Microphone Cable Question

[xaphan]

hey, i usually reside ni the guitarist forums but mi venturing out today :D

ive played about 50 gigs now in total ignorance of the technical side since all i did was just arrive and play cuz it was all set up.
Now i have to set up one myself (or front it all anyway...) and it has to be good quality too...no dingy bar stuff.

basically i need to know what the maximum recommended length for mic cable is. We need to run the cables from the drum, amp and vocal mic's off the stage, up and along a gantry to a front of house PA system in order to have full control over the nights sound.
For this we'd need rather long leads, how long can these leads be before we begin to lose signal quality and introduce too much noise?

I figured that the output from things such as vocal mics would be pretty low power, so i may have problems with longer distances.....

sorry for the epic post-length, i like to be concise :D

[KKKKKocaine]

hey, i usually reside ni the guitarist forums but mi venturing out today :D

ive played about 50 gigs now in total ignorance of the technical side since all i did was just arrive and play cuz it was all set up.
Now i have to set up one myself (or front it all anyway...) and it has to be good quality too...no dingy bar stuff.

basically i need to know what the maximum recommended length for mic cable is. We need to run the cables from the drum, amp and vocal mic's off the stage, up and along a gantry to a front of house PA system in order to have full control over the nights sound.
For this we'd need rather long leads, how long can these leads be before we begin to lose signal quality and introduce too much noise?

I figured that the output from things such as vocal mics would be pretty low power, so i may have problems with longer distances.....

sorry for the epic post-length, i like to be concise :D

20-30m Prehaps? XLR cables (the three pin cables) suffer little signal quality loss across distances so you should be ok with XLR's, it's 1/4 jack cables that tend to suffer more quality degredation across distances.

[Aes820]

You'll be needing a stage snake:
http://www.musiciansfriend.com/srs7/g=live/s=cables/search?c=6371
They are available in many lengths.

I've got a 200 foot one, but wouldn't really want it any longer than that. Not becasue I am concerned about signal loss, more so that I am concerned about how it is a pain in the arse to roll up and move around.

I wouldn't be too concerned over signal loss due to long mic cable runs. The input stages on the Mixer would be able to negate any loss in an instant.
It is long speaker cable runs where you'll have to worry about signal loss.

Use the Stage Snakes XLR connections to run your Mics from the stage up to the Mixer desk. And then from the outputs of the desk back through the Stage Snake and then to the poweramps up near the stage.

If the impedence of a Microphone is about 500 ohms or so. A stage snake cable would have only about 1 ohm in every 150 feet (common for #18 guage wiring). Your signal loss will be neglible.

It is the speaker cable runs that you'd want to keep as short as possible. Position the poweramps near the stage area and run the speaker cables directally to the speakers from there. Even an extra 1 ohm on a 4 ohm speaker load could reduce your ampliferes effiency by 20%

[moaner]

remember, you can attach XLR leads together to make one longer lead.

[The Hawk]

I would be more concerned about the proximity of power cables/supplies to your XLR cables than about the distance. Power cables interfere more with mic/line cables.
Always a good idea to keep them a foot away and not cross over them, whenever possible.