Apollo Studio Cabling (Part 6)

I'm very busy at the moment connecting all the analog audio in the studio. For that I'm doing lots of soldering at the moment. On one side I'm making existing cables to the correct length. That means cutting the cable en resoldering the plug. Of course I can only shorten cables this way ;) The other thing I'm doing is soldering a lot of new cables. It is funny how you always end up with cables in two lengths: Too long and too short :) Ah well I don't mind soldering at all. I think it is nice work that I can relax too. I have doing this while listening to some old Vangelis and Jarre albums and that was quite OK :)

Here you see my stack of connectors that I use. Mainly XLR and Jack plugs. I always use the same brand by the way. It is called Neutrik and they are very high quality. The big advantage is that the part that holds the metal pins is made of Teflon and not regular plastic. That means that it doesn't melt on you when you make it hot. And with the new silver containing solder the temperature has gone up. I'm soldering at the moment at 350 degrees Celsius and most plastic is long gone by then.

And here is the result of a few hours of soldering. These are 32 cables with a male stereo jack on one end and an female XLR connector on the other end. I use them to connect the balanced outputs of my DI boxes to the patch panels I have on the patch islands in the studio. In total I need 64 of those cables so here I was halfway. I'm done by now by the way. And if you are wondering why I make these cables myself: Well to start with it is cheaper than to buy quality pre-made cables. Secondly they are exactly in the right length. This saves a lot of mess and space. And st last I just like doing it myself. And next is installing these cables in the patch islands. To be continued...