Posted: 9/21/2009 10:22:50 AM EDT
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I'm looking into buying a cable snake for playing small bars.
If the sound board is on the other side of the bar using the snake is there a return on the snake for speakers/monitors or do I just have to run speaker cables from the sound board back to the speakers? Some snakes say they have 4 returns but don't explain what the returns are. |
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It's been a lot of years....
A standard snake will have a certain number of sends and a certain number of returns. They are usually priced according to this configuration, along with the length of the snake. Typically, for a bar, you'll have something like "16x8x100", meaning 16 "sends" (from the stage box to the sound board) and 8 "returns" (to return the signal back to the amps / speakers), and the length of the snake is 100'. In a bar setting, 2 or more of these returns can be used for monitors. The next step up from there is a split-snake, which has 2 complete sets of sends and returns - one for the house and one for stage monitors. Becasue of the complexity and cost, split-snakes are usually reserved for larger sound reinforcement applications. In a bar setting, a couple of the returns from the house sound board are used to drive monitor mixes. In bigger (concert) settings, there is a seperate sound board and engineer controlling the on-stage sound. I hope this helps a little. I worked in the business a lot of years ago, but I think the basics are pretty much the same now days. |
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Depends on what equipment you are using. If you have a console with built in power, or power amps that are in the same rack as the console, then you don't need the returns. If you have separate power amps or powered speakers at the stage, then you need the returns to feed the front-of-house amps/speakers and possibly monitor amps/speakers.
Is there someone that will be running the console on the other side of the bar? If not, you might as well keep it on stage next to you. Oh, and I recommend looking at Audiopile if you're looking for cables/snakes/etc. Decent quality equipment for reasonable prices. Audiopile |
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Quoted:
That is perfect. I would imagine for the size of this bar an 8x4 would work perfect. I thought thats what the returns did but wanted to make sure. I spent too many years trying to make a living at what you are doing.... If you have any more questions I'd be glad to share what I know. |
| Right now I am just running sound board for open mics. I have the cable length to be about 10' from the musicians but the bar is weird acoustically so I would like to be on the other side of the room. I have an unpowered Behringer board and a powered JBL Eons for speakers. It's just open mic so I don't need a lot of power. I know I could just buy some long cables but this gives me an excuse to buy a snake. |
| If your running eons just put a turn around on either end of the xlr ends of the snake and run them into the eons. I've done that alot for small events with only a couple speakers. If your flying a Nexo T I'd advise against running speaker signal through a snake. |