Seriously Noobie Question regarding diy xlr cable.

[kbucks]

My apologies, this question is a bit basic, but I don't know where else to go! 
I'm going to try my hand at building some of these cool preamps, etc, but I wanted to refine my soldering skills by building a big pile of xlr cables, maybe even a d-sub, just to torture myself, but also to get really comfortable stripping wire and soldering before moving on to more complex projects, but I have a little problem.
Recently picked up some mogami, redco and canare xlr cable and neurtik connectors for xlr cables.
There is a a wealth of diy xlr cable instruction on the web, so I watched a number of videos, etc. 
Seeming to follow the instructions, I built a few cables.
I'm comparing these new cables to premade cables running through my Allen and Heath board and an Sm57.
With the premade cables, they are silent. When I plug the mic in, I get a clear signal....yadda, yadda.
With my cables, they buzz very loudly when nothing is plugged in or when I touch the metal part of the neurtik.
However, when I plug a mic in, they seem to work fine.
I've done resistance testing with my DMM and all the pins come in around zero.
Its seems like this is a grounding issue? 
All of the soldering points seem really clean.
Some of the shielding is awkward to work with. Especially the mogami....when i wind it up, its really thick and barely fits into
the soldering cup. 
Any ideas?
Any help would be really appreciated. Thanks,

-k

 

[Speedskater]

Check for:

a] One color wire to pin#2 at both ends.
b] The other color wire to pin#3 at both ends.
c] Shield to pin#1 at both ends.
d] No connection to the shell at either end.
e] At one end measure resistance from pin to pin and pin to shell.
    All combinations should read "open".

 

[JohnRoberts]

Also test for shorts between one or the other hot line to ground or shield.

JR

 

[musika]

...concerning the large twisted ground shield wire on the Mogami cables, I used to twist the copper ground wires together until I realized that there was a smaller silver 'drain' wire in there connected to the copper colored shield wires.  Now I just cut the copper shield wires and only solder the silver colored ground wire to pin1. Does anyone do this differently?

 

[Speedskater]

Yes, the braided shield is there for a reason, I always connect it first then deal with the drain wire.

 

[CJ]

you might have wired up a mirror image instead of a side by side image, don't know if that would cause hum or just a phase reversal,

place the jacks so that the ends are side by side, left top pin should read zero ohms to the other left top pin, center is always a no brainer, so all you have left is pin 3 and your done.
\some connectors might have self shorting switches on the mic end, this would make them quiet when the mic is unplugged but the cable is still in the preamp.

i have never seen one, their is a Neutric lady at the AES, she would know,

she also has free samples of the new sexy xlr connectors with the twist  on strain relief.

OT: if you need to flip the phase on say, a bottom snare head mic, and you forgot to wire phase switches into all your DIY amps because you were lazy,  :-X then you can simply take a mic cable and swap the hot leads. be sure to label it "phase reversed" otherwise the Sonic Police might get you,

snare?  58 on the bottom, senn e609 up top, who says you have to have a 57 on a snare?
the same freaks who say put the senn md241 on the toms because everybody else does it, do you want you kit to sound like a million other guys?

maybe yes, maybe no,  what was the question again? ???

OT:  did you know that top and bottom skin tuned to A will yield a tone of C?
      did you know that DW is the only maker to specify a note for their drums?

 

[musika]

... here is a useful document !!!

http://www.rane.com/note110.html

 

[zebra50]

With my cables, they buzz very loudly when nothing is plugged in or when I touch the metal part of the neurtik.
However, when I plug a mic in, they seem to work fine.

Some preamps don't like to see open circuit, and will buzz or hiss without a load across pins 1 and 2.

 

[kbucks]

Well, I took them all apart again and went out a bought a wire stripper. I had been using just a small wire cutter I've seen must people use in the videos. I suppose my wire stripping skills with that tool suck because going through all the same steps and using the wire stripper resulted in non-buzzing wires.  Not sure what I was doing wrong before, but I think I've got it down now. Thanks for the response!

-k

 

[pucho812]

that I have seen happen before. You nick the jacket on either wire for pin2 or 3 wire and you may not see it but it s enough to touch the ground/shield which has no jacket. In term this will cause them to touch and well buzzzzzzzz.  You maybe notice the buzz go away depending on how the wire flexes.  I find it best to heat shrink the shield.

 

[pucho812]

i have never seen one, their is a Neutric lady at the AES, she would know,

she also has free samples of the new sexy xlr connectors with the twist  on strain relief.

last few aes shows no neutrik lady just neutrik men. I get that conversation over real quick and get my free sample

 

[CJ]

after the neutric raid, it's over to Mogami for patch bay samples, and then THAT for the laser trimmed stuff, who got suck next to the roast beef place this year? :-*