Crazy Time: Wiring my house for Axe FX

Sidivan

Fractal Fanatic
I've had this insane idea bouncing around in my head for quite some time now and it's actually moved into the planning stages. I'm now looking for ways to streamline some things and I'm hoping some of you will have some ideas.

The Goal:
Use the Axe FX as a "Brain" for my tone, but leave it located in the basement of my house.

Setup:
I have 2 main level rooms I'd like to use the axefx in; my office, which is where my computer/recording setup is, and my living room, for TV watching/doodling purposes. In order to pull this off, we figure we'll need to run a 1/4" balanced line for the guitar in, 2x XLR returns for stereo recording, 2x 1/4" returns for Output 2 dry stereo recording, and a 2x 5-pin midi (for axe edit control). Ideally, we would also run USB and Ethernet for Axe FX II/MFC-101 planning purposes.

I've spoken with my friend, who is an electrician, and this should all be possible. I do have a few things in mind that I need opinions/advice on.

1.) Am I going to get massive interference running all these cables through my house walls?
2.) Do I really need a stereo signal for dry recording? I'm thinking I could eliminate one of those 1/4" returns as it would save a cable run and since it's the dry signal it shouldn't matter if it's stereo or not.
3.) Is there a company out there that does custom snake cabling that would incorporate these different connections into 1 cable? It would be nice to not have to cut, run, and solder all of them individually.
4.) Since this is two rooms, I'm thinking I only need 1XLR, a 1/4", and a 7-pin Midi in the room without the computer. What would be the best way to wire this system up to choose which room the signal gets sent to?
5.) Latency. Is there going to be lag running a signal 100' to the Axe and back?

I'm not worried about having all these extra jacks when I go from the Ultra to the II as my wife is going to be using the Ultra for bass. If I can pull this off, it'll be amazing to have a monitor the size of a practice amp (atomic wedge) and get the full tone of the Axe FX. Any thoughts, comments, and concerns are welcome.

Edit: The reason the Axe FX is in the basement is because that's where my band rehearses.
 
Thats an awesome idea! i thought about something similar but its an ideal where you can plug into any room and use a house PA system :)

i dont think 100' will have any major latency issues... may need to check some equations for that, but my main question is how will you be turning it on and off from different rooms if its in the basement?
 
That's an interesting idea to contemplate. I'm not clear how the guitar signal's getting to the Axe. Guitar output is unbalanced and 100' of unbalanced cable will have huge impedance and totally change the sound. I was thinking you might be better off using a wireless unit to get sound there, particularly if you can figure a way to have the transmitter run on rechargeable batteries so you're not buying another 9v for every 2.5 hours of guitar you play.
 
well i think if he uses a wireless signal he will get more delay than a cable. 100' of cable (if using a cable with capacitance of about 40pf/ft and resistance of 0.056 ohm per foot) you would get a low pass frequency roll off at (f=1/2*pi*R*C) 7.1Mhz.
 
I was thinking more of sound quality than delay. I'd rather run through a good wireless than 100 ft of cable for sound quality. I don't think perceptible delay will be an issue whichever way he goes. Also 100 ft of unbalanced cable seems likely to be susceptible to interference and electronic "noise" depending on where he lives and what's near.
 
there will definitely be interference from all the house wiring, that is true. but i found in my house, if i had the wireless running upstairs, and i had my guitar downstairs i could hear the delay between strumming and output. of course this includes the signal travel and me hearing the single, so twice the distance :)
 
I hadn't thought about capacitance and tone in too much detail since a little eq should be able to fix highs being rolled off. What if I used balanced 1/4" for the guitar run to eliminate interference? As for power, I'll just run downstairs and turn it on. No biggie. Wireless might be the way to go if there's too much signal loss or noise. I do have an X2 unit I use live.
 
I had a thought today, which seems obvious now, that if I reverse this situation and put the Axe FX in the room with the computer, it would eliminate more than 1/2 the cable runs. Suddenly, I only need 1 XLR, a 7-pin Midi, and a 1/4" run downstairs and then to the living room. Everything else was for control/recording.
 
So...how'd it go?

Me? I just schlep da box around from space to space. But I am a neanderthal...
 
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