Studio Diary #9: The Cost Of Cables Really Adds Up

I’m currently getting my home studio more organised, and along the way I’m sharing my thought process, decisions, discoveries and regrets.

One of the things I didn’t budget enough for is cables.

A big reason for the studio revamp is to have (almost) everything cabled up all the time. I won’t have to unplug stuff and swap cables around any more. And (I hope) I won’t have gear gathering dust because it isn’t cabled up at all.

That means adding cables – a lot more cables.

According to my preliminary plan, I’m going to have 11 jacks free on my main patchbay when I’m done. It’s a 48-port patchbay. That’s 37 TRS cables that I need to make or buy.

Thankfully, I don’t have quite so many XLR ports to manage. The Kemper has 1 XLR input and a couple of outputs. The dbx vocal compressor has 1 input and 1 output I think? (It hasn’t had enough love since I got it). And we’ll use at least 3 XLR preamps when we’re rehearsing.

Thunderbolt 3 cables deserve their own special mention, in more ways than one.

When you throw in speaker cables and IEC power cables too, it all adds up. And this is just for a home setup. It’s nothing like what you’d find in even the smallest professional studio!

I’ve probably spent the best part of £500 on cables alone (so far!) during this studio revamp. Ouch! You can buy a decent valve amp for that kind of money.

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