Whirlwind Snakes

In the late 1960's, the largest touring groups were the first to begin experimenting with having a mix position out in the audience with the mics connected from the stage through multipair cable. These "stage snakes" were individually made by the sound people as a commercial model didn't yet exist. In fact, the largest pair count of cable being manufactured at the time was 27 channels and the largest boards were 24 inputs. If a touring group needed more capacity, they would have to use two consoles and two snakes.

As smaller groups and venues started to emulate the "big boys", Whirlwind began receiving requests for stage snakes. So in 1976, Whirlwind became the very first manufacturer of stage snakes. They were called Medusas®, when someone compared the "fanout" to the snakes in the hair of the Greek mythological creature.

The very first Medusas were small capacity, 6 inputs with 3 returns and 8 X 4, 12 X 3, 16 X 3 and 24 X 3. These pair counts reflected what was already available in multipair cable from the wire manufacturers. The first stageboxes were just a plain aluminum box with a Whirlwind sticker for the logo. The bands couldn't get them fast enough and a whole new area of industry for Whirlwind was born. Whirlwind began to have cable built to its own specifications and increased the pair counts at the same time.

In 1978, 15 and 19 pair cable were upgraded to 16 and 20 pair respectively and 32 pair cable was introduced.

Around 1980, the console manufacturers moved to larger 32 X 10 formats and Whirlwind followed suit by introducing 42 pair cable. (Pictured here is a Medusa Standard 15, circa 1981)

Another Whirlwind "first" introduced at this time was the Power Series set of snakes. These incorporated 2 pairs of 14GA shielded speaker wires in the center surrounded by 9 or 16 audio pairs and were intended for use with mixers that contained built in power amps.

Today, Whirlwind builds snakes ranging from the MINI-6 and MINI-12 to 58 channel systems with hardwired splits.

         Dave Sutton from Marietta GA sent us this piece of Whirlwind history.

It's the inside of the cover of a six channel "Medusa Minor Special" built by "S. Sherman" on 3-15-76 and it's #2149 which makes it a VERY early Medusa.

Steve Sherman left Whirlwind for a while but returned in '04 as our Southeast salesperson. Neither Steve nor anyone else here can remember why we called it "The Sister Electric" unless it was a reference to the mythical Medusa being part of a group of three sisters: Medusa, Stheno and Euryale. If so, it was probably a good idea to skip naming any future products "Stheno" or "Euryale"!