Installs Help with Monitor Send Setup

Dejoux

Member
Hello everyone!

Ive got a show coming up in May and there's a lot of things i need to do for it. In this show, we usually have one to two bands come in and play. Like most setups for bands, the drums are upstage. My problem is that all of my speakon ports for my monitors are all downstage. In the past, we've run a long speakon cable from downstage to upstage for the drummers monitor. Id like to look into moving one of the ports, or making a new one on our back wall, so i can just run the cable from there into the monitor. I do have experience working in our sound rack and i know where all of the monitor sends are located within it. any help, information or suggestions for this project will be Greatly Appreciated!!!

Thanks.
 
My suggestions is run your cable like you always have.

You are looking at a lot of trouble if you try to do electrical work at your school. In a high school everything would have to be done by the proper contractor.
 
Well the lat time our district hired a "professional" to do something for us, the ports he put in we're low quality and faulty, so I ended up redoing them. So from then on, if we needed a line run or a port fixed, we pretty much did it ourselves. I'm good at soldering, ive got a decent knowledge of electricity, so doing another port wouldn't be too much of a challenge. I'm just looking for some tips on how to go about it.
 
Well the lat time our district hired a "professional" to do something for us, the ports he put in we're low quality and faulty, so I ended up redoing them. So from then on, if we needed a line run or a port fixed, we pretty much did it ourselves. I'm good at soldering, ive got a decent knowledge of electricity, so doing another port wouldn't be too much of a challenge. I'm just looking for some tips on how to go about it.
It may not be an issue for this type of work (it could, that would depend on the specifics of the situation and the local requirements), but the point is really not about your ability as much as it possibly needing to be a licensed professional with a registered business that also has proper insurance, bonding and so on. Many building codes give great leeway to 'property owners' performing work on their own property but when it comes to commercial and public facilities it may by ordinance or the owner's own practices be different.

What "ports" are you referencing? That terminology is widely used in the voice/data and the IT world but not to audio connections. If you are wanting to relocate or add another speaker connection that may be quite simple. However, there could also be a few things that might make it more complicated. One of those is how you would get the cable from either the rack or an existing connection to the new location. And whether that might require or justify conduit, plenum cable and so on.

Relocating one of the connections may simply be a matter of just adding a new box, addressing the path an cable from the existing box to the new one and reinstalling the plate and connector in the new location. That assumes the connector is on its own plate or you will also have to deal with a new plate and the existing connector. Adding a new connection would likely be possible but gets into where that signal comes from, is it a dedicated feed from some unused amp channel or paralleled off the existing connection? And if the latter, is that connection already in parallel with others, might there be connected to more than one of the outputs and so on?
 
The ports I'm referring to are primarily xlr. We do a lot of repair on existing ports as well as installing our own. Like when we needed to "move" some of the ports for drums, we put up a new box with ports, ran a line under the stage to the port we wanted to "move" and put an end on it to plug in. We have access to beneath our stage so running a line isn't necessarily the difficult part. As far as if it's in parallel, I'm not sure. For the particular send that I'd like to move, there are 2 places to plug into it on our stage. For all the others, there is only 1. So if it's a matter of moving one of them, I don't think the amp will have a problem. Itd still be handling the same number of ports.

I did have a new though though. Install a speakon port on our backwall, take a cord we have and take the end off and wire it to the port. Then run it under the stage to the existing port, and whenever I need the port moved, I can just plug it in.
 
If you are determined to do work yourself you need to use the proper cables and equipment.

If you have paralleled connectors on a circuit (whatever it be) then make sure they are labeled as such. With audio signals you don't run into too many problems. WIth power (amps or electrical) you can do a lot of damage, or trip breakers.
 
I did have a new though though. Install a speakon port on our backwall, take a cord we have and take the end off and wire it to the port. Then run it under the stage to the existing port, and whenever I need the port moved, I can just plug it in.

So, like a semi-permanent extension cable? I don't see why it wouldn't work. You might want to put a note near the port so that anyone wanting to use it knows that it has to be plugged in first.
 
I'll be working monitors for this show so I'll know to plug it in. And yeah we're rather OCD about our labels. We did this for some xlr ports because we got a 7piece audix drum mic kit last year so we needed more ports on the back wall.
 
I personally don't mind cables strewn about. A lot of the time when I do gigs with some local bands, there's cables everywhere!! But for this show, we've got large, heavy platforms going in and out, and I can't risk losing a monitor in the middle of a show. Plus we don't have a stage box. We looked into one when we did our monitor renovation 2 years ago, but it wasn't in the budget.
 
I see some comments that could be of some concern. One is about running the cable under the stage. Are you sure that is not a plenum space? The space under the stage or through the pit is often used as part of the return air path and if so it may be considered a plenum space. That would in turn mean that all cable run in that area needs to be in conduit or plenum rated. Which could mean having to tear out anything not done properly. You may very well be just fine but details like installing everything per code are important and not doing so can cause problems in the future.

Another regards the comments about having made a number of changes and your apparently not knowing how the speaker connection you are talking about using or relocating is wired. Do you have any system documentation and if so, are you documenting any changes you make? If you don't have documentation or don't document any changes then you are greatly increasing the chances of having problems and making things more difficult for you and those who follow. If you can't readily tell where a connection goes or if it is in parallel with another connection or not then you probably want to try to address that before making any changes.

I bring these up because the reality is that no one can offer good input without having the associated information. The idea of cutting off a cable and running it under the stage to 'plug in' the wall connection may be just fine, but it could also be illegal if the cable would need to be plenum cable or on conduit and it was not.
 
You come to us asking some very basic questions. When you are told to be careful about it you act like you are very experienced and know what you are doing. This is very contradictory so please understand our skepticism. I would think for two shows a year just run some cabling. But if you want to do it and are so experienced at it (as you have stated) then go for it. What's the question again?
 

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