N64 Sound Tools
Socorro Henson
Designed to quickly diagnose cables in live environments the Sniffer/Sender units are essential tools for every audio engineer's toolbox. Test cables without ever having to bring the ends together or trouble shoot complex snake systems in minutes.
Clean up and simplify your cabling installation with the SoundTools RAT CAT series of stage boxes, breakouts, and wall plates. Stylish and made of rust-free anodized aluminum to last a lifetime, RAT CAT units allow transmission of high resolution analog audio and data from XLR, DMX, or AES3 sources down Cat 5, Cat 6, or Cat 7 cables.
The hardest working cables in the business. We field-tested every cable we could to come up with the ultimate cable for running analog audio over Cat5. Our SuperCAT and SuperCAT Sound cables are designed and tested in touring environments by audio pros for extreme durability and reliability while maintaining a high quality feel.
The XLR Sniffer/Sender instantly tests for every possible fault. The Sniffer has 3 LED lights that will light up in either green or red LEDs to show whether the line is good (all green) or has errors (all red or a combination of red and green). Every unit comes with a color code read out sticker to help you diagnose in seconds.
Fun tip: A lot of users have found the best place for sticking their LED sticker is on the Sniffer unit.
The Sniffer unit has 3 LED lights. When attached to an XLR cable that is powered by a phantom power source (either a console or the Sender unit), the Sniffer will light up in either green or red LEDs to show whether the line is good (all green) or has errors (all red or a combination of red and green). The XLR Sniffer/Sender can even test for a pin 2-3 short. Every unit comes in a sturdy, reusable box with a sticker guide defining the LED readout.
If you see any orange LED's that means your unit has a orange led swap with the traditional red. Below is a link to an updated color code chart for the orange LED's. If you'd like to exchange your unit for a standard red LED sniffer please send an email to sup...@soundtools.com.
SoundTools products are curated to thrive in the harshest of live sound and audio environments. We have the Happy Human Warranty because of our confidence in the reliability of SoundTools products. If you are unhappy with a SoundTools product for any reason, return it within one year in its original packaging to the place of purchase for a full refund, no questions asked.
If you experience any unhappiness after the one year warranty, return it to SoundTools with or without packaging in any condition and we will happily replace your SoundTools product with a new or reconditioned unit, for life.
Build the perfect stage snake system around the versatile and durable SoundTools CAT Box 8. The SoundTools CAT Box 8 offers both a male XLR and a female XLR on each of the four channels allowing the CAT Box 8 to be used for inputs, outputs, or a combination. Minimize the number of cables required by running up to four channels of analog audio, DMX, AES3, or COM lines through a single shielded CAT cable. The disconnectable CAT Box stage boxes can be daisy-chained and used in multiple configurations to build the optimum modular snake system.
The SoundTools CAT Box offers four XLR female and four XLR male connectors, and an etherCON input and etherCON parallel output. This all-analog, fully passive stage box can carry up to four channels or analog mic level, analog line level, AES3, DMX, or intercom signals.
Not all disconnects are created equally. Because of its design, the SoundTools CAT Box 8 can be used in a multitude of applications.
- Send multiple signal formats down a single shielded CAT cable
- Use as a low-cost hard-wire split
- Daisy-chain units and drop the same channels in multiple locations
- Connect two male or two female CAT Boxes together to create M-M or F-F adaptors
- Remove an internal ribbon cable jumper to convert a CAT Box 8 into two CAT Box 4 units
Not only is the SoundTools CAT Box 8 designed to work flawlessly, but we created it to look great too. SoundTools CAT Boxes are constructed with anodized machined aluminum and finished with stainless steel screws, so they are rust-resistant and rugged enough to handle life on stage. Stylish black and red coloring is finished with a laser-etched SoundTools logo. Our clearly-labeled inputs and outputs simplify set up and tear down, making this the stage drop box you'll be reaching for again and again.
SoundTools is founded and run by audio professionals just like you. We know how much your happiness depends on high-quality tools that work every time. The SoundTools CAT Box 8 is covered by our Happy Human Warranty. If you're not happy with it within the first year, you can return it for a refund. At any time after that, if it fails, contact us and we'll send you a replacement.
Attach your shielded CAT5e/6/7 cable to the input or thru etherCON connection on the end of the CAT Box 8. Attach either a second CAT Box or another SoundTools Analog Audio over CAT 5 product to the other end of the cable. Insert your XLR cable ends to channels 1, 2, 3, or 4. Now you can run up to four lines of audio down a shielded CAT(5,6,7) cable.
For balanced analog we've achieved distances of over 600ft using our SuperCAT cable. The results will vary with other CAT5 brands. For digital signals we reccommend distances up to 330 ft as per AES/EBU standards.
The CAT Box 8 comes with an internal jumper which will disconnect the ground from the box. Just open the box (remove 4 screws) and move the jumper from ground to ground lift. Helpful if you run into issues with the metal body grounding to something else.
The CAT Box 8 is capable of sending or receiving signals, just like an analog snake. You can use either the male or female XLRs, or both (which is a signal split). When sending mixed signals a high quality CAT cable is encouraged.
The short answer is no. But in order to use phantom power and to minimize noise, we strongly suggest you use a properly shielded cable. You can check if your cable is shielded by checking for continuity on the RJ45 jack using a multi-meter. Still not sure? Just purchase SoundTools SuperCAT cable and you know you'll be covered.
While the CAT Box 8 will work with any console on the market, it is important to note that it does not do any D/A conversion. The beauty of the CAT Box is that it sends analog audio over lightweight CAT cable, no conversion required. Hook directly up to your XLR connections and let CAT Box do the rest.
With a Macintosh computer and Digidesign's new CD-quality digital audio system, you can cut, splice, and create extended remixes to your heart's content. Paul D. Lehrman discovers what it is like to go tapeless in the studio.
Recording a signal into the system is simplicity itself. Two front panel knobs on the AD IN box adjust the input level, with green '-20dB' and red 'Clip' indicators on each channel to help out. From the Sound Designer software, a 'tape recorder' window is opened up, which features transport-like controls and LED-like level meters.
The software then presents you with various options to choose from, but if you don't want to get involved with learning what they mean, the default settings are usually adequate. The options let you specify how much of a disk buffer you want to set aside for incoming data; whether you want the disk space used for recording the audio to be contiguous (contiguous recording is less prone to errors, but it usually means you have less space available); whether you want the audio inputs of the AD IN to be echoed at the outputs of the Sound Accelerator card; and the sample rate, from 8kHz to 48kHz, with 44.1 kHz as the default.
Now if you click on the 'Record' button, the system starts to record the sound coming into the AD IN. A running display tells you how much time has elapsed, and how many samples have been recorded. Clicking again stops the recording. You can hear what you've recorded using other buttons for playback, rewind and fast forward (non-audible), and return-to-zero. You can stop recording at any point and start again at the same point, and you can even record over existing data, and punch in and out on-the-fly. If you want to record sound coming off a tape that also has SMPTE timecode on it (for example, a line of dialogue from a video tape that you want to edit), you can instruct the software to start recording when it receives a specific SMPTE frame number (via MIDI Time Code - you'll need a SMPTE-to-MIDI Time Code convertor if you want to use this feature), and stop at another frame. (Punching, however, cannot be automated to SMPTE.)
Once you've recorded a piece of audio - now known as a 'soundfile' - you can view it in a large graphic window, which shows the sound as amplitude versus time. If the file is stereo, there are two windows, one for each channel. The horizontal (time) axis can be scaled from about three seconds full-screen to about 500 microseconds, at which point individual samples become clearly visible. A smaller window always shows the overall length of the soundfile, with a marker to show you what part of the file the larger window is showing. Within the main window, you can select a region (consisting of either channel or both) and perform various kinds of editing functions on it. The program provides two types of editing operations, 'destructive' and 'non-destructive'. Destructive editing actually changes the nature of the soundfile (although you can always preserve the original by saving the altered version with a different name), while non-destructive functions change various parameters associated with the file, but leave the file itself intact.
You can listen to sections of soundfiles with a 'scrub-wheel' function, in which moving the mouse over the screen causes the sound to play forwards or backwards at varying speed, similar to a jog wheel on a video or audio tape recorder. When you've found the points you want to edit at, you go to a 'selection' mode and click on the beginning and end of the region, thereby selecting it.
Among the destructive functions are the standard Mac editing operations like Cut, Copy, Paste (which moves old data aside to make room for new), Replace (which writes over old data), and Clear, as well as audio-specific functions such as reverse, silence, trim (eliminate everything outside the region), fade in and fade out, change the gain up or down, normalise (that is, increase the overall amplitude of the region so that its loudest point is at the maximum recordable level), and phase invert.
There are also a host of 'DSP' functions, including a parametric equaliser, which is configurable as peaking, shelving, high-pass or low-pass filter, and can cut or boost up to 24dB over a bandwidth as small as 10Hz. The window that opens when you select this function has a 'Preview' button, which lets you listen to the effect of the equaliser on the selected region in real time as you adjust it. Once you arrive at the setting you want, click on 'Process' and the region is recalculated with the new equalisation. Although the equaliser only acts on a single frequency band at a time, you can use it on the same piece of sound as many times as you want. A volume slider is included to keep the level from getting too high or too low as the equaliser modifies it.
If you design an EQ setting you particularly like, you can save it as part of the soundfile and recall it at any time. In fact, an EQ setting can be saved as part of the soundfile without actually having been used to process the file - and it can then be imposed on it the next time the file is played back. This lets you take advantage of the equaliser in a non-destructive way.
There is also a seven-band graphic equaliser function, with adjustable centre frequencies and bandwidths for each band, and with the same preview and storage features.
Another DSP function is Merging. This allows you to splice two soundfiles together, with a programmable crossfade time that can be several seconds long (it depends on how much RAM is available). Yet another is Mixing: up to four soundfiles (mono or stereo) can be combined into one, with adjustable level, pan position, and starting delay (in milliseconds) for each of the original files. Both of these functions are Undo-able, and both automatically create a new soundfile, thereby preserving the original components.
Finally, the system allows soundfiles to be stretched or shrunk in time without changing their apparent pitch. This means, for example, that a line of dialogue can be sped up to fit a scene that has been shortened, or a tyre squeal from a sound effects library can be drawn out to fill a long shot of a car careering down a mountain road. The software shows you the length of a chosen segment and lets you specify either a new length in seconds or a ratio of expansion or compression. The current version of the software will only perform this function on mono files, and Digidesign says that the algorithm in use is optimised only for speech, but it doesn't sound too bad on music, and algorithms specifically designed for music will probably be available in a software update before long. Like the Mix and Merge functions, the time-changing function automatically creates a new soundfile, leaving the original intact.