I used to do it wrong until I started working with an ex stage hand / roadie.

Only problem I find is cables that already have a bad memory:(
I've had some success hanging them up like they used to do with fireman's hoses to teach them better. Need to have them warm so the plastic is soft enough and a lot of vertical space. Doesn't work once the cores are internally twisted.

I've also got a couple of cable drum / winder thingies that one day I'll replace the mains cable with balaced audio cable. By winding the cable onto drums no way it can get messed up.

Bob.

I used to roadie for touring acts once upon another life...

that method in the video is what we called "unders-and-overs".

The advantage was (if you used the right bend-radius) you did not change the natural twist of the cable inside the outer sheath, so no mongy twists or broken internal conductors.
The downside was horrific (especially if it was a really long cable) - if you unwound the cable and managed to extract the tail of the cable incorrectly, it was like a magic trick - your whole cable had a daisy chain of half-hitches at intervals of 1 circumference. This was one of my fortes and looks great in front of the client!

I think Bob has the correct solution in the reels!

Can't wait for the day for wireless everything :-)
...that would also hopefully get rid of sticky gaffa hands at bump-out!

I used to alternate using left hand and right hand to do the winds. You end up with the loops on alternating sides of the bundle, so not so good.

"that would also hopefully get rid of sticky gaffa hands at bump-out"

That reminds my of the "helpfull" lady who pulled up 60M of coax that'd be gaffed to the floor by pulling on the cable, with the tape still attached.
We go though of lot of turpentine. If you don't like the smell or the fire hazard eucalyptus oil works very well at getting gum off things. Only down side is your place will smell like there's been a herd of koalas through it.

Bob.

Having watched that video, uncoiling could be a real problem, I would think.

I was in the merchant marine when I was young, and they'd put me over the side in a bosun chair just before we'd dock. I prepared a series of throw lines, which were made of good old-fashioned twisted hemp. These were coiled with no overlap so they could be thrown thirty feet out and fifty feet down. The bitter end was attached to the steel dock lines. The mate would throw the line to me; I would use the hemp line to pull the big steel docking line towards me, and then attach that huge line to the dock pilings. The steam winch would pull the ship to the dock.

The key was making sure that the coil followed the natural twist in the rope, and that there were no overlaps or inverted loops like shown in that video. I understand why the video shows doing it that way, so as not to keep adding more twists to the wire, but I would think it would really slow things down if you want to set up in a hurry at the next gig.

Well, been coiling cables for years at work, and never seen this method before.
We do it simply by following the natural curve of the cable and loop it. Its the least possible stress on the cable, its the way it was manufactured and naturally coils up and releases easily. Absolultely avoid any knots or kinks.
Finish the job with a small amount of PVC tape, holding the loop together and store away. Or if you're posh - use one of those velcro straps to hold it. We just use pvc because the crew 'always' have some.
What about tangles or badly stored cables, how do you get them untangled?
Easy.. always start from the centre of the cable, find the middle of the tangle, work your way to the ends removing the knots as you go. That was a tip i've used for years from a rope guy from the shipyard days here in Sunderland. Works a treat.

Paul.

I have a bunch of these cheap Cord Wraps.

Work great and commonly available from The Home Depot and elsewhere.

John

The 'Cord wraps' are fine for AC cables but I don't think I would use them on flexible shielded cable. But whatever floats your boat.

I use this method but find I have to be careful with the subsequent uncoiling because I've been bitten by the small knots that can form if you pull the wrong end. I use this for shorter cables because it's usually easy for me to figure out how to pull correctly. For longer cables, I use a method someone told me he learned from road crews. Basically, you take a long cable and pull the ends together. So, now the cable is half as long. Fold it in half again and now it's a quarter as long. The last step is to take the ends and make a half-hitch knot out of the whole thing. It's amazing how small the resulting cable becomes.

I've been doing the "twist" coil for 30 years. Every one in a while i do get caught pulling the wrong end through the middle, but it's very rare. I've successfully taught it to a few others who often help with cleanup, but the only ones who really get it down right are dancers.

At my old apartment i had a very high stairwell. After i had loaned out my 25' & 50' mic cables and got them back in a mess, i'd give them a quick soak in very hot water and then hang them in the stairwell (the 50's from the middle, the 25's from one end) for a day to straighten out.

Regarding taping cable on the floor ... whenever anyone has offered to help me clean up after a show i always loudly announce that the tape gets peeled up first, and that anyone who pulls the cable up with the tape still on it buys me brand new cables. That seems to solve the problem.

Really long cables, like my 100' extension cords or 250' mic cables, i'll untwist by laying them out on the yard or a thick carpet in a very long hallway, then drag from one end as far as i have room to go, then drag back the other end, repeat several times. That works the twists out nicely. Then i'll coil them nicely, the cable doing the alternate half-twists all on it's own.

To unwind the coiled cable, drop the outside end (i.e. on the last loop that was coiled, so mark it as such after coiling) on the floor near where you want it, then put both hands inside the coil (one from either side) and rotate the coil while walking away in the direction of where you want the other end to be.

I sometimes tie the start end to make the initial loop before winding the coil, to reduce tangles later on and to identify which end not to start unwinding from.

Like China we too called it over and under.

Once you get used to doing it it does not take any longer to coil. It is really handy for larger gauge cables like 2/0 multiconductor cables that can be a bear if not almost impossible to untwist.

As far as uncoiling goes it is fairly easy to do if you remember that there may be some coils looped back and to let a coil or two "fall out" if you think you have hit a snag. I haven't found that throwing them makes much difference really - at least no more than the occasional spiderweb coil. But, like was said, you don't want to pull an end through the middle.

For some lighter gauge audio cables or small extension cords, we would tie them in a knot by taking the end and repeatedly folding the cable in half until you get about a 1-2 foot length and then make a simple knot with the bundles. As long as you grabbed the entire bundle to untie it you were ok otherwise you had a mess. It works good though and is quick with no resulting twists or tangles.

If you gradually reduce the diameter as you coil, it makes throwing one end out (without ends passing thru to wrong side, hence knots) a lot easier.

geoff

I have a bunch of these cheap
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The 'Cord wraps' are fine for AC cables but I don't think I would use them on flexible shielded cable. But whatever floats your boat.
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I have been using them on sets of XLR cables for years with no damage whatsoever. They never tangle and I unwrap them as I lay them out on location and vice versa. No fuss, no muss, and no exotic coil wrapping techniques. I can toss them all in a box and pull out the lengths I need because there is room on the plastic frames to write things like 50 feet or 25 feet. I did forget to mention that I use reclosable zip ties on the ends. Those are great (I have two different lengths) for lots of things including fastening cables, etc to the tripod.

For a dollar each try the cord wraps. I think you will be sold on them.

John

For longer cables, I use a method someone told me he learned from road crews. Basically, you take a long cable and pull the ends together. So, now the cable is half as long. Fold it in half again and now it's a quarter as long. The last step is to take the ends and make a half-hitch knot out of the whole thing.

That's the method I learned from a sound tech 15 years ago...very fast, simple and as long as you keep it all loose it seems to not damage the cables (even shorter ones)

Sound guys use that half, half, half technique because it's fast. But it put a lot of strain on the wire in the cables, bending them beyond the elastic zone (stretching bonds) and into plastic deformation (bonds break). This is what happens when you bend a spoon back and forth until it breaks. Eventually the cable will have very thin area that will exhibit as "flaky" sound quality. Sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't depending on the bend of the cable, sometimes it's full volume, sometimes not. If you don't care about you're cables and speed is of prime importance then do it that way.

But the best way IMO is to make loops (no stupid under/over which tangles upon release quite often) but just twist the cable with your fingers as you wrap so there is no twist in the loops. Finally just stick two halves of velcro together to make cable ties that don't stress the cable.

I've been a professional musician for over 20 years and have owned a studio and PA's. My cables rarely break down but I think for 1 out of every 4 gigs I've played the other sound guys have a cable malfunction. And they all do the half, half, half squeeze on their cables. They also tend to use cheap cables too while I stay with a quality cable such as Whirlwind.

- Mark

Yep, i agree with Mark, knots are the worst way to store a cable. Even loose knots will eventually break the cable, or its connections get pulled at the plug ends.
We see it all the time, because the roadie has a bag and wants to fit all the cables in it - its quick, but its bad for the cables.
Also, if you use simple looping, following the natural cable loop, not under-over, there is no stress at all on the cable, and it even packs smaller height wise. you can get more cables in a bag if packed flat than using half and half knots. Just dont make the loops too big.

Paul.

I wonder how many people were as dumb as me and used duct tape before they knew of something called gaffer's tape.

I wonder how many of that group mentioned above then decided to pull up the cables with the duct tape still attached. Removing gaffer's tape is a piece of cake compared to gooey duct tape.

As for wraps, I always used a technique taught me when I was crew of "Shamrock," Roy Disney's racing yacht out of Marina del Rey in California. Those various sheets and lines could easily be 50 or 100 feet long. We'd take the bitter end in the right hand, take our left hand stretched out as wide as possible, grab about 4 or 5 feet of line and give it to the right hand, making a hanging loop. Then repeat, but this time face the line the other way in the right hand, making a loop hanging on the other side of the right hand. Then repeat. When reaching the end, form a loop and wrap that loop around the whole assembly, then pass it through the eye at the top end and the whole thing can be hung from a peg in the boat.

Of course, for audio cable you don't want to be putting strain on the cable by hanging it, but anyway it made for a neat easily-handled bundle.

An alternative for shorter lengths and/or of smaller diameter (sheets on a big boat need to handle TONS of tension and can be 1/2" in diameter) is to wrap the line figure-eight style using your up-facing wrist and elbow as the turning points. Takes about 10 seconds and no twists in the cable.