Picking a Splitter Snake for Your Band’s IEM Setup

Seismic Audio 16 Channel Splitter Snake: Overview

Seismic Audio is a company that prides itself on inexpensive gear. They make great products, but I suggest that you stay away from any of their floor stage boxes.

We have gone through two of these splitter snakes, but it was most likely because of other bands and stage crew accidentally stepping on the snake. I highly suggest you get a rack-mounted splitter snake.

Rack-mounted splitter snakes VS floor Snakes

These types of snakes require a stage rack, but you’ll get much more value out of them. You’ll be able to patch them much easier and, best of all, you’ll be able to leave everything patched in the back of your rack.

Things like digital mixing boards or backing track setups will no longer need to be patched on the monitor end during a soundcheck.

You can go ahead and purchase a splitter that sits on the ground, but just be aware of a couple things:

1. This type of snake will be sitting on the ground on stage. If the stage vibrates at all because of low bass frequencies, it will disrupt the connection points for each XLR cable you have plugged in. A good DIY solution around this problem is to find some cheap foam that can sit underneath the snake box.
2. The XLR connectors found on the Seismic splitter snake are a bit cheap and barely held our cables. What happened? We began to lose channels during live shows at FOH.

To be fair, I think our stage snake was abused at our live shows. I’ve met many bands who have used Seismic’s rack-mounted splitter who have had no problems whatsoever.

If you’re in a tight spot financially and this is the only option, as I stated before, be sure to grab a big piece of foam and bring that with you to your shows.

You can set the foam underneath the splitter snake and that should alleviate any issues I just warned of. Aside from that issue, the XLR tails are of a solid quality; we have no issues in this regard.

The last thing to note is with splitter snakes and in-ear monitor systems, you’ll want to make sure your tails are 30′ in length. This allows you to place your stage box wherever on stage and still have ample room to get to the house monitor board or split.

CBI Ear Splitters: Overview

CBI Professional Wiring Systems is a family owned audio business located in upstate New York. After two failed splitter snakes from Seismic, we decided to give CBI a shot. Was it ever worth it.

The picture you see to the right is one of their “Ear Splitter” splitter snakes. The one pictured is only 16 channels, but they have a ton of different options all available to purchase now.

We decided to purchase the 32 channel splitter snake with 25′ and 6′ XLR tails. These snakes are rack-mounted, so you’ll need a rack case to go along with it. When the snake arrived, I installed it into our OSP 16-space shock rack, directly underneath our X32 Rack from Behringer.

After spending a few hours wiring the back, labeling the snake, and adding appropriate zip ties, it was time to plug in all the lines.

Immediately, from plugging in just the kick out XLR, I could tell this was a much higher-quality splitter snake (at a much higher cost, mind you). The force required to plug the XLR in is much greater and these connectors are made from metal.

Since purchasing our CBI splitter snake, we have had no issues with losing lines, bumping cables, or having someone step on our split.

CONCERT SYSTEMS: Overview

Another option (much pricier) to consider is Whirlwind Audio. For this snake (and other products they sell), you’ll need to call and make an order for your exact needs. Expect to pay quite a fortune for these touring systems, as they are the standard for major arena touring acts.

These splitter snakes are usually kept in their own rack case and are usually more for venues or arena touring acts. You most likely won’t need this level of gear currently. My suggestion is to go with a splitter snake from CBI.