If you want a truly professional sound then using a snake/multicore with your mixer placed at the back of the hall can be the way to go - as long as you have someone who knows your music and has a good pair of ears!

The only downsides are that it takes additional time to set up and it may not be possible in some venues without running the snake on top of doors, due to the placement of emergency exits.

Types of Snakes

Snakes are basically a number of individual cables wrapped together within a protective metal mesh which is then covered in a rubberised outer sheath. They tend to come in standard configurations:

• 15m, 30m and 45m lengths

• 12, 16, 20, 24 cables

Typically the stage end is terminated in a block with 4 XLR female connectors (bringing back signals from the mixer) and the rest are XLR female connectors (taking mike and instruments).

The mixer end reverses the connectors but they terminate with loose cable and XLRs.

Then each cable is wired for balanced use. However you can put un-balanced line signals down them and you can use one cable for the stereo output of a keyboard. In this case you would need a stereo jack socket to XLR cable.