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Wiring: Recorder to Boom to Microphone


redge

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Consumer choice is a wonderful thing, but it sure can complicate life...

I'll be using a Tascam HD-P2 portable recorder carried on the body, a K-Tek boom pole and a Schoeps CMC541 mic (and maybe a rented CMIT 5U) for documentary work.

I'll be choosing one of two poles in terms of maximum length, the 9' graphite K-102 or aluminum K-110 or, less likely, the 12' graphite K-152.

Originally, I figured that I would run a single Canare Star Quad cable (6mm L-4E6S or 4.8mm L-4E5C) from the recorder through the pole, or wrapped around its side, to the mic.  Jay Rose, in one of his books, says that wiring externally is common on the US East Coast and that internal wiring is common on the West Coast.

Now I discover that K-Tek sells pre-wired poles, using internal coiled or straight wire, for a premium, list, of up to about $150.

K-Tek also offers a choice of connections to the cable to the recorder:  a connection at the base or a connection at the side just above the base.

Does anyone have views on external vs. internal wiring, or straight vs. coiled wiring, or base connection vs. side connection, or is this six of one, half a dozen of the other?

Are there good reasons to buy a pre-wired pole rather than just running some Star Quad cable from the recorder either to a connection at the base or side of the pole or all the way to the mic? Is a connection at the pole just one more thing that can go wrong?

Is it true that boom poles originally consisted of a length of bamboo?

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Most doco sound people use the shorter poles these days, internally wired, and usually with an XLR connector built into the "butt' of the pole or somewhere @ the back end.  This is often connected to the mixer via a shortish coiled

cable with a right-angle XLR @ the boom (female) end.  This keeps things relatively tidy while moving around and changing the length of the pole.

Philip Perkins

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It is true that running cable externally for the fishpole, wrapped around the outside of the pole and then connecting to the mic, is a practice that is almost exclusive to the East Coast inb the US (and probably various countries elsewhere but I couldn't say which). On the West Coast, almost all fishpoles use internal cabling. From my perpsective, I see almost no benefit to the cable being outside the pole but I have heard all the arguments pro and con. I will not evaluate personally because I have had ZERO experience myself with external wiring, so anything I say would be academic discussion anyway. As for the question of HOW to have the internal cabling done, here is my opinion. I have always done the cables myself, running high quality shielded cable through the pole, putting a female XLR connector with enough tail at the mic end of the pole to connect the microphone, and then running enough cable out the bottom of the pole to allow for extension, and fitting that end with a male XLR. The other important thing I do is to SHOCKMOUNT the internal cable in the first section of the pole to minimize cable slap within. There are many ways to do this and I have used them all. Lastly, when I went with a fishpole design that used a fixed connector at the mic end (the original lightweight pole designed by the late Les Drever) there was no pigtail sticking out of the pole and a short jumper was used to get from this connector fixed on the pole to the mic. Now, all of my poles use a quick release connector designed and built by Gary Woods (a working sound mixer who longer manufactures the device) which is fixed at the mic end.

Using an internal cable system purchased and installed by the manufacturer is probably a good idea, particularly if you are not so handy doing these things yourself. The use of a coiled cable internally has been debated extensively but I would suggest thast if this is the route you take, having the manufacturer do it is the way to go.

For the connection of the mic - through the pole - to the mixer (or recorder), is using an internal coiled cable, a short jumper (same high quality mic cable) will be needed to connect to the input. If using an internal non-coiled cable, there should be enough excess, even with the pole extended, to connect directly.

Hope this helps.

Regards,  Jeff Wexler

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Guest repete86

I use external wiring, but it's because I can't afford a proper pole with an internally coiled cable.  I don't know of any advantages this may yield.  The boom op always needs to hold the cable or else it will come loose and bang against the pole, and it always unwraps whenever the pole is put down, so it needs to be wired again.  Getting this setup replaced is pretty high on my to-do list.

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Jeff--what do you use for the internal shock mounting of the cable?  One of my poles has some softish rubber doughnuts around the cable, but I haven't been able to find them at hardware stores etc..

Philip Perkins

One of the first fishpoles I ever did used "softish rubber doughnuts" that I cut from 1/2" thick sheets of rubber (I think neoprene) with the cable passing through the hole and secured with nylon cable ties on either side. When the cable is fed through (remembering that you can only shockmount the first section because the others need to collapse into eachother) the outside edge of the doughnut pushes against the inside walls of the tube thereby suspending the cable in the middle. Later I discovered that much the same benefit can be had by using sticky back foam weatherstripping (available at any hardware store) spiral wound around the cable (sticky side in) so that the foam strip itself encases the cable. This has worked very well and is fairly easy to accomplish.

Regards,  Jeff Wexler

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One of the first fishpoles I ever did used "softish rubber doughnuts" that I cut from 1/2" thick sheets of rubber (I think neoprene) with the cable passing through the hole and secured with nylon cable ties on either side. When the cable is fed through (remembering that you can only shockmount the first section because the others need to collapse into eachother) the outside edge of the doughnut pushes against the inside walls of the tube thereby suspending the cable in the middle. Later I discovered that much the same benefit can be had by using sticky back foam weatherstripping (available at any hardware store) spiral wound around the cable (sticky side in) so that the foam strip itself encases the cable. This has worked very well and is fairly easy to accomplish.

Regards,  Jeff Wexler

Cool, thanks.

Philip Perkins

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One other thing you asked was for the connector on the bottom of the pole to be on the side or the bottom -- I have two poles, a shorter one and longer one (both K-Tek internally wired).  On the shorter one, the connector is on the bottom, on the longer, it is on the side.  I prefer the side, personally, since I rest the pole on the toe of my shoe rather than the ground when holding it upright between takes (also helps keep it less dusty when booming in dirt --and this is what I train all of my boom ops to do).  Can't really do this with the connector on the end (at least until I get a right angle female connector for the end of my boom cable, though I still probably won't do this because I don't want to keep banging the connector like that.)

Anyway, just my preference.  I'm sure others have theirs.  As far as the internal cable noise goes, as long as the boom movements are fairly smooth (i.e. not real jerky) there isn't any problem. 

Phil

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I'll put up my hand as a boomie who externally wraps the cable around the pole. I work on the East coast (of australia :)

yes you need to re-set cable when making the pole longer or shorter, and can't do it silently during the shot. but I'm happy with the limitations. advantages - when wrapped "correctly" (tightly) it is impossible to get cable slap when moving the boom, no matter how fast/violent it gets.

having said that; I can definately see the advantage of an internally wired pole for really fast-paced doco-style one-man mix/boom scenarios.

I recommend whatever you can be comfortable with; and whatever you need to get the job done.

personally, I hadn't heard about the Bamboo boompole, it would be interesting to find out though.

cheers,

Ian

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I've internally cabled all 5 of my poles with straight cable. I use Canare L 2E5 a very thin 1 pair + shield.

The head end is tied off with 12" for mic connection, the total length is the max pole length plus 5 ft extra. So for a 16ft pole it would be 21ft of cable. All the cables exit from the pole base. I've added a 3/4" long leg on the bottom for the pole to rest when needed to protect the cable.

Eric

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  • 15 years later...

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