Do Recording Studios Use Silver Cables

I’m still stuck on the idea of “silver cables”. I don’t think silver cables are the “best” that would be too much!  A lot of high end cable use silver as ell as copper and gold as a blend to tame the silver, ie nordost, siltech, and analysis plus to name a few. 

Look at the dielectric and geometry. That is six nines of their sound, some of which are terrible in some systems due to their 'tortured' design.

Recording studios are not audiophile dens.

Engineers are not fools.

Studios do not use simple interconnects with XLRs or RCAs; they use massive bundles with XLRs and multipin connections.

Hogwash. Most had walls of individual cables. Snakes are used on stage for safety, but I never worked a session anywhere with a snake box on the floor. Typically for a large session, cables would run to a wall jack panel which could be wired with multi-conductor or individual cables.

For vocals and overdubs, often we would run a single cable under the doors. Some studios had a few cables in soundproof pass throughs to connect directly from the mic to the preamp.

I’m still stuck on the idea of “silver cables”. I don’t think silver cables are the “best” that would be too much!  A lot of high end cable use silver as ell as copper and gold as a blend to tame the silver, ie nordost, siltech, and analysis plus to name a few. 

Recording studios are not audiophile dens. They are a production facility; their widgets are recordings. High quality, completely reliable and interchangeable are the rule for their cabling. There is a studio here in Nashville being parted out. The are selling literally miles of cable: Mogami, Canare, Yaleflex, Gepco & Belden. Studios do not use simple interconnects with XLRs or RCAs; they use massive bundles with XLRs and multipin connections.

Correction: The Wall, not DSotM which was recorded @ EMI Studios, now called Abbey Road.

And recorded some of it and mixed at Producer’s Workshop, one of the least "advanced" studios in LA at the time. But oh, the sound...

I can't say for sure, but I imagine it has to do with the quality of the studio.

I know that Pink Floyd, when they were recording Dark Side of the Moon, went through every single cable they could get their hands on during the recording/mixing/mastering process in order to get the sound they wanted.

In the pro world there is some acknowledgement that cables can sound slightly different, but by far the most important quality of a cable is that it is wired correctly and works.  They are tools in the music production arsenal.

The engineers don't take the time to even match lengths, let alone brand.

I carried my own cables, mic pre, eq, level control, amp and speakers.

My company did studio installation. Some studios were very specific as to cable, others, not so much. Some studios went offline for a month or so to be rewired. 

Some studios had a wide assortment of mic and instrument cables by Belden, Mogami, Canare, Monster, AKG, Neumann, etc. Some musicians were quite surprised when we changed a cable instead of a microphone to achieve a particular tone.

Bottom line: It's the system.

Not this week.

Fools prattle on about silver, ignoring what make cables sonics differ. Dielectric and geometry explain six nines of cable sonics.

Internally, electronics have umpteen metal, plastic and resistive interfaces. SS gear adds uncountable metal / semiconductor interfaces. Tube gear adds oxidizing metal interfaces.

Cables are tone controls and are system specific. See ieLogical CableSnakeOil

I have worked in/for a couple of studios, and have toured several others. Most of what I have experienced is bulk cables, cut to length using a mix of connectors. The engineers don't take the time to even match lengths, let alone brand.

Call some Pro dealers like Sweetwater and ask for silver cables. Get back to us with how many you found. For extra points do the same with manufacturers of pro equipment who use silver where copper would suffice. That should keep you busy for a while.

Gold cables haven't proved popular

Wonder why?

But there are plenty of gold-plated connectors.  Gold doesn't oxidise, so this obviates the need to clean connectors often.  In many cables the cores are sealed by a partial vacuum that reduces the rate of oxidation, obviating some of the benefit of gold cores.  Note, if you've ever opened up an old copper cable after years of use the cores are all blue.

Applying this logic they would use gold not silver. 

As a class, recording artists are like any other. There are some that extremely knowledgeable and some who are completely ignorant. Just like audiophiles. 🤣

When did they become recording artists?
I thought they were recording engineers.

What I was getting at was that top artists record at studios that have state-of-the-art equipment.  Those studios wouldn’t use interconnects that are lower quality than the rest of their gear.  I expect that there are some people on the forum who are familiar with such studios.  From the answers it looks like some use silver or similar ultra high quality cables.  Others use regular commercial grade cable

State of the art equipment is not the same as state of the art marketing.
They are not using silver cable to make gold albums.
And the recording engineers and sound engineers are not prone to wizardry and magic of cables.

They use literally miles of cables, and just use good cable and probably a lot of XLR balanced gear.

There is possibly some places that differ, and i am no expert on recording studios, so if there were some it would be interesting to know.

I suspect that a lot of the “Artists”, are given studios to use, and do not have a death grip of control on the studios and mixing work.

Somehow, I don’t think top recording artists give 2 sh#%s what the cables are made of. Just FYI, some of the world’s most expensive cables use copper only. MIT, Transparent, Tara and Jorma come to mind. 

Actually, Jorma makes an all-silver digital cable. I was looking at it and then went instead with a Synergistic Research cable

Somehow, I don’t think top recording artists give 2 sh#%s what the cables are made of.

As a class, recording artists are like any other. There are some that extremely knowledgeable and some who are completely ignorant. Just like audiophiles. 🤣

What I was getting at was that top artists record at studios that have state-of-the-art equipment.  Those studios wouldn’t use interconnects that are lower quality than the rest of their gear.  I expect that there are some people on the forum who are familiar with such studios.  From the answers it looks like some use silver or similar ultra high quality cables.  Others use regular commercial grade cable. 

Studios use Mogami, Canare or other good cheap copper by the kilometre or mile.

Top recording artists don’t even know what cables are for .

Strange question.

Recording studios typically do not use silver for interconnect as it would be prohibitively expensive as the runs can be quite long (input boxes, patchbays, console, etc). There can easily be thousands of feet of cable in a small studio. It would also be sorta moot because the XLR, TS, RCA or any cables the artists use in their own gear would be copper.

That being said, some mastering studios DO use silver wire as they're mostly concerned with a stereo run or two in between a few EQ/Compressors. A lot of mastering gear is also modded to include silver. Actually just saw a Sontec EQ listed that has 50 years of mods including a silver wire swap.

Somehow, I don’t think top recording artists give 2 sh#%s what the cables are made of. Just FYI, some of the world’s most expensive cables use copper only. MIT, Transparent, Tara and Jorma come to mind. 

there are many miles of cables... imagine how much their services will cost...
And who said they are the best? - most often it is the seller)) ...

Requisite Audio does. And they make them for many recording studios!!!

All the best,
Nonoise

NO!