ShortScale.org

I was plowing through my bins of cords looking for a cord and thinking about the groovy neatness of Thom’s pedalboards and it got me to thinking, what kind of patch cords do y’all prefer? Do you have your do or die brand or do you just go with the cheapest?

I make my own. I use Sommer The Spirit cable, which I bought stacks of years ago.

I then use Hicon pancake jacks. These aren't all that durable, but then I don't move things around on my pedalboard very much, so it's fine.

I have a few that are made from Sommer cable plus whatever jacks I had handy or spare. I don't think the jack makes any difference to the final tone, so whatever's handiest is best, with a preference for whatever is slimmest.

There are slimmer options available, I think. But I trust Sommer because of their reputation for audio cabling generally, not just guitar cables.

My main cables are three 20ft Sommer The Spirit cables with Neutrik ends, because they get plugged into amps, guitars, and the pedal board a lot more. So it's worth having solid jacks.

It's a small thing, but those three cables are among the best gear purchases I've made. Probably bought them ten years ago. I still reckon you could tow a car with one.

http://www.thomann.de/gb/sommer_cable_the_spirit.htm

http://www.thomann.de/gb/hicon_hi_j63m ... d_jack.htm

I have used George L’s for probably more than 15 years and they are great for ease of adjusting length and customising boards as they are solderless. However about 2 years ago I started using EBS Gold patch cables as they have the lowest profile of any I have found. It often means I can fit an extra pedal on a board which I wouldn’t be able to with others.

I don't have a pedalboard, just a spring reverb tank but if I am using pedals I bought a bunch of patch cables from eBay around 10 years ago and they've been faultless. I'm with Paul on the Neutrik ends, I haven noiseless ones on the guitar end and there's none of the jack noise you get plugging in a normal cable. They've been in use for about 10 years too and again have been faultless.

I have:
- a bunch of cheap Stagg patch cables with the Neutrik-licensed plugs that are mostly metal with a coloured plastic cap. Only one on the pedal board right now as the plugs are a little bulky and the cables generally too long or too short .
- home-made patch leads using Maplin pancake plugs and Van Damme cable (from Maplin's closing-down sale). Cheap pancake plugs can be unreliable.
- home-made patch leads using Amphenol right-angle plugs and Van Damme cable.
I'm not actually gigging the pedal board at the moment, just the Roland GR-55.
I like the Amphenol plugs; they are pretty low profile and solid and available in black. I have Neutrik silent plugs on the guitar end of my guitar leads; using one to connect from pedal board to amp didn't work out too well as the spring-loaded collar pushed the plug out with the vibration of our singer dancing on stage.

Have had fancy "solderless" patch cable SYSTEMS, and also "3 for 15 quid"-ers from eBay; as long as you've got a buffer running and the cable is fixable (i.e., proper un-screwable jacks) then I've been happy. I pretty much use a combo of all types; whatever suits the current need on the board, size/spacing-wise.

Thom wrote: ↑Wed Jun 15, 2022 6:02 am I have used George L’s for probably more than 15 years and they are great for ease of adjusting length and customising boards as they are solderless. However about 2 years ago I started using EBS Gold patch cables as they have the lowest profile of any I have found. It often means I can fit an extra pedal on a board which I wouldn’t be able to with others.

I started using George L's as well around 2004 and never looked back. They are easy to setup according to your needs so if the pedalboard doesnt change too often you can have minimal amount of cable on it.

Also, when I changed all the cables from random cables bought here and there to George L's the sound improvement was very noticeable. I am not a tone purist, but sometimes random cheapo cables are hit or miss.

Spent a good bit of time tidying and moving a few things earlier, and it seems that I'm full of shite when I said that I use Sommer cable and Hiconn jacks. It seems my board has a bit of everything on there. Some random cables, some Boss patch cables, and quite a few that are not the best length. Might buy some more Hiconns and redo everything.

Fuck a noiseless Jack

That sound when you plug a guitar into a live amplifier and then hear the resonant bounce of the open strings as you do so is fucking GLORIOUS

If you took that away from me I think I’d stop playing guitar forever

The start of My Guitar by Radish is very important to me and Mike's people:



Also: THAT'S WHAT YOUR TUNER PEDAL IS FOR, DINGUSES

i was a monster cable devotee for many years, but i did not very often have complicated pedalboards during those times as i usually favored the simplest, most quickly setup/broken-down (and troubleshot) rigs as i could get. so my setup most often was Guitar -> floor processor -> amp. monsters supported that nicely since in those days they had a literally bulletproof, lifetime warranty. guitar center guys famously sold them with the phrase "you could tow a trailer with a monster cable and bring it in the next day to get a replacement, no questions asked." i never took them up on that extreme, but i did have one guitar cable get questionable on me that i did swap without hassle. i've been told monster has since altered their warranty program.

but i've moved away from them for the most part anyway. the 20'-er running from my board to the amp is a snake-wrapped monster (rock line), and the 20' cable from my guitar to the board is also a monster (jazz line); the former is 10 years old, and the latter is in the realm of twice that. they've never failed, and i don't know that i'd get monster again -- i think ROI and reliability claims have both been realized.

on my silly board these days, i have a combination of MXR and amazon-branded pancake righties and an assortment of others. since i've not been that actively playing out in quite a spell, i can't vouch for how rugged they are. i do know the one time i attempted to make my own, my low skill and low patience in those days were a recipe for failure. so i applaud anyone successful in that practice.

Doog wrote: ↑Mon Jun 20, 2022 2:07 pm The start of My Guitar by Radish is very important to me and Mike's people:



Also: THAT'S WHAT YOUR TUNER PEDAL IS FOR, DINGUSES

<3

amen. a properly employed tuner plays the role of kill switch for those in the know.

But what if you don't have a tuner?

then you're bad and i hate you

I have these flat jack cables where the cable itself is also flattened. I got them off Amazon a while back and just bought lots of them because they were cheap. But they're copies of Rockboard flatties. So they look kinda pro but they sure as hell aren't.

I used to have a two full solderless kits but they got old, I lost a few, etc, and i could never honestly tell you that having moderately expensive cables for my pedals made any difference so that's why I went for the cheapo flatties.

NickD wrote: ↑Tue Jun 21, 2022 7:33 am But what if you don't have a tuner?

i see a lot more folks using the clip-on jobs that have a strobe emulating chip, so it would not surprise me to see fewer tuning pedals on boards and in racks than back in the day.

Such a turn off.

dots wrote: ↑Wed Jun 22, 2022 5:01 pm

NickD wrote: ↑Tue Jun 21, 2022 7:33 am But what if you don't have a tuner?

i see a lot more folks using the clip-on jobs that have a strobe emulating chip, so it would not surprise me to see fewer tuning pedals on boards and in racks than back in the day.

They are a neat option, I’d certainly use one if I was playing live. As I’m not a tuner app on my phone works well enough.