How To: Wind and Store Your Cables
Is this how you store your cables. Yech. What a snarly mess. And you can actually damage cables by storing them improperly. Let me show you how to wind and store all your cables properly, and without spending a dime on those overpriced and generally worthless "cable management" gadgets you see at the storage & container places.
First, let's deal with braided cables, these are the most delicate. That includes mic cables and instrument cables for a guitar or expensive HDMI cables. Winding these up the wrong way can disrupt this pattern of fine wire braiding inside which is an important part of the cable's ability to reject noise.
Take one end and begin to roll the length in an imaginary circle that is always in the same plane -- it doesn't really matter how big or small a circle within reason -- the key is to let the cable roll while doing this. By that I mean let the cable naturally roll around the circumference of its cross section. This lets the internal wiring stay intact and gives you a nice, neat roll at the end.
To finish you can try to connect the two ends if its an XLR and you're done. I generally don't like to tie off mic, guitar cables or HDMI cables. A little tie is handy for these.
To unwind, do exactly that, don't just pull on and end.
For less delicate cables, it's a similar process but often these kinds of A/V cables are flat or multi-housing affairs, so as you wind you keep the flat orientation going without twisting. Again, trying to preserve the integrity of the wiring inside. In the end, you can ties these off with a wrap around like so.
Extension cords work the same way, but are pretty tough and you can tie them off really well to get a really tidy figure 8 that stores and hangs really well.
Simple stuff, but your cables will last longer and you won't have to dig through a rat's nest to extract the one you need.
