Instrument or Line-level cable for synths?

[Dolemite]

OK, I'm about to make a pretty sizable (for me) cable purchase and since I've managed to stick to balanced gear for everything but my synths, I'm buying all balanced cable except, of course, for my synth connections. I've been looking around different places for the answer to this question and getting conflicting reports, so I'm confused as to whether I should get instrument or line-level cables. My main keyboard is a Korg Prophecy, and thus far I haven't noticed much difference (or maybe I haven't listened ) between running it directly into my DAW or passing it through my DI inputs of my DMP2 mic pre. Anyway, as I see it, if you're going into instrument-level inputs in a DI, you should use instrument cable and use line cable for line inputs. Any hard and fast rules to use here or is this something I just have to figure out for myself?

 

[regebro]

I must say that after 20 years as an amateur musician, I never knew there was any difference between instrument and line-level cables...

The synths are unbalanced, hence use unbalanced cables. No need in using balanced cables for anything that is unbalanced, really.

 

[Dolemite]

The synths are unbalanced, hence use unbalanced cables. No need in using balanced cables for anything that is unbalanced, really.

Heh, exactly, I know that much!

I believe there is some difference between unbalanced line level and instrument cables (there better be when I'm paying $2/foot or more!) and I think it has to do with capacitance. Whether or not this difference even matters with keyboard outputs I couldn't say. In my experience, keyboards seem to put out something kind of in between instrument and line-level, which only adds to my confusion...

 

[regebro]

The capacitance of a cable should be as low as possible, no matter what you put through it. There is a difference in line-level and instrument inputs, which may be the source of the confusion.