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Should I remove the cables from my rack-mount boxes, or leave them plugged in 24x7 ? I have a presonus firepod, helicon voiceworks, Roland GI-20, and Boss VF-1.
Will plugging my mic and 1/4" cables in an out every day reduce the life of the jacks ?
How about the 13 pin and 5 pin midi cables ?
My desk actually looks nicer when I unplug everything, but I imagine it would be a pain (at least for me) to replace the input/output jacks if they go.
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Quote:
Should I remove the cables from my rack-mount boxes, or leave them plugged in 24x7 ? I have a presonus firepod, helicon voiceworks, Roland GI-20, and Boss VF-1.
Will plugging my mic and 1/4" cables in an out every day reduce the life of the jacks ?
How about the 13 pin and 5 pin midi cables ?
A lot of home recordists find that use of a small mixer designed for recording eliminates all the cabling hassles by keeping your basic setup and cabling "normalized" at all times, requiring only bringing up of one fader and turning down another to switch or mix inputs from the various devices.
And, yes, constant plugging and unplugging can cause wear and tear on jacks, I have replaced broken jacks on a regular basis at the electronics repair facility where I try to keep my hand in as a repair tech on a part time basis. Perhaps many more jacks get damaged by people using adaptors in a wrong fashion. For example, using a barrel adaptor that converts 1/4" to 1/8" mini jack or RCA, but using the barrel type that puts a good deal of strain right on the jack rather than spending a little more on an adaptor that has a length of cable attached such that there is only the type of plug needed being supported by the jack. Then there are all those repairs where someone tripped over a hanging cable and the jack gets damaged.
Use of mixer in the home studio, all wired up and labeled, with the cabling neatly arranged or even tied back or to each other, is not only a good idea as far as protecting the equipments you have from problems such as these, it is simply a much faster method of workflow when working with your DAW.
Quote:
My desk actually looks nicer when I unplug everything, but I imagine it would be a pain (at least for me) to replace the input/output jacks if they go.
There are available hook and loop cable ties, great for organizing wires and cables by bundling them and these can also be used to tie a cable bundle to a workstation table leg, or in case of a flat surface, combined with those peel and stick nylon cable tie supports.
When the sheer amount of extraneous audio devices may begin to be more than your available number of mixer inputs, it is not always necessary to go to a larger capacity mixer in the home studio. Consider the addition of a Patch Bay or two, one on inputs and one on outputs, these provide a "normalized" signal flow that can be easily interrupted with a 1/4" plug into the right jack. Use the particular goodie on another goodie's channel and when done, merely rempoving the plug returns that channel to its original duty. The Home Recordist qworking by themselves or maybe calling in one other musician at a time has no real need for a huge 24 or 32 channel mixing board since there is not likely to be a scenario where there will be more than a couple or three inputs being used at the same time anyway. A small home recording mixer such as made b Behringer or any number of other companies, is inexpensive and typically also contains at least two channels with Mic Preamps and Phantom Power as well as several Line Inputs for the shelf of goodies. These can also be extended for more normalized goodies with a small Line Mixer to branch out one of the Line Inputs on your main mixer if desired. Most of those kinds of goodies will not benefit from having EQ section anyway, you'd likely just leave any EQ (tone) controls set to 12 o'clock, the "FLAT" setting. The Line Mixer is simple, has only faders for the number of Inputs it has, plus a Master at the end.
--Mac
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I leave my cables alone, often for many years. When I replace equipment, however, I use that as an opportunity to spray all plugs with contact cleaner.
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Since you have a firepod, there's no need for a mixer, IMO you have plenty of I/O in the firepod to leave connections permanently attached and you simply select which Input channels you want 'live' in your recording software. If you want to cut down on potential wear and tear on the combo XLR/quarter inch inputs, simply patch them to a patch bay and use the patch bay for the connect/disconnect. There's really no reason to put the mixer in play - and it will add in a small amount of noise into the signal chain.
As Mac does suggest, the patch bay can be useful.
Here's the deal however - A used Firepod can be purchased for roughly $200. Instead of worrying yourself about plugging in wearing out the inputs and going through the hassle of the patch bay, just buy another Firepod for backup in case the inputs wear out (which they likely won't).
You are going to spend at least $200 for all of the patch XLR cables and the patch bay itself.
As for your 3 external hardware boxes:
You can still 'permanently' route the output of the Boss into a pair of inputs on the Firepod. If it were me, I would use the Boss as a 're-amp' kind of a setup, where you can plug your guitar into one of the instrument inputs on the Firepod, record it clean, and send a pair of the Firepod outs, to ins of the Boss, and then back into a different pair of the Firepod inputs. If I'm not mistaken, you can direct monitor the Firepod inputs, on some of the Firepod outputs - these would be the outputs I would route to the Boss.
Same goes for the Helicon.
Same goes for the GI-20, except if you are using MIDI, you can route the GI-20 Midi Outs permanently into the PreSonus MIDI in, then take the GI-20 audio outs and 'permanently' plug them into inputs on the Firepod.
I see no need for a mixer or patchbay in your case, but racking all of it up in a simple rack would be useful for you likely and keep the cleanest signal path for all of it.
Worrying about wearing out the inputs on a sub $200 device seems unnecessary.
I plugged in/out of my Presonus Firebox countless times and never had an issue with it.
-Scott
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Citaat:
I leave my cables alone, often for many years. When I replace equipment, however, I use that as an opportunity to spray all plugs with contact cleaner.
I NEVER use contact spray just as is.
Should you encounter dirty contacts or faders or whatever: clean it with a cloth. Yes, you can use contact spray to dissolve dirt and grease, but always clean afterward with a cloth. If you don't, dirt may stay behind and pile up. You also leave a lot of moist (contact spray) on your contacts. This will draw and hold extra dirt. So while cleaning and drying with a cloth may seem a lot of work, it will keep your gear in a better condition in the long run.
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OT: Is there a way to tidy up your cables by tying them together and routing them under your desk? You could use Velcro as a cheap and simple way to do this. For your gear it would be better to just let the cables plugged in. You could use a safety switch to power on/of the outlets you have your gear connected to. Just never use this switch to switch on all your gear; this should be done with the power switches of the gear.
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]quote]Just never use this switch to switch on all your gear; this should be done with the power switches of the gear.
I sometimes do this for convenience. I thought because all the gear was plugged into a surge suppressor, I would be avoiding the transients that could ruing it all - but maybe not ? Uh-oh...I better stop that. I don't know why some (not all) vendors put those power switches on the back or sides at inconvenient spots.
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Quote:
Quote:
I leave my cables alone, often for many years. When I replace equipment, however, I use that as an opportunity to spray all plugs with contact cleaner.
I NEVER use contact spray just as is.
Should you encounter dirty contacts or faders or whatever: clean it with a cloth. Yes, you can use contact spray to dissolve dirt and grease, but always clean afterward with a cloth. If you don't, dirt may stay behind and pile up. You also leave a lot of moist (contact spray) on your contacts. This will draw and hold extra dirt. So while cleaning and drying with a cloth may seem a lot of work, it will keep your gear in a better condition in the long run.
Oh yes, that's part of the process.
BIAB 2026 Win Audiophile. Software: Fender Studio One 8, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Fender Quantom HD8 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
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I foresee no problems with turning all gear off and on using a master switch such as found on plug strips.
But what do I know, all I am is an Electronics Design Engineer and part time factory service technician for audio gear who turns his home studio on and off with one switch.
Matter of fact, my audio test bench, with all that expensive and calibrated test equipment on it, gets the same treatment daily. OFF in the evening and ON in the morning. At one place where I used to work, we turned the benches and equipment on and off daily using the circuit breakers in the panel. That way it was certain we didn't lock up and leave a possible fire to start in the night. Never hurt the sensitive audio and test equipment to do that.
And, when I worked at the old recording studio, did the same thing on a regular basis. Mic Preamps, main deck, submixers, power amps, tape transports, EQs and other goodies, all went on and off from the breaker box.
I wouldn't want to have to go around turning 24 channels of junk on and off separately. And you do not have to do that.
--Mac
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Citaat:
I foresee no problems with turning all gear off and on using a master switch such as found on plug strips.
But what do I know, all I am is an Electronics Design Engineer and part time factory service technician for audio gear who turns his home studio on and off with one switch.
It doesn't have to cause trouble, provided you use good quality material (pricy) and keep in mind the start-up routine some equipment needs.
I don't know what the quality of the powerstrips with switches they sell in the USA, but the cheap consumer crap they sell over here isn't up to those tasks. Sure, the lights in the chrismastree can be turned on and off, but that's about it. That and the fact people tend to plug in strip after strip after strip, thus exceeding the specs of the strip.
I just assumed most people wouldn't bother to buy good power strips and settle for the cheap ones. Hence the advice...
But hey, I got my degree in electronics some years ago, so I don't know what I'm talking about either 
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Quote:
plug in strip after strip after strip, thus exceeding the specs of the strip.
I actually have power strips plugged into other power strips - wouldn't that theoretically supply 'extra' protection - e.g. if a really big surge blows the first out, you still have a chance with the second (at least that seemed to make some sense to me)
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So much "not real world party line" here....
Those little power strips are worthless. Everybody has a story about their brother's barber's butcher's nephew who had a direct lightning strike but his 8 dollar power strip saved his computer.... no, it didn't.
Invest in a whole house power surge suppressor that connects to your panel. That is really the only way to protect anything. Then buy a Un-interruptable Power Supply and plug your computer and monitor into it. If you are in the middle of something and your house loses power you get 20 minutes to shut down gracefully and you won;t lose work.
If your house power goes out, please explain to me how a piece of electronic equipment with no ability to think, like a synthesizer, can tell the difference between the power going out, you pulling the power cord out of the wall, and turning off the switch. And as far as "the start-up routine some equipment needs" that all happens AFTER power is applied and again, a piece of equipment is brainless and doesn't know HOW power is applied, just that it has had 117v of power applied to it.
You DO want to turn mixers on before amps, and shut amps off before mixers, so if you are powering up a mixer and an amp, yes, power the amp off before you hit any master switch. That is because mixers will toss of a spurious spike when they power up and that will potentially damage speakers if that spike is amplifed by XXX watts.
But on topic, there is no reason to turn things off and on individually. Nor is there reason to be plugging an unplugging 1/4" cables. My stuff is all in a 44 space server rack with a 24 outlet power strip plugged into a Furman power conditioner. I turn it off and on using that Furman unit. WHEN I even bother to power off. If I had tubes I would worry about heat. With solid state gear I don't really consider heat. Given that I don't go up there every night I probably should power it off but only for concerns about the electric bill. The computer up there never gets turned off (none of my 6 computers do) though I do turn off the flat panels and power off the powered monitors. I power those monitors off in case the computer should crash, which powers down the USBs, which powers down the interface, which sends that same spike out to the monitors, which is then amplified by 100w. Plugging and unplugging, powering off and on, you are actually shortening the life of the 1/4" jacks by engaging and disengaging 1/4" plugs. (plugs are male, jacks are female - those terms are interchanged too often. a plug goes into a jack.)
It's a destination.. it's a journey.
Much of this you could find on Google, btw....
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