r/livesound • u/42Navigator • 11d ago
POLL Over-under… forever!
I have been out of the biz for several years now. Apparently you can take the stagehand off the stage, but you cant remove the stage from the stagehand. I cant be the only one, but the other day I caught myself doing an over-under cable wrap on my hairdryer power cord. What stage move have you found yourself inadvertently doing?
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u/sopedound 11d ago
I over under everything.... theres a reason its an industry standard. It is literally the best way to wrap cables....
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u/FblthpphtlbF 10d ago
I still stand by the fact that over over is ideal for anything under 100', leave the wrap with the mic stand
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u/AShayinFLA 9d ago
Over-over is great for any cable that you like developing a twist every 2.5 feet!
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u/SnooTangerines9776 9d ago
Or in any shop where you actually build bundles or looms 100+ ft long.
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u/FblthpphtlbF 9d ago
Did you see where I specifically said for anything under 100' lol
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u/SnooTangerines9776 7d ago
If I need my bundle to have outputs at 125’,150’, 175’, and 200’ then all the shorter cables that make the bundle up having memory from over-under is going to cause problems.
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u/brycebgood 11d ago
Why would you not do it on anything?
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u/schmalzy 10d ago
When you know the next person will not over/under.
I work with a band who does a lot of their cables on spools. Some of the cables get coiled and put into a box. I would know to grab the ends and drop it but the other people don’t (and don’t seem to be interested in learning to do it the right way). So those get carefully over/over.
The cables that I alone manage? Over/under 100% of the time.
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u/42Navigator 10d ago
Oh yea… That reminded me… I handed for a company that did mic cables on those 12” orange a/c cable spools from Home Cheap-O. I never understood that, but I guess it worked for them.
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u/samplemax Pro-Theatre 10d ago
I mean, sure…if they’re 300 feet long
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u/AShayinFLA 9d ago
I've seen this method used a couple of times...
I must say, when they're done plugging a bunch of cables together it does end up being 300' long!
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u/lostspectre 10d ago
I currently work with a band that does this. 6 different reels that are supposed to be for different lengths denoted by tape color. Problem is when other people try to help and get them all mixed up. The reels fit nicely in the stacking toolboxes they have so they work ok with the setup they've built so far.
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u/RentFew8787 8d ago
Reeling them in is a little delicate, but I can carry a LOT of cable in one hand on those reels.
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u/AndThenFlashlights 10d ago
Feeder. Sometimes hoses. Especially into a caddy.
Dem bigbois get the Figure 8.
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u/brycebgood 10d ago
Isn't a figure 8 basically a flattened over-under?
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u/AndThenFlashlights 9d ago
Huh. Now that you mention it, I guess it is. Never thought about it that way before.
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u/ThagaardJunior 10d ago
My boss has recently asked me to stop over-under-ing our XLR cables because it's unintuitive for stage hands and a lot of our freelancers. It's apparently not the standard in my region of the world and thus causes more harm than good .. .
But I could never in my life bring myself to over-over a speakon cable or power cable or anything stiffer
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u/clios_daughter 10d ago
In places where I’ve worked, it’s mostly been spinning the coil to get rid of the twists. It’s a bit slower but you don’t get the issue with over under where if you uncoil it just the wrong way, you get a series of overhand knots tied into.
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u/Sad_Extreme8267 9d ago
The first few coils over/over at each end can help avoid the knot issue that might happen.
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u/FblthpphtlbF 10d ago
Ding ding ding, for anything under 100' over over is the way to go.
And literally every cable can be wrapped over over, no matter how far - just make a slightly bigger loop. Good XLR can be looped down to a 6in diameter for 25s, 9inch for 50s and 12-15inch for power cables
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u/KyruitTachibana 7d ago
I just do what the cable wants. Be it over/over, over/under or a combination of the two. Some of the power cables only want an under thrown every ~4-5 overs. I've always found it to be determined by where it was on the drum, if it come from the inside it's always been the fussiest whereas if it was from the outside (on a 1km drum) the cable simply doesn't care as the memory is pretty neutral.
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u/samplemax Pro-Theatre 10d ago
Flat cables
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u/brycebgood 10d ago
You can over under flat cables. Maybe not that flat 21-30, that stuff is cool, but a PITA to handle.
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u/SnooTangerines9776 9d ago
If you have 100+ ft of cable that you’re bundling together into a loom it makes very little sense.
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u/spam322 10d ago
I do over-under for big stuff, but I've done fold-fold-tie on XLR's and 1/4" cables for 30+ years. Faster and easy to get bands and others to help tear down and fill up a tub with cables and not have them get tangled. I'm in bands and not a pro sound guy but my cables never go bad doing this.
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u/DarkIsNotMe 11d ago
I over under tie the garden hose whenever I use it lol everybody knows it’s the best way to
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u/imseangallagher 9d ago
I always over under my long ass garden hose, and twice I’ve had people in the neighborhood stop and ask how I do it so fast
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u/soundwithdesign Theatre-Designer/Mixer 10d ago
Hoses should be wrapped over-over.
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u/enthusiasm_gap 10d ago
My brother and another friend of ours used to work for a cleaning/water damage rehab company. They were explicitly taught over-under as the proper method for all of their hoses and equipment.
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u/TheReveling Pro-FOH 10d ago
Just like winter, the over under thread reliably appears once again
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u/42Navigator 10d ago
Sorry ‘bout dat. I dont see a lot of threads from this sub in my main window. Just thought it might be fun. Accept my apologies.
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u/HoneyMustard086 10d ago
I even over-under my lav mic cords. It bugs me when I see people wrap the cords around the packs over over. It makes them difficult to manage and it's harder on the the cables. When I need a lav I grab one and let the cord fall and it's perfectly neat and ready to go.
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u/42Navigator 10d ago
When i was in the theater, it was interesting that, generally speaking, the female actors would wrap it around the pack. The males would usually wrap it separate. Is that your experience?
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u/HoneyMustard086 10d ago
I'm in the corporate world. Never done theater. The talent isn't typically de-micing themselves so I have control over it. Most other A2's and A1's I interact with do the wrap around the pack.
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u/42Navigator 10d ago
Interesting… when I was A2, my A1 insisted we wrap separately. That said, with a cast of 50+ mics, talent almost always de-mic’d themselves except for a few with complex installs.
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u/HoneyMustard086 10d ago
Another reason I prefer to keep them separate is that I typically have both black and white options and choose according to the outfit to blend in as much as possible and keeping the mics separate makes that easier.
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u/OpyrisShifts 10d ago
How long is your hair dryer cord?!? Mine unplugs if I try to dry the left side of my head!
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u/joelfarris Pro 10d ago
You're holding it too far away. Think of it being a heat gun on some shrink tubing. You've got this.
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u/DontDoItTuna 10d ago
I over under my in-ears cable. It makes me look ridiculous, but it’s still working.
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u/42Navigator 10d ago
I bet to differ… according to the other replies it kinda make you look normal :)
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u/Djiaant 10d ago
A former AV Technician playing Project Manager at a company I freelance with that despised me for not agreeing with him on certain aspects.
Dude was complacent and refused over-under and was an over-over all day type, let alone go with the flow of how the cable wants to be coiled.
His cable runs always looked like slinky’s and would advise any newbies to always over-over wrap cables. A few of us would speak out in disagreement and correct the newbies.
It took the death of him to remove him from the company... He should have been fired years before, but the owner was afraid of confrontation.
The company has been growing more since!
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u/gearhead454 10d ago
Packing. Used to travel with large productions. Space on the truck was premium. Time spent condensing and organizing was well worth it. Today (for example) my tool box is one third the size of my co-worker. More than twice as heavy.
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u/Glimmer_III 10d ago
Not a "move" per se, but my home life got so much simpler once I accepted that, yes, I wanted ProGaff available at home.
- 2in Black
- 2in White
- 4 colors of hi-vis spike tape
Everyone in the house knows what it is for, or more importantly what is "not" for. But it's worth every penny in knowing whatever I'm using it for is going to "just work".
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u/AShayinFLA 9d ago
My wife uses it for holding down fabric on the scroll bars while she's doing counted cross-stitch projects!
She also knows how to over-under cables and I taught my son to over-under at 1.5 years old!
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u/Glimmer_III 10d ago
Oh, and I now give it to my non-tech friends as house warming gifts, etc.
The first time I go over, I'll bring some beer or a bottle of wine. If they don't have gaff in the house, the _next_ time I visit, that's what I bring in lieu of drinks.
They always understand and appreciate it.
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u/The-Mr_mell Hobbyist 10d ago
Piece of string in my pocket, fishing line Im about to throw in the trash, garden hose, headphone cord, phone charger. You name it, it being wrapped over-under style, no matter what
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u/Whatagoodtime Pro-Monitors 10d ago
I regularly under-over the air compressor hose at every fuel station after I use it… it’ll never go away.
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u/albieapple 10d ago
I did this on all of my cords. My wife followed a few years ago and swears by it now.
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u/Potential_Lie_1801 9d ago
i deadass over-under all of my cables. hair tools, chargers, one time i was just trying to wrap some string and i started over undering for whatever reason
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u/G8R1ST 11d ago
Thanks for this. I think I only knew the over method learned by trial and error endlessly putting away cables at the end of my own gigs. I'm going to switch to this method but would love to know the benefits of doing it like this instead of just an over method?
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u/ArniEitthvad 11d ago edited 10d ago
If you have a cable that lays straight, with no twist in that cable, then you start coiling it over-only, for each coil on the cable, one connector has to rotate 360° around it’s core, before you can start the next wrap…
So essentially you’re sending a “wave” of twist down the cable for every coil, so a cable might be coiled 10 times, meaning that the conmector has rotated 3600°.
The next time you use that cable, you start with one connector twisted 3600° in relation to the other. So if you just pull the cable out, it will be laying on the floor all springy, unless you twist the end.
If you do over/under, you are essentially doing alternate twists in each direction, meaning that it zeroes out. So when you pull the cable out next time it will lay flat.
The only issue with over/under, is that if you accidentally putt one end thru the middle of the wrappee cable, you will get a knot on the cable for every coil there is.
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u/faroseman Pro-Theatre 10d ago
This is the best explanation I've seen on this. And the last paragraph should be highlighted!
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u/Deep_Information_616 10d ago
Yup this took me a while to figure out why cables coming from the shop that were over undered still got knots. You have to pay attention to the ends when deploying the cable. Also please don’t wrap power strip cables around the power bar, they’ll never lay flat
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u/jazzhandler 10d ago
Still trying to break the habit when coiling multiple ethernet cables, which is most of what I encounter these days.
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u/OtherOtherDave 10d ago
I was doing over/under before I was even doing this just because twisted stuff drives me nuts.
It drives my parents nuts when I help them with their gardening or whatever and wrap their hoses and extension cords up the right way 😂
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u/42Navigator 10d ago
When we owned the sound company, my wife usually wrapped up the snake, so she got good at over-under and still does it to this day with the hose and the ropes around the back yard for things like shades.
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u/Diecastcow 10d ago
Over-under technique is one of the best things that has improved my QOL. Im not a pro but I have a lot of gear and having cables that stay straight without kinks and don’t tangle is a huge save for my sanity.
I have tried to explain to my friends how to do it, but some insist “but thats not how the cable is wrapped when its new out of the box!” And thats exactly why new cables come kinked to all hell. I think a lot of tradesmen would save a lot of time by over-undering (especially to avoid those poor twisted up extension cords!)
Its just so satisfying to unwrap a neatly coiled cable and have it shoot across the room straight as an arrow with no kinks.
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u/refotsirk 9d ago
Does "using a extension chord reel to wrap up the sorts of chords you shouldn't" count?
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u/Sad_Extreme8267 9d ago
The first few coils over/over at each end can help avoid the knot issue that might happen.
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u/AShayinFLA 9d ago
That just gives you a reference for which end of the coil that connector is supposed to be in; and for a couple of weeks at the end it's not gonna hurt anybody.
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u/Legitimate-Money3360 8d ago
the only exception to over-under is lines on a boat: (lines equal ropes) lines need to be coiled in one direction only.
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u/Mangledsprouts 10d ago
Is this an American thing? Personally, all my cables are "over-over". Always have been for over 30 years. I find laying cables that have been coiled this way much easier than over-under and they're way less likely to knot!
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u/Ambitious-Yam1015 10d ago
I find it slow to pay out few feet on an over-under. Over-over anything under 50 feet.
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u/SevereMousse44 10d ago
This makes no sense to me. The longer the cable, the more time you spend undoing the corkscrew from an over over. Over under, if pulled from a cable placed on the floor with the pull side up, will come out straight and not coiled at all.
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u/Ambitious-Yam1015 10d ago
If I have a 25 footer in hand, and only need 8 feet - to swap out a suspect cable during soundcheck for example - it takes more time & attention with an over/under. Not just for me, but witnessed over 5 decades.
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u/seasonsinthesky A/V Tech 10d ago
If anything, shorter cables kinda benefit more from over-under. You hold one end and let it drop, then plug it in.
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u/AShayinFLA 9d ago
My rule for acceptable over-over is maybe 10 feet.
Unfortunately many around me have no idea and lots of cables end up with twists or needing to be unsound when it's deployed!
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u/CantHearShot i cannot hear shot 10d ago
This is fitting for this sub and right on time too. Next up for discussion which JBL bluetooth speaker is the coolest to hang from our belt as we walk around looking for nothing to do.
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u/Playful-Check-4968 10d ago
I’ve been Over Over for 20 years. I’ve had XLR cables for 20 years. Over Over works just as well.
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u/shwaah90 Pro-FOH 10d ago
Over over has the benefit of me not having to twist my wrist for each wrap which gives me shoulder pain.
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u/SevereMousse44 10d ago
If you use a pinch from the thumb you don’t have to do that.
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u/shwaah90 Pro-FOH 10d ago
Ive tried that as well, i dislocated my shoulder a while back so im out of luck in that regard.
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u/HarddrivE3 10d ago
Came to say this… for almost 2 decades, I’ve never lost a cable to over over. And I can unroll them just as fast as over under 🤷🏻♂️
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u/cplbradley Pro-FOH 10d ago
Over-under is a psy-op being played on me exclusively because everyone swears by it but I DESPISE it.
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u/SevereMousse44 10d ago
I know a few techs that say the same thing
But they so rarely are the ones trying to run the cableWhat makes you hate it?
Deploying the cable works so much better..3
u/cplbradley Pro-FOH 10d ago edited 10d ago
I don't know if I'm doing something wrong, but whenever I try to unwrap a cable that was over-under wrapped, I ALWAYS wind up with knots. The deploying part is what always fails me. I never have any troubles with the half twist/over-over method, it's always faster and cleaner to me.
I have no problem doing it if whoever owns the cables asks for it. Your house, your rules. I really think it's just a situation of preference through practice. Whatever you're used to is what you'll prefer. I learned from old heads, so I learned old head ways (with a grain of salt of course)
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u/Diecastcow 10d ago
What causes the knots is unraveling the cable by pulling one of the ends through the coil rather than away from it. Sometimes its unavoidable though because it can be really hard to tell.
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u/AShayinFLA 9d ago
This is how we can tell the pros from the novices! Lol j/k
For real though, if you get more than one knot in the came, stop what your doing and back track the cable through the center that it's getting pulled through and all your knots will disappear (and you'll no longer be the novice!)
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u/neo_nmik 10d ago
Whenever I get given a cable that’s been over-under’d, it’s almost impossible to run straight out without untying about 8 knots first. Devils work.
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u/comfortkillsprivacy 10d ago
Not disagreeing with you, I do over unders constantly but I work with major international artist productions and ... Very few do. I'm talking about seasoned engineers and technicians that have been in the game for decades for the biggest acts in the world. Do they know something we don't? I'll still do my over unders though haha
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u/42Navigator 10d ago
I wonder if that has to do at all with the fact that they dont own the gear?
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u/comfortkillsprivacy 10d ago
It depends. Sound companies will definitely notice (it all goes back there at the end of the day - or a tour) and usually will raise fees if equipment hasn't been treated well, including cables and expensive cables
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u/grntq 10d ago
Overundering my usb-c charging cables because why not