In this article, we explore several ways you can address cable management in your recording studio.

Even though no two studios are the same, one aspect that every studio endeavors to conquer is cable management. Home studios typically don't have a huge amount of cables to worry about. There are, of course, connections between audio interfaces and studio monitors, computers to peripherals to address. Larger studios, on the other hand, have more to consider such as patch bays and outboard gear.

Cable management in any style or size of the recording studio is important to get right for several reasons:

Health and safety: Cables laid carelessly across studio floors can be dangerous trip hazards. Those who have worked in studio environments long enough will have at some point either witnessed someone trip or have themselves fallen foul to a rogue cable. Besides the obvious damage that can be caused to equipment, health and safety should never be overlooked as there is no excuse good enough to comfort someone who injures themselves when in your studio.

Keeping cables neat and tidy: Cables bunched together tightly on the floor behind a rack can fast become terrible dust catchers that are difficult to clean. These dusty zones can be avoided altogether if cables are well managed and kept from resting on a floor.

Easy access: Many essential cables often remain in situ for years, others need to be identified and repatched if gear regularly gets taken out of a studio for location work. Whatever the case may be, having easy access to your cables is key to a hassle-free experience when taking gear in and out of your studio.

With those three main benefits of good cable management considered, let’s explore some good habits to follow:

Label And Colour Code Cable Ends And Middles

Colours or numbers, sometimes both, are prevalent on the connectors of looms and multi-cores making it easy to quickly establish signal flow between devices. If you don’t use looms, opting instead for generic audio cables that have no marking, it’s good housekeeping to label your cables at both ends on the connectors. If you run several long cables down the same path it also makes good sense to label halfway down your cables as well as this can help you to quickly find a cable if you wish to remove it.

The images below show a custom labelled loom that makes it easy for accessing several rack-mounted preamp inputs from within the tracking area of a studio. Each input is not only labelled with the preamp name and input number but also uses colour to help find the exact pre that is needed in demanding studio sessions. If anyone new to this studio needs to plug a microphone in and doesn’t understand this labelling system then it’s easy to work out as the same labelling is marked on the right side of the rack which houses all the preamps that the loom connects to.

You would be forgiven for thinking that this labelling is overkill but it significantly reduces hassle when working in a recording session. The takeaway from this suggestion is to label your studio clearly as though other people who aren’t familiar with your rig needs to use it.

Measure Distances Between Gear

If you are building a new studio or moving into a new space then chances are you have the opportunity to totally rethink the layout of studio rig. You may find that some looms and cables used before in your previous studios are too long meaning you may need to replace for shorter cables. It’s smart to measure the distance between your gear if you need to buy new cables. Try to avoid measuring between point to point as you may end up buying cables not long enough to serve their purpose. Plan how your cables will be arranged in all directions, measure this path and add a little extra for safety.

This is a simple suggestion but, as experience has taught many of us on The Production Expert Team, there’s no point running 5 meter looms around the back of your studio rig if the distance between connections is less than a meter.

Wire Frame Cable Trays

As the only one of the team with an analogue console’s worth of cabling to deal with, James has had to really think about cable management when wiring up his studio. One of the neatest solutions James found to keeping the vast amount of cable that run to and from the console, from just dropping down the back on the console onto the floor was to use some old wireframe office cable trays that were recovered from a previous office installation. These wireframe trays are supported on 3” hooks that are screwed into the underside of the meter-bridge allowing them to swing freely. The cable trays are very handy for not only keeping the audio and signal cables running together but they are also big enough to take a mains distribution block so power for his video monitors and any extra equipment that sits on the meter bridge can be run from here rather than from on the wall or the floor.

(The pictures were shot from the floor looking up. The connectors and XLRs coming from the back of the console exit horizontally.)

Cable Shelves

Here’s a neat trick if you have two studio racks flanking both sides of your main mix position. Racks positioned in close proximity generally need looms and cables making connections between them. One of the racks may house an audio interface while the other have preamps and outboard processors. Cables could easily be laid on the floor between these units but there’s a smarter way to link the two.

If you have a control surface or console between these racks you can easily build a shelf out of sight around the back which will act as a bridge, as seen in the image above.

Cable shelves don’t need to be anything pretty, but they do need to be strong enough to take the weight of the cables and accessible for the times you need to get a cable changed over. In this studio, a simple plank of wood screwed into the control surface stand was easy enough to do. Two 90 degree wall brackets were also used to stop the cables from falling off the shelf.

This simple cable management solution not only stops cables from getting tangled under the feet of the engineers but also makes the studio look tidier and more organized.

Build In Cable Ducting Into The Design Of Your Studio

When Mike was designing his current studio 18 years ago, he chose a floating floor, and wanted easily accessible, but hidden, cable duct around the studio. To achieve this, he chose to set the traditional skirting board off from the wall and have removable lids so he could easily add new cables or remove redundant cables easily.

The white cable that you can see in the image with the lid removed, is actually a draw cable to make it even easier to pull cables around the ducting.

Keep Spare Cables Patched In Place

It's a good idea to have spare cables and power leads in place if you routinely take outboard gear in and out of your rig. At Production Expert, we are privileged enough to test all manner of outboard gear but it’s not all roses.

A few of us keep spare cables in place connected to power sources and interfaces behind rack covers so that we can quickly plumb in a rack for testing. Before this, many of us used to have to seriously upset our cable runs which took a lot of time to put back in order.

Avoid Dust Traps

As we suggested earlier in this article, try to prevent cables from bunching on the floor as you see in this image as you will reduce the chances of major dust traps forming.

Keep cable runs laid straight where possible. Avoid coils and knots as these can tangle up quite badly over time. More importantly, tangled cables can compromise the performance and inhibit the quality of audio running down them.

Share Your Cable Management Suggestions

As we said at the start of this article, no two studios are the same but cable management is something we all need to address. What methods do you use to keep your cables organised?