google were for electrical conduit. HTF do they know? Scary.
 
Our old setup had a couple of inaccessible run under the floor. It was always a pain to add lines especially if some idiot(me) forgot to replace the draw wire. Good dose of Washing up liquid can help ease cables thru tight spots.
Installing the new desk, we cut channels for everything. Haven't noticed any squeaks yet but i'm sure they'll slowly materialise.
I get most paranoid about the delicate madi and optical cables, wish we'd stuck them down some trunking now.

I'm sure i read in a studio design book that metal trunking could be a bad idea for audio? I forget why, increased crosstalk maybe?
 

Attachments

  • sonica studios calrec install10s.jpg
    sonica studios calrec install10s.jpg
    48.9 KB · Views: 87
2 problems with conduit piping is size and acoustics. You can only fit so much in a pipe. Acousticly if the pipe is not sealed properly u will get the effect of blowing on a bottle in your control room and your decay will be uneven in terms of time vs frequency. It can ultimate increase decay time at certain frequencies. Troughs are great if access is proper. They hide cables nicely.

As for my original statement had to rant for a second. The tech consult was ignored in favor of looks . the original designer was a tech before designing studios and he didn't stick up for me saying we needed full access. Now I have to wait the weekend before the recut our trough access and ultimately push things back more so then they have been. At least I can work arounf it for now. This trough was for live room to control room. I can still work the control room stuff.
 
this is f**king ridiculous not only did the construction guys not cut the trough access they were supposed to today, they told the client that I obviously do not know how to run cable since i broke that speaker one the other day.  I don't know these construction guys and this would be our first job together. Heaven forbid the tech consultant and wiring guy actually make them work hard.  The more i think about it, our last job together.  It's like I am dealing with children. Granted I have not be around much as I have been doing cable prep, etc, off site but that is just retarded.
 
Conduit has it's uses, but usually it is designed-in the same as electrical, up to the ceiling and back down, and you develop length issues.  AC power has no issues being run hundreds of feet, but it is best to keep mic and git tie lines as short as possible.  The architect does not want to lose 3 or 6" of room area due to the conduits running horizontal, so the conduits go vertical doubling the length of mic lines.
I don't know about any bottle or crosstalk effect with conduit- it just has to be installed properly where it is not connecting isolated structures, properly bonded to building steel and sealed after the pull.  And the more turns they take the lesser area of wire that can be pulled. 

There are plenty of horror stories with floor troughs.  There is always a screw or nail that takes it's pound of flesh before getting snapped-off.  Or 1 1/2" high troughs that are ignored by the flooring contractor and get flooring nails all through them- hopefully before wire is pulled.  Or blind turns that are not properly edge finished- that's what eats our cables.  I like using a nice big nylon drag rope, 1/2" thick clothesline, in floors, and make sure it is not twisted around the last pull when finished

All the problems are usually due to a lack of studio tech involvement in the design and construction stages.  They call you once everything is sealed in rough walls or floors and you have to deal.
Mike
 
supervision is the key. or a good relationship with the workers, not contractor. you've got to pop in all the time, even if they say "this" is the schedule, you'll come by and they'll have sealed something up before time. like the first time they were ahead! doh! But I have even showed the worker "I need it to go from here through there," only to find it was done some other way. the time it came out perfect, I told the client how it should go and it was in his house so he was there 24/7 and the client called me 4 times after because contractor was cutting a corner, after emphatically telling him again, he did it right and the room was absolutely silent for over 4 years, till the client moved. Id call him and ask about the room and he'd say it was still silent. and this was just the power!
 
Hey Puncho I feel your pain.  It amazes me how you do 1 project by email and can tell everybody is doing your request cause you are hounded with emails constant.  And the next job you want to strangle the contractor for having a mission to screw you over every chance they get.    Its a housing contractor that does track homes and cannot think of anything as custom.  They then veiw you as a enemy and  between them and there underbid job check.

I have had good luck with buried conduit in flooring and always using 2 large tubes side by side. A rope running in a loop between the 2 conduits .  You can always tie onto the rope and feed wires.  The loop rope stays in the 2 conduits.  If you have a tight  corner you have to have an access panel for removal to feed wires by hand.  I guess that creates construction problems for the contractor just like troughs so what ever works best for the app. 

Mikes also right,  if you don't have enough radius your screwed and the more radius the more wire.  Just goes with the flow.  I find that not as big of a problem with mogomi wire (for sonic reasons), just more expensive.
 
sodderboy said:
All the problems are usually due to a lack of studio tech involvement in the design and construction stages.  They call you once everything is sealed in rough walls or floors and you have to deal.
Mike

and that is how it has been. you hit the hammer on the head
 
Modified 32 cal. Hilte- the only way to hit a hammer!

And I tell my retired mentors all this stuff- they just laugh and say that nothing's changed over the decades!

Be the supple, surviving tree and bend with the wind, pucho.
Mike
 
sodderboy said:
Be the supple, surviving tree and bend with the wind, pucho.
Mike

That's all you can do. also helps to look at the bright side like

using this for the cue system.
210_t2_1947309938.jpg


they are used with the Aviom system going in. makes for nice looking panels and easy to do cues. It is the largest of the ethernet private cue systems boasting 16 channels with pan. Feels a little plastic but works well...
 
Back
Top