DIY Cables - A Cautionary Tale

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jeremyb
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DIY Cables - A Cautionary Tale

Post by jeremyb »

So I recently put together my board with some of the Harley Benton patch cables, they are budget but seemed decent enough!

I checked each one for continuity, sleeve to sleeve, tip to tip as always and also no continuity between the shield and tip on each lead, put everything together and it all sounded great.

Jump forward a month and I put new pickups in my strat, the pedalboard was in a bit of a state as I was going to move some things around and none of the pedals had power, so I plugged straight into the amp, dead quiet, hmmm, what have I done, oh thats right, need power to the looper or no sound... chucked some power on the looper and we're away!

Decided I wanted to hear it with a bit of dirt so powered up all the other pedals and plugged into the board, weirdly it seems quieter... hmmm... plug into amp, volume increase, plug into pedals, quieter again....

Hmmm I thought, dodgy pedal or lead? Then I remembered I had watched a TPS video a couple of days earlier where Dan had showed himself making cables and used resistance, rather than continuity on his multimeter, AHA! I thought, lets whip off the cables and try that!

Of course it was the last cable to try, but the meter was showing a significant resistance between the tip and sleeve on one of the cables, perhaps it happened when moving things around, or maybe it was always like that and the continuity check didn't pick it up, but either way it was enough to make it sound like the guitar volume was down around half way!!

So all is good in the world again, and a reminder that sometimes we should play direct into our amps as you could be surprised what you can learn!
Slowy wrote: That's the problem; everything rewarding is just such hard work. Regret takes much less effort.

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Re: DIY Cables - A Cautionary Tale

Post by IMOCD »

jeremyb wrote: Wed Jul 01, 2020 5:33 pm So I recently put together my board with some of the Harley Benton patch cables, they are budget but seemed decent enough!

I checked each one for continuity, sleeve to sleeve, tip to tip as always and also no continuity between the shield and tip on each lead, put everything together and it all sounded great.

Jump forward a month and I put new pickups in my strat, the pedalboard was in a bit of a state as I was going to move some things around and none of the pedals had power, so I plugged straight into the amp, dead quiet, hmmm, what have I done, oh thats right, need power to the looper or no sound... chucked some power on the looper and we're away!

Decided I wanted to hear it with a bit of dirt so powered up all the other pedals and plugged into the board, weirdly it seems quieter... hmmm... plug into amp, volume increase, plug into pedals, quieter again....

Hmmm I thought, dodgy pedal or lead? Then I remembered I had watched a TPS video a couple of days earlier where Dan had showed himself making cables and used resistance, rather than continuity on his multimeter, AHA! I thought, lets whip off the cables and try that!

Of course it was the last cable to try, but the meter was showing a significant resistance between the tip and sleeve on one of the cables, perhaps it happened when moving things around, or maybe it was always like that and the continuity check didn't pick it up, but either way it was enough to make it sound like the guitar volume was down around half way!!

So all is good in the world again, and a reminder that sometimes we should play direct into our amps as you could be surprised what you can learn!
Them's wise words. I am currently bypassing my pedalboard and going straight to amp and am enjoying it a lot. However, its demonstrated I have a tone suck problem occurring with my pedalboard that needs some sleuthing. Probably time to edumacate myself on buffered v's true bypass pedals (aswell as purchasing some half decent patch cables).

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Re: DIY Cables - A Cautionary Tale

Post by jeremyb »

IMOCD wrote: Mon Jul 06, 2020 5:14 pm Them's wise words. I am currently bypassing my pedalboard and going straight to amp and am enjoying it a lot. However, its demonstrated I have a tone suck problem occurring with my pedalboard that needs some sleuthing. Probably time to edumacate myself on buffered v's true bypass pedals (aswell as purchasing some half decent patch cables).
In my personal experience, when I went from those cheap coloured cables to proper patch leads I had to turn the treble down on my amp, they must have had so much capacitance it was sucking the high end out of my tone!!

I wouldn't worry too much about the whole buffered vs true bypass debate, cable quality and length matters more, the only things I would suggest is if you have any buffered pedals (Boss tuner or whatever) put it after fuzz pedals, otherwise if that doesn't apply, one at the beginning and one at the end is a great way to preserve tone loss thru your pedalboard and to have the correct impedance for input into your amp (I'm gonna get shit for this comment no doubt)....
Slowy wrote: That's the problem; everything rewarding is just such hard work. Regret takes much less effort.

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