Hi all - I bought a one of those sssnake multicores from Thomann around 11 months ago and despite it being cased and only used for around 15 gigs, it looks like 4 channels are already looking dodgy! Can anyone recommend a good supplier for a replacement? It's a 16/4 30 metre one.

Hi, might I suggest re soldering before repurchase? Cheaper anyways! ...but if not here do cheap and pretty well made. Dave

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My head hurts!

I've got two of those snakes.

I've found that after a while, the soldering at the XLR connector on the fantails can fail. Dry joints or simply not enough solder in the first place, they just fail. After working around the problem channels for a while, I decided to give them a service. On both, over half of the joints on the XLR connectors were showing signs of fraying and either had failed and were held in place by simple friction and luck, or were about to fail.
A couple of hours with a soldering iron sorted things out and they are both now as good as new.
I'd recommend you do the same.

Failing that, if they're only 11 months old, they'll still be covered under warranty (36 months with Thomman). Contact Thomann and see what they say.

They only real issue I have with those snakes is every time I have to squeeze them back into the carry bags that Thomman issued with them. It's almost impossible to do. Every time I have to coil one back up I find myself wishing I'd spent a bit more for a snake on a drum...

Stu.

Quote mpostor:

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Every time I have to coil one back up I find myself wishing I'd spent a bit more for a snake on a drum...

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+1 on that!

I've made things easier for myself by coiling my 30m snake in 10m sections, where each 10m section has its own pair of ties to hold the coil together. If I don't need all the snake, I don't need to uncoil it all, so that can save time. And if I need to run the snake around or behind things, I can simply pass a coiled 10m chunk through and uncoil it at the other side, instead of passing an end around the obstacle and then wrestling metres of snake through.

Coiling it back up is still not fun though.

A cable drum is the ideal means of storing a long multicore cable, but it's also heavy, bulky and expensive.

I have a 50m x 16 way, two 25m x 8 ways and one 12m x 12 way, and they each live in their own clear Really Useful box from Staples. I think I used the 145 and 70 litre variants, and the boxes stack neatly for storage and are easy to carry.

All I do is loosely fold the cable into the box, leaving a couple of metres of the FOH end out to start with. I don't try to 'coil' the cable into the box, I just 'fold' the cable loosely in on top of itself, which avoids any twists or tangles.

It's quick and easy to do, and even 'helpful novices' seem able to do it with minimal instruction, which is more than can be said if you've ever tried to get someone to figure-eight a heavy multicore, or even wind it neatly on a drum.

When all the cable is in the box I simply lie the FOH end over the top and plug all the connectors into their corresponding stage ends. Good quality XLRs will form airtight seals when connected and so leaving them plugged together minimises the risk of corrosion while in storage.

The clear case, with the connectors all visible on the top makes it easy to indentify which cable it is while its stored on a rack in the garage or wherever, and to provide access for quickly running a cable checker through it before a gig.

To use, you simply unplug the connectors and walk off with the stage end. The cable comes out of the box easily without tangles, and any surplus is left neatly in the box.

Since the FOH desk end extends from the bottom of the cable pile in the box, if you've left enough cable there it should reach the desk and plug straight in!

Works for me, anyway!

Hugh


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Technical Editor, Sound On Sound

Great tips - thanks! The attraction of the multi was simply the price (around £160 as I recall with case) but good idea to check out the soldering. The warranty was the insurance against failure but it's hassle and we have gigs coming up!
Paul

Rubber buckets!

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Ohm's Law states, "Your PA isn't as powerful as you think it is".

As usual, Hugh has a great solution for snakes - Cable drums are a pain in the rectal department and I reckon even my lovely girls who assist me with live sound could handle Hugh's storage method. Still, I have drum snakes and as the sockets are built into the drum I guess I'll have to carry on with them for now. What I would say, though, is that if you can't solder you're making yourself a hostage to fortune where snakes are concerned. A single XLR that fails is a one-off, but failure of any part of a snake always seems to be the start of more trouble. And, as you've realised, the warranty isn't the slightest use if you need the snake for gigs. However, once you can solder anything can be fixed or plugs and sockets upgraded when required.