Connectivity - Posted on 2014-05-11 by Brian Logar

Not the most exciting lesson, but important nonetheless.  Being a guitarist for many years, I've dealt with only some of the cables and connectors introduced in this chapter.  I didn't exactly know the difference bewteen balanced and unbalanced 1/4" cables, nor did I even recognize that there was a difference (thankfully I've been plugging in with an unbalanced cable all these years).  As for all of the digital cables and connectors, most of them weren't anything I've already seen or dealt with with my father in the past.  Patch bays were completely new to me though.  Now I understand what those 'wire jungles thingies' are in pictures of professional studios.  It all seemed decently complicated, but I'm sure knowledge will follow practice.

At the studio, arnold already had some spare cables lined up to show me real examples of the cables in the chapter.  He showed me which ones were most common in daily operations and which ones I would probably never encounter.  Like who the hell uses FireWire or Thunderbolt? I like how Arnold doesn't waste time with the things he thinks I don't need, and I respect his opinion.