Speaking of 1/4" cables...how do you wrap them?

[analogman1]

I've seen several videos on YouTube describing how people wrap them after a gig or session.

 

Personally, I just wrap them like a "lasso" and they've never failed me.

But some people swear by a certain method.

 

Your insights on this?

[mcgoo]

Over / under is pro standard I'm used to. Keeps the cables from getting kinked. Done right you can drop one end and the whole cable comes out untangled.

[analogman1]

Any videos that show that? I saw a few but they were unclear.

[Groove On]

Dave Rat's video. Starts with an interesting but long explanation. Skip to 4:30 for the demonstration (two methods).

 

[video:youtube]

[MathOfInsects]

Over/under for long ones, plain old circle for short ones.

 

Easiest way to do the over/under is just to invert your hand when you grab the cable every other time. I'll do a quick vid later unless someone posts a youtube in the mean time.

[Josh Paxton]

The tricky part about over/under is making sure neither of the ends of the cable end up going through the coil you're making. If one of them does, you'll end up with a cable full of knots. (Specifically, you'll get half as many knots as there are coils. When I was a kid I learned a magic trick based on this principle, making knots "appear" in an un-knotted rope.) To avoid this, I have a velcro cable tie around one end of the cable. After the cable is coiled, I wrap the tie once around just the two ends to hold them together, and then around the whole thing. Then when unwrapping it I take the tie off the "main" part, hold the two ends together, drop the rest of the cable, and then unwrap the ends.

[elif]

How I wrap depends on the flexibility of the cable. I used to wrap all cables with over-under but got tired of dealing with the occasional string-of-knots. If the cable is not very flexible then I use over-under and just deal with the knots if they occur. If the cable is flexible, I use the divide-by-two method and secure the bundle with a velcro in the middle. It is by far the quickest method to stow and the cable unstows with no twisting and no knots. it works great for mic' cables too.

[Delaware Dave]

I put all of my cables in a 1" split loom cable. I put the electrical plugs in a separate split loom. Easier to breakdown and setup. Nothing gets tangled.

[The Real MC]

I coil the cables using the natural bend off the cable. Never had one fail. Most of them are short cables anyway.

 

I have piles of XLR mic cables for my PA system. The best accessory I ever bought was a cable reel. XLR cables can be hooked end to end with mating plugs. Cable reel is like a garden hose reel. You wind the cable onto the reel with the handle, then hook the next cable onto the end. In reverse you just pull off the reel. This made stage setup and teardown MUCH easier.

[Tom Williams]

The best accessory I ever bought was a cable reel. XLR cables can be hooked end to end with mating plugs. You wind the cable onto the reel with the handle, then hook the next cable onto the end. In reverse you just pull off the reel. This made stage setup and teardown MUCH easier.

 

(Thank you) * 3

 

I've used cable reels and XLR cables, for decades, and never made that connection, if I may use that phrase here.

Proper words of admiration / appreciation elude me, so I'll go nonverbal:

[CowboyNQ]

Definitely over/under. It"s such fun when you"re setting up and the whole thing unspools perfectly with a flick of the wrist!

[AnotherScott]

The best accessory I ever bought was a cable reel. XLR cables can be hooked end to end with mating plugs. Cable reel is like a garden hose reel. You wind the cable onto the reel with the handle, then hook the next cable onto the end. In reverse you just pull off the reel. This made stage setup and teardown MUCH easier.

Yes. One possible enhancement to that is to have a reel for shorts and a reel for longs.

 

(Aside... Why is it that you can sometimes connect two mic cables that each work fine on their own, but fail when you try to make a long one by linking them together?)

 

As for over-under... I know it's "right," I know it helps the cable last longer. I hate it. It takes longer to wrap, and longer again to velcro/lace. If you toss a bunch of them into a bag without velcro/lace tying each one, you get a mess. If the person unspooling doesn't do it right, you get a mess.

 

I use possibly the worst method... I wrap them around my forearm, and at the end, I take the last foot or so and tight-wrap it around the center, tucking the last end into the wrapped bunch so they don't come apart and tangle in the bag. It's SO wrong. But if it means we have a few more cable failures over the course of a decade, so be it. We always have spares. I've always suspected the occasional cable failure is much more about having used cheap cable to begin with than from wrapping abuse anyway. I can't prove that, but the clearly "better" cables very rarely seem to fail despite our abuse. It's almost always some cable that was a cheapy to begin with.

[Joe Muscara]

Over/under. I even use it for stuff around the house, like long extension cords and now, our new very flexible garden hose. Admittedly, it's not perfect for that but I think the hose is so flexible it's easy to kink anyway so I have to be aware of that in any case.

[Threadslayer]

OK. I watched the video from 4:30 on so I may have missed something, but who cares about the frequency response when the cable is unplugged - albeit lovingly wrapped - in the van?

[Dr Mike Metlay]

For audio cables, MIDI cables, and USB cables: Over/under, taught very handily in a one-page article in KEYBOARD many years ago, with photos using sheets of white paper inserted into the coils to highlight how the technique worked.

 

Mike Rivers (or was it Paul J. Stamler?) did an article in RECORDING that covered this, and the author noted that the "uncoil it wrong and lookit all the knots" method was actually used deliberately by firefighters in emergencies, turning any rope into a ladder.

[Threadslayer]

the "uncoil it wrong and lookit all the knots" method was actually used deliberately by firefighters in emergencies, turning any rope into a ladder.

That's interesting. It would be a bummer if you intended to do it wrong but ended up doing it right out of habit.

[MathOfInsects]

OK, here: easiest way to do in/out is just alternate which direction you face your hand when you're adding more cable to the loop. That way it doesn't take any longer than winding it just one way, and unwinding is instant. Dog chew toy is optional.

 

[video:youtube]

[Josh Paxton]

As for over-under... I know it's "right," I know it helps the cable last longer. I hate it. It takes longer to wrap, and longer again to velcro/lace.

 

While this is true, there's also the factor of the time it saves you in the long run by not having to get the kinks out of messy cables. For me it ends up being a net timesaver. YMMV, of course.

[cphollis]

I'm familiar with the over/under method, but I needed something simpler for all of my "helpers" at gigs.

 

A sound tech showed me how to "fold" cables. Put both connectors in one hand. Find the halfway point with your other hand. Now put the halfway point in the same hand as the connectors, and find the new halfway point. Continue until the cable is a few feet long, then tie in a loose overhand knot. Throw in bin, and move on.

 

When it's time to unwrap, simply loosen the overhand knot and the cable lies flat - because it was "folded" flat.

 

Now before the purists start lecturing me on weakening cables, let me say that it works well and I don't have a problem with cables going bad.

[Josh Paxton]

A sound tech showed me how to "fold" cables.

 

I sometimes use this one too, depending on the cable. But rather than tying the cable into a knot, I go for wrapping a cable tie around the whole thing. Yes, that involves the extra effort of putting a cable tie on it in the first place, but for years it has been my habit to put one on literally every cable I buy as soon as I get it home. That habit has made my life significantly more enjoyable.

[RudyS]

Although that Dave Rat video was not really applicable, I enjoyed it none the less!

 

Video of Josh is how I do it (On most gigs, not the festivals where we should be off 5 minutes ago and angry stage managers are shouting:P)