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Making a Cable to Split a Stereo Signal L & R to Two Outputs


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Hoping to get my soldering iron out tonight and I just wanted to run my daft plans by the electrics wizards on here.

I've got some backing tracks for some songs which I've put a click track to.  The click is panned over to the right and the backing track to the left. 

My plan is to put this stereo track from an iPad into a 3.5mm headphone jack and have the left output (the backing) route to an XLR socket (for plugging into a PA) and the right run to a 6.35mm headphone socket for the drummer's headphones.

Looking at wiring diagrams I think I need to wire the left lug of the input socket to pin 2 of the XLR socket and ground pins 1 & 3.  Then the right lug of the input socket to the left and right lugs of the output jack socket.  Then connect all the ground lugs.

Is this as sensible as it sounds or are there any obvious pitfalls that I'm missing?  Just wondering if I should spare myself a few hours of looking perplexedly at a load of sockets and wire whilst swearing!

Thanks in advance!

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You may need to play a bit with levels, but other than that, you're on a right track.

If the mixer/PA has normal inputs, 2 is hot and 1+3 go together because of that unbalanced signal. A friend of mine just bought a Roland mixer that has 3 as hot. It took a few minutes to figure that out...

RING = red = right (fixed, thanks to @tauzero)

Edited by itu
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2 minutes ago, itu said:

You may need to play a bit with levels, but other than that, you're on a right track.

If the mixer/PA has normal inputs, 2 is hot and 1+3 go together because of that unbalanced signal. A friend of mine just bought a Roland mixer that has 3 as hot. It took a few minutes to figure that out...

tip = red = right

So the wiring of the cable could need to be different depending on which PA you use?

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That Roland is uncommon, as all its channels are: 3 hot, 2 cold. Not everything that those chaps behind that big water do is always a good thing. Well, not that uncommon but I have not seen such a unit in years. You might say that it is rare (like people tend to say that on any bass, that has not been built during the last two decades).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XLR_connector#Technical_usage_information

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3 minutes ago, itu said:

That Roland is uncommon, as all its channels are: 3 hot, 2 cold. Not everything that those chaps behind that big water do is always a good thing. Well, not that uncommon but I have not seen such a unit in years. You might say that it is rare (like people tend to say that on any bass, that has not been built during the last two decades).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XLR_connector#Technical_usage_information

Brilliant.  Thank you for the explanation!

Now I know if it goes wrong I only have myself to blame!

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25 minutes ago, EBS_freak said:

Make sure you put your non balanced splits through a couple of isolated DI boxes. Inadvertently sending phantom power WILL kill your iPhones audio output.

Thanks for the heads up!  Unfortunately I'm not quite sure I follow properly.

I have a passive DI box.  If I plugged the XLR output into that and then went from that into the PA would that suffice?  The only place I can think phantom power might come from is the PA as nothing else would be plugged in to the mains, but I may be misunderstanding this. 

Would I have to do anything to isolate the DI? 

Sorry if this is basic stuff.  I'm pretty new to electronics so my reach extends my grasp a bit with all this!

 

EDIT: My DI box only has an XLR output, not an XLR input.  So I guess I can't use that?

Edited by Unknown_User
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OK - coming from your phone, plug in a 3.5mm stereo cable. Split this to two unbalanced cables, one with a jack to go to your DI box. Plug this jack into your DI box and then from that, a XLR to the PA.

The other side, with your click on, you can't just plug a set of headphones in as you'll only get it out of one ear. You could bridge but then you won't be summing correctly or presenting the correct load to your phone amp.

Additionally, to control the level of the click, you would be turning up and down the volume, which won't necessarily be giving you the best signal to the PA... one feed is impacting the other.

What I would suggest, ia splitting as above and then getting something like a Behringer P2 - that has it's own amplifier and will correctly sum the click. This is easy to do, just a simple insert cable, y cable... e.g. TRS (stereo) from your phone to TS (mono) and TS cable (mono). One side into your DI box and onto the PA, the other side to the P2 to do the amplification and the summing so the click comes out of both ears.

What I would really suggest though, is running both the LR to the PA and sending the drummer back a mix from one of the desks auxes into a P2*


*this is the correct solution.

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Thank you @EBS_freak.  I think I mostly follow that.  I've no idea how the correct solution would be implemented on a PA as I have little to no experience with using them.  The closest I normally get is to stand there looking on and tutting as the singer struggles to control the feedback by twiddling with the dials.

I found this earlier which I think explains the less elegant solution.  I have a passive DI box and one of the guitarists has a headphone preamp, so hopefully we can get it working after some sort of a fashion!

Cheers for your advice.

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On 21/08/2019 at 10:44, itu said:

You may need to play a bit with levels, but other than that, you're on a right track.

If the mixer/PA has normal inputs, 2 is hot and 1+3 go together because of that unbalanced signal. A friend of mine just bought a Roland mixer that has 3 as hot. It took a few minutes to figure that out...

tip = red = right

Ring = red = right.

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