self-made midi cables

fretless

fretless

New member
i wonder if some of the bbs members solder their midi cables themselves? since i´m doing so with my audio cabling and my midi-capable gear gets more over time this starts me thinking ... and i could decide myself exactly how long a cable should be!!

i know there´s a metal din-plug from neutrik, the NYS322 - so far so good, but what about the cable itself? since only 3 of the 5 pins are definitely connected, would it be o.k. to use standard mic/line balanced audio cable? ... or am i totally wrong here?

thanks for your input!

fretless
 
You're right. There's only 3 pins used. So you can use ordinairy balanced cable. But you don't need that kind of quality cable for midi, so I guess you should be able to find a cheaper solution.

I've made a midicable once... hehe. It's not harder to do than an audio cable. Just make sure you connect the right pins and you should do fine...

You don't need neutriks either. Unless you gonna move your gear around alot, you don't need expensive plugs and cable.

The 3 pin thing is because the other pins were left open for further extensions of the protocol. But there are no extensions yet using the other pins. Do mind that the protocol states that the max cable length is 15m, so if you use longer cables (which will probably work just the same, as long as you don't take over 50m) you'll be out of the spec. :eek: :p
 
Ive made my own before. More trouble than its worth. But its not hard. Its just that midi cables are so cheap, my time is worth more than that.
 
The temptation for custom lengths aside, MIDI is transmitted at 31.5k serial, which means it's a DIGITAL signal, which means SQUARE waves, which means that to avoid "rounding off" the edges of the square waves you need 10 TIMES the frequency response - This translates to a freq response of about 300 kHz for a good MIDI cable. Generic audio cable usually has a capacitance of about 30 to 60 picofarads per foot, where good digital cable has capacitances in the range of 6 to 10 picofarads per foot. This will make a huge difference in the shape of digital pulses, sometimes to the point of altering timing. You would probably be OK making your own MIDI cables at under 5 feet, but borderline cases of missing edge triggers in a MIDI signal can drive you insane. Maybe a better way would be to buy 3.4.5.6.10 and 15 foot decent pre-mades, use them as is where you can, and re-do just one end of a longer one where you can't live with excess cable in an installation. That way, you get cable that works and only have to make one end.

If you have the time to hand make all your MIDI cables, you either only have two MIDI devices or you should get a better paying job... Steve
 
the job´s paying o.k. and for now i need more than two hands to count my midi devices, but my girlfriend and i - we´ll soon be moving into a house we just bought (or our bank - depends on how you see it ;-)) ... so in the end you could always say our jobs should pay better, yes! ;-)

thanks for the insight on the digital side of midi!! actually i´m glad you wrote about those cable specs, because i suspect my midi cabling being not 100% accurate - i use a self-made trigger drumset with my alesis dm5 and sometimes when playing back recorded "midi-drums" in cubase vst i don´t think to hear exactly what i played before. i´ll definitely check out higher quality midi cables, because the ones i use now are more on the cheap side! :-(

fretless
 
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