I recently decided to make myself a new set of cables. I've made several pairs of cables and interconnects before, so I'm fairly familiar with the process. However, this time around, I'm trying out a couple of new things. First of all, I plan on making my own cut-down "shorty" right-angle XLR's. There are already plenty of threads about that, and I've got the right tools needed, so no need for that discussion.
In all my past cables, I've used copper Canare Starquad cables (L-4E6S). For the past few years, I've just been thrilled with my recordings, so I have no plans to make any significant changes (I'm not going to use silver-clad or anything like that). For the existing cables that I'm using, I put tech-flex around the pair, essentially creating a 2-channel snake, with about 1-foot on either end to seperate the two XLR connectors. Again, nothing too special there.
I'd love to cut down on the space that the cables take up in the bag. The Canare L-4E6S cable has an outside diameter of 0.236 in. Two of those cables next to each other is nearly half and inch (0.472 in). So the two cables tech-flexed together take up a good deal of space. For the new microphone cable that I'll be making, I decided to go with the Canare
L-4E3-2P (more info here:
http://www.canare.com/index.cfm?objectid=BEF999DD-3048-7098-AF117A19C7041546). This is a two-channel snake, with an outside diameter of 0.350 in. inside, are two independent channels, each with 4 copper conductors (in a star-quad arrangement) and each with it's own braided copper shielding and it's insulation. (the diameter per channel is 0.134 in). With this snake, I'll save some space, and I won't have to deal with any tech-flex, as the two channels are already running in the same cable.
In addition to the two channels of shielded star-quad, the L-4E3-2P cable also has a drain wire running through the length. This drain wire is outside of both channels' insulation. I am thinking that I should just ignore this drain wire, and solder my connections as I have previously (i.e. standard XLR wiring, pin1 = shield, pin2 = hot, pin3 = cold). My questions are as follows:
(1) Am I correct? Should I just ignore the drain wire and solder each XLR connector on as I have before?
(2) If so, why is the drain wire there? What purpose does is have?
(3) Am I wrong? Should I connect the drain wire to one (or both) of the XLR connectors? on both channels?
Thanks in advance for any help or guidance.
- Jason
edit to add pictures (from the Canare website:
http://www.canare.com/index.cfm?objectid=BEAF2EE5-06A1-3944-EE278542C7469B17)...
This is the cross-section of each channel in the snake (i.e. standard star-quad)...
And this is what the cross-section of the whole thing looks like (note the drain wire or the "bundle drain")...