In the VO Studio: Wiring Things Up – Tuesday Tech Tip

It’s easy to overlook how devices in our studios are connected. Audio issues can arise by neglecting effective cable and cord routing. When constructing our home voiceover recording setup, the microphone-to-interface-to-computer connection should be considered. Both the XLR cables from our microphones and power cords from our electrical outlets carry analog signals. Those analog voltages create an electrical field which can interact with one another. Since the electrical cords carry much higher voltages than our audio cables, any interference tends to be heard in our audio recordings, typically as a buzz or hum.

The resultant low-level buzz or electrical hum can be a tough audio problem to track down. In addition to electrical cords, other interference sources can include lighting, thermostats, and motors. Each of those can produce electrical fields which can impact the electronics in our microphones or the signal as it passes through cables. Depending upon your living situation, these can even come from devices nearby. It’s worth laying out your microphone cable along the route it will travel and testing before you commit to a certain recording position in your space. 

Testing can be as simple as connecting your microphone to your computer and listening for buzzing or hums in the resultant recordings. A spectral tool, as found in Izotope RX or Adobe Audition, can be extremely helpful at this point, easily showing interferences at specific frequencies. Lacking those tools, you can download the Frequency Analysis Tool from Blue Cat Audio and use it to check your room tone for interference spikes. Sometimes simply running audio cables against a different wall can make a significant difference. 

Two key guidelines for routing audio cables:

• Physically separate audio cables from electrical cords
• Avoid electrically “noisy” devices like AC adapters, motors, and power strips

A simple way to achieve this is to route all your power cables to one side and all of your audio cables to the other. “Never the twain shall meet…” is a good plan. If you do need to cross one over the other, it’s best to do so at a 90 degree angle. That limits the amount of interference which can occur. If you are unable to split power and audio cables to separate locations, at least separate them by several feet. In my studio for example, even though they are on the same wall, the power into the booth is at floor level, and I’ve added cable “raceways” at mid-wall height to separate the XLR and headphone cables.

How Good Do Your Audio Cables Have To Be?

It’s also easy to get overwhelmed by connector-y bits marketing glitz. You don’t to spend an excessive amount of money to get usable sound. This is a place where “good enough” will last a long time.

In commercial recording studios, microphones and cables are regularly being pulled apart and slapped back together. In our VO studios we tend to plug things in once and then leave everything intact. As long as the cables aren’t stressed at the connectors, not all that much can go wrong with them. In our home voiceover studios, a cable is more likely to corrode and age out than anything else. If budget is a concern, “decent” quality cables with good connectors should be fine. 

Which XLR Cables Should You Buy?

The cheapest XLR cables tend to have poor quality connectors and wire, and often are built to low spec. Bad welds, no welds and poor shielding will cause all manner of problems, so it’s best to spend a bit more money for mid-priced products. I’ve had consistently good results with the ProCo “house brand” cables from Sweetwater, and the Monoprice XLR cables have held up well. Going upmarket, Mogami Gold is a premium brand touted to have measurable effects upon quality. I’ve been very happy with the quality of the WBC cables which use the Mogami wire and Neutrik connectors. There’s nothing wrong with spending a bit more to make sure the cable isn’t a weak spot in your setup. 

There are some boutique companies charging exorbitant amounts for proprietary wire designs that verge into the audiophile realm. While I’m open to being convinced of their superior performance, I’ve yet to hear it demonstrated in a way that can be repeated outside of a company’s product demo.

One Last Tip: Don’t Skimp on Length!

Do yourself a final favor and add a bit of extra length to your cable when you purchase it. There’s nothing like shifting equipment around for a better layout and suddenly realizing you are a foot short. I’ll typically add on 5-10 feet to my main mic cable. There’s no downside with running it a bit longer, and you can just coil up any excess.

Digital Cables Are Different

Digital cables are a bit different as they are delivering data down the wires. USB, Lightning, HDMI, and Network (Cat5,Cat6, etc.) should not be prone to interference in the same way as an XLR cable might. In fact, other than build quality, there’s no functional difference between digital cables which are built to spec. That means that a boutique HDMI cable with gold connectors will not function any better than the cheaper alternative. 

Where you can get into trouble with digital cables is with length. Depending on the data transfer protocol, the distance of the signal path matters. With digital connections, generally the shorter the better. USB 2.0 has a maximum cable spec of just under 16 feet and some of the newer, higher speed device protocols are shorter. You can sometimes use an “active” USB cord to run a digital connection over an increased distance. But that does not always work. 

Studio Rules to Live By:

A good rule of thumb is “Long XLR / Short USB”. That keeps the data path short and tends to prevent glitching and dropouts in your recording. 

“Know Your Cables!” – A quick guide to identify different audio cable connectors

When it comes to audio cables, there are a few acronyms which get tossed around a lot. Below you will find examples of XLR (X-Type, Locking, Ring), TS (Tip-Sleeve), TRS (Tip-Ring-Sleeve), and TRRS (Tip-Ring-Ring-Sleeve) connectors. XLR and TRS cables are used to connect “balanced” audio sources or stereo signals. TRRS is commonly used to connect both input and output sources – like earbuds with a microphone. TS can connect unbalanced devices, and is often encountered with cords for electric instruments. 

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