Cable Housekeeping

There's a law of nature that says

It's more likely for the untangled to become tangled than for the tangled to become untangled.

Whatever — the result is that wherever you have cables, you have a mess. People have recognized the problem and solved it for certain special cases (cable conduits, wireless devices, continuous power strips, cable ties, etc.) but, like with the paperless office, proliferation outpaces innovation; I expect there will always be cables, and therefore, tangled cables.

I've learned a few small things which have made my life with cables easier:

How to untangle cables. Untangling cables takes a certain amount of time, and it doesn't go any faster when you're in a hurry. My first tip is

• take your time.

Expect it to be a kind of meditation. Pay attention to the structure of the tangle. Don't be afraid to just stare at the tangle and gather your thoughts. Then,

• remove the easiest cable first.

Which cables are the easiest to remove from a tangle? Those that are

• shortest (it's clear why these are easiest to remove),
• fattest (they will be the least tangled, and the least likely to get strained when you pull on them), and
• most unlike the others (which lets you see them more easily).

Once you remove the easiest cable, the others become less tangled, and easier to remove.

How to store cables. There are several things to optimize when you're storing cables: minimize how long it takes to store them, how much room they take up, and how much they get tangled with other cables while in storage, and maximize how easy it is to find what you're looking for when you get the cable out of storage.

• Find both ends of the cable and hold them in one hand.
• With the other hand, find the middle.
• Fold the cable in half.
• Repeat until the cable is the right size (you be the judge).
• Secure with a heavy rubber band.
• Put it in a box.

You might say "But I don't have a rubber band when I need one." Well, get some. It's the cost of doing business. You can spend a couple of bucks on a bag of rubber bands, or you can spend hours of your life untangling cables. It's your choice.

The advantages of this method (which outweigh the inconvenience of having to find a rubber band) may not be obvious, so I will mention a few:

• The method applies to almost any cable, so you don't have to figure out a different method for each cable.
• It's very easy, so you can do it fast (especially with practice).
• Because the cable is folded, it takes up less space (and one cable tends to be shaped like another, so they pack better).
• When you are looking for a cable, you can see both ends at once, so it's easier to find the one you're looking for.
• Because all cables are folded in the same way, it's easy to judge their relative sizes.
• Because each cable is folded the same way every time, it get flexible in the way it needs to, making it easier to fold.
• It's easy to unfold a cable (just pop off the rubber band and you're done).
• Cables don't get twisted (as they do when you coil them).

Finally, I am grateful to Max Mathews for this:

Label MIDI cables. Many MIDI devices have an IN and an OUT port. When you're hooking these up, you get a couple of cables out of the box, go to the device, plug in the cables, go to where you're going to plug them in, and ... "uh-oh, which cable is which?" You have to go back to the device, figure out which one is IN and which is OUT, and then back to where you're going to plug them in, and you spend a while trying to find the right place to plug them in, and then ... "uh-oh, which cable is which?" Or you just guess, and then spend time trying to figure out whether the reason things don't work is because you've got the cables backwards, or for some other reason. So, Max's advice is:

Label the ends of MIDI cables.

What this means is that a cable that previously could be used with either end at either end now has a dedicated SOURCE end and a dedicated DESTINATION end. So, sometimes you'll have to switch ends of a cable. It's worth it, because you'll NEVER spend time figuring out which direction the bits are flowing.

Incidentally, the way I label MIDI cables is to wrap masking tape around the plug (several times, so that it gets opaque), and then draw arrows ("—>") at various places so that an arrow is visible from every direction.

N.B. DO NOT label the ends of a MIDI cable IN and OUT — it only causes confusion ("does OUT mean that data is coming OUT of this end of the cable, or does it mean that I should connect this to the plug labeled OUT?") Arrows are unambiguous. (You can put arrows on your equipment, too.)