Multicore cable

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A multicore cable or snake (in the audio recording and entertainment fields) is a compact cable, typically about the diameter of a coin, which contains typically 4-42 individual shielded pair microphone cables all housed by one common outer rubber jacket. The inner microphone cables are each a pair of insulated, twisted-pair, multi-strand wires, surrounded by shielding made of foil or tightly-braided wire mesh. Different Cable manufacturers use different methods of identification for the shielded pairs of cable. Belden have a sequenced color code for the conductors in their products of up to 56 pair cables, each pair is covered with their patended Belfoil shield, that is only conductive on the inner surface. Canare, Mogami, and GEPCO mark numbers on the PVC insulation of the individual pairs.

The multicore cable runs from the stage box or Microphone Splitter and then to the Front of House sound desk or mixing console.

While the sound reinforcement industry generally uses proprietary multicores depending on the application, the television industry has standardized on a 12-channel snake with a common 36-pin connector on each end known as DT-12. DT-12 snakes are commonly built into sports venues and run from where the TV truck is parked to areas such as the press box or playing field where audio is required by the TV production. The truck can then simply run a DT-12 patch snake between the truck and the house cabling, with actual XLR connectors then only being required at the very end of the snake in order to plug in microphones.

[edit] Digital Multicores

State of the art systems can now use digital multicore systems whereby the audio signal is encoded to digital using Analog-to-digital converters, the channels are bundled togther to be transported on a single wire to a destination then re-converted back to analog using D-to-As. Such systems are branded under names such CobraNet or EtherSound (respectively manufactured by Peak Technologies and Digigram) and licenced to many companies. Sometimes all that is run to the mix positions is control and all audio processing occurs in the Mix Box, or Stage Box.