axeman_ukl
New member
what brand of guitar leads do you think give best results and value for money for studio work only ?
studio guitar leads
- Thread starter axeman_ukl
- Start date
muttley600
Banned
Make your own using the decent and appropriate cables and connectors.
Kingofpain678
Returned from the dead
+1
That will save you quite a bit of money because not only does that save you from paying for the name brand but if saves you from paying for the labor it takes to solder the connectors to the cable, which, obviously isn't hard but company's will still charge you.
You can get large lengths of cable whether it be mono or stereo/balanced. Just cut to length and solder the appropriate connector.
YorkshireTrippe
New member
yep, I use Neutrik connectors and the highest quality cable I can get.
Advantages of making you own...make the cables just long enough for your room so you dont have loads fo cbale curled around the floor adding noise and tripping you up, you can make a cable with basically any connectors you like on the ends (RCA to XLR? I've got one) and you wont end up with those moulded cables that you can't remove the jacks from
Advantages of making you own...make the cables just long enough for your room so you dont have loads fo cbale curled around the floor adding noise and tripping you up, you can make a cable with basically any connectors you like on the ends (RCA to XLR? I've got one) and you wont end up with those moulded cables that you can't remove the jacks from
id like to make my own, and can see the appeal, but i cant solder and im lazy,
i get my cables for cost price through my work instead,
ive been using planet waves custom pro series guitar cables in 20ft lengths, and yes i can hear the difference!!
the whole point of a guitar cable is to NOT be heard, and thats exactally how the better cables perform (as much is possible)
i get my cables for cost price through my work instead,
ive been using planet waves custom pro series guitar cables in 20ft lengths, and yes i can hear the difference!!
the whole point of a guitar cable is to NOT be heard, and thats exactally how the better cables perform (as much is possible)
muttley600
Banned
mshilarious
Banned
It is possible if you're switching from cable with high capacitance, say 100pF/ft to a more reasonable 30pF/ft. The former figure will yield audible rolloff above 8kHz at 20ft.
Now, if you have your tone control all the way down, then no, no cable will make a difference.
muttley600
Banned
You might like to think you can hear a difference but you can't
mshilarious
Banned
Don't care, I can measure the difference, and I used actual physics in that post!
muttley600
Banned
OK have it your way. Now go measure the impedance of every other component in the chain from the guitar pick to the speaker cone and room, do the maths for me and report back. We'll take it from there.
mshilarious
Banned
OK have it your way. Now go measure the impedance of every other component in the chain from the guitar pick to the speaker cone and room, do the maths for me and report back. We'll take it from there.
I don't think the acoustic impedance of the room (which I imagine is extremely low at 8kHz anyway) has much to do with the electrical source impedance of the pickup, which I took as a nominal 10K. Once you hit the first amplifier, the impedance of subsequent devices doesn't matter (presuming the first device is a tube or FET, which I would hope, or alternatively that the load on the BJT is sufficiently light so as to result in a similarly high input impedance).
There is also stray capacitance in a few other components maybe in the guitar, but that is small compared to the assumed 2nF from the bad cable, unless as I said the tone control is full off (or really, materially rolled off).
Given that the design goal of the cable should be to NOT affect audio band signal irrespective the setting of the instrument, it behooves one to spend about three minutes selecting appropriate cable. Especially if you decide to go longer than 20ft. There ARE cables on the market with excessively high capacitance. Mostly smaller diameter cables, and perhaps some extreme cheapies. Buy a reasonable quality cable intended for instruments and you're fine.
Of course, I like underwound pickups, so I can get away with just about any cable. I also like step-down transformers in my guitars . . .
muttley600
Banned
Dude, I've always held your subject matter knowledge in high esteem please don't blow that one. No if's maybe's, assumings, or but's. As you know I do know my shit and so do you. Lets just give the real deal shall we.
You will not hear a difference between cables. Get decent components and cable make your own to suit your needs. That is all.
mshilarious
Banned
What is so complicated here? I am talking about inappropriate cables vs. appropriate cables, appropriate being nearly anything properly labeled as a instrument cable. Perhaps you don't believe me when I say it's possible to buy an inappropriate cable. It's not easy, but it's possible.
Also, when guitarists want really long cables, capacitance can become a problem even with reasonable cable.
Do most guitarists care about HF response? No, most try to get rid of it ASAP. Doesn't mean all guitarists do that though. I am partial to plugging into a DI and listening that way (ref: "I don't like the natural sound of my guitar" thread).
The basic problem is that guitar electronics are wildly outdated, inappropriate systems. Microphone cables are something that truly never matter (at lengths below 500ft, anyway), because nobody is stupid enough to build a mic with a 10K output impedance, at least since the 1960s. OK, Shure Green Bullet, you got me there . . . but that's because it's intended to be plugged into a guitar amp! And it's internally rewirable to low impedance!
The cable I sell for my little instrument-mount mic is 100pF/ft. It's not intended for lengths longer than 10ft, and that mic is 1K out, not 10K. But such cable does exist. That's a lav cable, but I've seen other narrowish cable from the reputable manufacturers at 60pF/ft. What about the unbranded cheapo bulk cable that doesn't come with specs?
Now, if you want to maintain that nobody cares about -3dB at 8kHz on guitar, fine. And for an overwound humbucker on a guitar in drop-C with the tone half off into a typical guitar amp's woofer, that might be true. But not everybody plays that style.
muttley600
Banned
OK, Hows this. This is what I should have said.
#
You may want to hear a difference but you can't unless (I know nobody asked about this scenario or remote possibility but Its so important that you all should know..)
You Happen to have a guitar cable of well over 20 feet in length made from such poor quality materials that the capacitance is well above 100pF/ft, These cables are really really hard to find in fact I have never come across one as a guitar cable but it must be possible. Even then you are only going to possibly be aware of a difference with a certain set of conditions within your signal chain are met. These revolve around the number of windings on your pickups and the type and age of the magnets, the quality and values for the components in the guitar (if you have any). Even then it is unlikely you would physically be able to detect a difference in tone once the signal from your guitar has passed through the many other stages on it's journey to your ears.. If you could detect a difference you would then have to make a subjective judgment on whether you preferred that difference. I know none of this is really relevant to your original question and describes a highly unlikely outcome but I had to include it in the answer just in case "you" happen to be that one in a million.
#
Hows that?
I tell you what msh I'll stick with my original answer and you can fight your corner and we'll see shall we.
DrewPeterson7
Sage of the Order
For quality, reasonably priced cables, I've always liked George L's.
Can I hear a difference? Tough to say for sure. Anything I think I can hear is subtle enough that it could totally be due to placebo effect, and I've never done a double-blind comparison. I'm not sure if I did I could tell them apart with anything approaching consistency.
Now, what I REALLY want is a cable that doesn't get all tangled on itself when I play!
Can I hear a difference? Tough to say for sure. Anything I think I can hear is subtle enough that it could totally be due to placebo effect, and I've never done a double-blind comparison. I'm not sure if I did I could tell them apart with anything approaching consistency.
Now, what I REALLY want is a cable that doesn't get all tangled on itself when I play!
Zaphod B
Raccoons-Be-Gone, Inc.
To me the biggest discriminator amongst instrument cables is their reliability.
I have never been able to hear any difference between the medium price cables I buy (Livewire these days) and the absurdly expensive stuff hawked by Monster and other high-end cable sellers.
But good strain relief at the jack is important, as is durability to the outside sheathing and a resistance to kinking.
I have never been able to hear any difference between the medium price cables I buy (Livewire these days) and the absurdly expensive stuff hawked by Monster and other high-end cable sellers.
But good strain relief at the jack is important, as is durability to the outside sheathing and a resistance to kinking.
miroslav
Cosmic Cowboy
Yeah...that's the only stuff that really matters in the long run.
The snake oil about sound quality is at best, just a spec on some piece of paper that's only applicable under the same conditions as the test.
I don't mind if the cable rolls off some of the HF...just saves me having to do it at the amp!
mshilarious
Banned
Well this is like part #47 in my series of rants on why guitar electronics are horrible. No system should be designed where you have to worry about cables, unless we are talking RF systems where transmission line effects must be considered.
But down in AF, it really ought to be simple. But guitars aren't properly engineered, so you have to tell guitarists things like don't use a cable longer than say 30ft.
Audibility. That is elusive, but generally if we define the audible band as up to 20kHz, and we want to ensure a flat system response, we want no more than 0.1dB deviation across that band. Now, transducers can't really do that, that's a mean test. So we lighten up on our transducers and love them as they are.
But when we aren't talking transducers, we ought to be strict. What is the #1 "complaint" against digital audio? OK, there are like 47 too . . . let's take HF attenuation at 44.1kHz. Due to filter behavior, there is always going to be some. Lavry defines an ideal in his well-known white paper, it's more than 0.1dB but a lot less than 3dB.
OK, so people gripe about that loss but should be willing to accept a 3dB loss at 8kHz? I don't get that. If we can't hear 3dB at 8kHz, we really ought to hang it up. I think 8kHz matters for electric guitar . . . maybe not everybody agrees.
But I was being nice when I described output impedance at 10K. That's only true if we don't touch our volume knob. Let's think about the completely preposterous concept of a "treble bypass cap". Let's say we have a 500K volume pot and a 250K tone pot, and we rolloff 6dB on the volume knob. We now have output impedance at high frequencies of (260K||250K||250K), let's be lazy and call that 85K. That 30pF/ft is now a huge problem.
Instead of fixing that problem, what does the treble bypass cap do? It breaks the system equally at all settings rather than having the system work at some frequencies and break at others.
And that's with a standard quality cable, nothing to be done about it. So you see people shopping for super-low capacitance cables? Insane!
How about . . . lowering the output impedance with a transformer (or an active buffer, that works too but I like guitars to be fully passive)? I mean, does the gain control on an amp not work, or something?
But down in AF, it really ought to be simple. But guitars aren't properly engineered, so you have to tell guitarists things like don't use a cable longer than say 30ft.
Audibility. That is elusive, but generally if we define the audible band as up to 20kHz, and we want to ensure a flat system response, we want no more than 0.1dB deviation across that band. Now, transducers can't really do that, that's a mean test. So we lighten up on our transducers and love them as they are.
But when we aren't talking transducers, we ought to be strict. What is the #1 "complaint" against digital audio? OK, there are like 47 too . . . let's take HF attenuation at 44.1kHz. Due to filter behavior, there is always going to be some. Lavry defines an ideal in his well-known white paper, it's more than 0.1dB but a lot less than 3dB.
OK, so people gripe about that loss but should be willing to accept a 3dB loss at 8kHz? I don't get that. If we can't hear 3dB at 8kHz, we really ought to hang it up. I think 8kHz matters for electric guitar . . . maybe not everybody agrees.
But I was being nice when I described output impedance at 10K. That's only true if we don't touch our volume knob. Let's think about the completely preposterous concept of a "treble bypass cap". Let's say we have a 500K volume pot and a 250K tone pot, and we rolloff 6dB on the volume knob. We now have output impedance at high frequencies of (260K||250K||250K), let's be lazy and call that 85K. That 30pF/ft is now a huge problem.
Instead of fixing that problem, what does the treble bypass cap do? It breaks the system equally at all settings rather than having the system work at some frequencies and break at others.
And that's with a standard quality cable, nothing to be done about it. So you see people shopping for super-low capacitance cables? Insane!
How about . . . lowering the output impedance with a transformer (or an active buffer, that works too but I like guitars to be fully passive)? I mean, does the gain control on an amp not work, or something?
Zaphod B
Raccoons-Be-Gone, Inc.
Responding to msh's last post.
Some guitars (for example my Fender Telecaster) have a bypass position on the tone knob that bypasses the treble roll-off cap. I've also heard of guitarists that just eliminate it entirely.
Many FX pedals are active buffers and can mitigate the effects of long-ish cable runs. That's one thing that's interesting about the whole question of "is this pedal true bypass" - because sometimes true bypass isn't always the best thing.
Some guitars (for example my Fender Telecaster) have a bypass position on the tone knob that bypasses the treble roll-off cap. I've also heard of guitarists that just eliminate it entirely.
Many FX pedals are active buffers and can mitigate the effects of long-ish cable runs. That's one thing that's interesting about the whole question of "is this pedal true bypass" - because sometimes true bypass isn't always the best thing.