QUESTION FOR GUITAR PLAYERS: CABLE LENGTH

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skie
Posts: 253
Joined: 19 Jan 2015

15 Oct 2018

Hi all, so for those of you who play with a lot of stomp boxes or long cable runs, are familiar with a signal buffer to maintain the high end (longer cable equals more tone loss).
We all know that the purest, cleanest tone is achieved by plugging in directly to the amp with a short cable.

My question: would there be a difference between a 10 ft cable vs a 20 ft cable going direct from guitar to amp in terms of tone? Like is another 10 ft enough to affect tone? I only have a 10 footer or else I'd test this myself, but its a bit short. Thanks!!

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sublunar
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17 Oct 2018

skie wrote:
15 Oct 2018
My question: would there be a difference between a 10 ft cable vs a 20 ft cable going direct from guitar to amp in terms of tone?
Short answer: no.

Long answer: Maybe, in some extraneous circumstances, but in general: no.

I can tell you that it's worth buying a more expensive cable if for no other reason than that they last longer.

EdGrip
Posts: 2343
Joined: 03 Jun 2016

22 Oct 2018

Yes.
The longer the cable, the more high end you lose. It also depends on the capacitance-per-foot of the cable - some have more than others. Wilde pickups sell a very low capacitance guitar cable that I have a short 10'-ish length of. I've also made cables out of Sommer "The Spirit" XXL - which as well as being low capacitance, is also tough as old boots and looks cool.
You can buy vintage curly cables which deliberately roll off high end, but I think it's best to keep the high end and then EQ it later if you want.
Also depends on the capacitor you use on the tone pot - try different ones. When you turn the tone pot down, it initially rolls off high end above the cutoff frequency through the first part of the rotation, and then increases the resonance at the cutoff after that. Changing the capacitor changes the cutoff frequency, so it's good fun to experiment with.
There's lots of good info on cables and capacitance at the Wilde pickups website.

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pushedbutton
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22 Oct 2018

http://www.shootoutguitarcables.com/gui ... -loss.html

plenty of related links on this page.
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sublunar
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23 Oct 2018

You guys realize he was asking about 10 vs 20 ft cables right? I challenge you to hear/analyze the difference.
pushedbutton wrote:
22 Oct 2018
http://www.shootoutguitarcables.com/gui ... -loss.html

plenty of related links on this page.
This link is full of somewhat contradictory, verbose and poorly written explanations. It goes into extreme depths that no normal person would go to when picking out a cable. See my quote above about "extraneous circumstances". I'm obsessed about my tone but I've always only bought various brands' higher end cables and have never had a reason to compare the tone of each cable independently because they do their job and I just can't imagine being that neurotic about it. Short answer: no.
Last edited by sublunar on 23 Oct 2018, edited 1 time in total.

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MrFigg
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23 Oct 2018

Ha ha. How much running around with your guitar are you intending on doing?
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O1B
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01 Nov 2018

20ft is any old guitar cable length. No issue.

What would you use? 10ft is barely my room.
Just DONT get cheap, shitty cables. That's the hard thing to commit to.
Vocals are on mugami. Synths and Drum machines on good quality Sweetwater Cables.

And, yes. Tone is different, if one can hear.

Mugami WINS.

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demt
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01 Nov 2018

there again

Image
doesnt get entangled about your feet
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guitfnky
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01 Nov 2018

often wondered how much actual difference there is myself. I’ve never really tested it, but once I switched to using a Vox coiled cable, I stopped caring much. coiled cables are (usually) longer, but I’ve always loved the tone I’m able to get regardless. ...plus there’s the added benefit that it doesn’t get wrapped around your feet like a straight cable can. ...plus you don’t have to loop it through your strap to keep from accidentally yanking it out of your guitar mid-performance. ...plus it just looks cooler. 🙃
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motuscott
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01 Nov 2018

My amp receives the signal telepathically, straight from my mind.
Sounds so much better than what my hands and guitar are doing.
Who’s using the royal plural now baby? 🧂

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selig
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01 Nov 2018

guitfnky wrote:
01 Nov 2018
often wondered how much actual difference there is myself. I’ve never really tested it, but once I switched to using a Vox coiled cable, I stopped caring much. coiled cables are (usually) longer, but I’ve always loved the tone I’m able to get regardless. ...plus there’s the added benefit that it doesn’t get wrapped around your feet like a straight cable can. ...plus you don’t have to loop it through your strap to keep from accidentally yanking it out of your guitar mid-performance. ...plus it just looks cooler. 🙃
I don't know what it is about coiled cables, but they alway cause me trouble by 'catching' other cables and making tangles worse (coiled headphone cables are the worst for me).

But hell yea, they look cooler for sure.
;)
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selig
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01 Nov 2018

O1B wrote:
01 Nov 2018
20ft is any old guitar cable length. No issue.

What would you use? 10ft is barely my room.
Just DONT get cheap, shitty cables. That's the hard thing to commit to.
Vocals are on mugami. Synths and Drum machines on good quality Sweetwater Cables.

And, yes. Tone is different, if one can hear.

Mugami WINS.
Love Mogami cables, and yes a cable CAN affect tone.
However, this particular test is flawed. Why? For one, the second example is already 3 dB hotter than first (you can see it clearly in the waveforms below too) - read on.

The reason I say the test is flawed is because of the truism that guitar tone comes from the player first. If you play differently, you get different tone. There's no guitar player (certainly not this one) that can play the same EXACT thing four times in a row. And yet, that's what they did in this video example, with each performance varying from each other in tone, volume, timing, and dynamics.

The only way to test is to start with the same exact performance (or use a mechanical "player", like with Yamaha MIDI player pianos).

So in this video we are comparing TWO things: the performance and the cable. As such we have no way of knowing which thing is making us prefer one version to the other. If all we want to compare is the cable, we MUST remove all other variables so we know what we are comparing. That has not been done in this test, so while it is still true that cables can affect tone, we would need a different test to demonstrate that effect.

And we already know another truism that's at play here: louder sounds better (second example is 3 dB louder on the first chord). Looking at the waveforms, the second example is far louder than the first

Since some examples are louder than others, we cannot compare fairly, plus there are tonal difference between the performances we cannot assign to different cables being used.
But I'm STILL a huge fan of Mogami cables… :)
Screen Shot 2018-11-01 at 11.23.16 AM.png
Screen Shot 2018-11-01 at 11.23.16 AM.png (587.83 KiB) Viewed 2311 times
Selig Audio, LLC

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guitfnky
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01 Nov 2018

selig wrote:
01 Nov 2018
guitfnky wrote:
01 Nov 2018
often wondered how much actual difference there is myself. I’ve never really tested it, but once I switched to using a Vox coiled cable, I stopped caring much. coiled cables are (usually) longer, but I’ve always loved the tone I’m able to get regardless. ...plus there’s the added benefit that it doesn’t get wrapped around your feet like a straight cable can. ...plus you don’t have to loop it through your strap to keep from accidentally yanking it out of your guitar mid-performance. ...plus it just looks cooler. 🙃
I don't know what it is about coiled cables, but they alway cause me trouble by 'catching' other cables and making tangles worse (coiled headphone cables are the worst for me).

But hell yea, they look cooler for sure.
;)
never had this problem with coiled guitar cables. ALWAYS have this problem with coiled headphone cables. :lol:
I write good music for good people

https://slowrobot.bandcamp.com/

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MrFigg
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01 Nov 2018

Coiled cables suck. No point in them if you ask me. Too springy.
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O1B
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02 Nov 2018

Yep. I've given up on finding the perfect test. Always... always.. the issue is Gain Staging.

But, the TONE difference is overwhelmingly obvious. No gimmick, imo.
I hated getting >$10 cables... but leads, thin wires, dull sound.... and I tried mugami on a whim.

Now , I sadly have to do the same for eurorack.
Proper CV cables. Proper audio cables. $$$$$$.

:( Monster works... until the leads go :(

What other cable(s) do you use? I have TWO mugamis. just a minuscule two... precious mugami cables.
Sweetwater gives me 5 good cables for 1 mugami (price-wise)

Any brand you can vouch for?
selig wrote:
01 Nov 2018
Love Mogami cables, and yes a cable CAN affect tone.
However, this particular test is flawed. ...
But I'm STILL a huge fan of Mogami cables:)

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motuscott
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02 Nov 2018

If you're going to need a lot of cables, learn to solder and make your own. It will save you some serious money.
Who’s using the royal plural now baby? 🧂

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O1B
Posts: 2037
Joined: 26 Jan 2015

02 Nov 2018

I didn't get in this for that. But, have at it.
motuscott wrote:
02 Nov 2018
If you're going to need a lot of cables, learn to solder and make your own. It will save you some serious money.

EdGrip
Posts: 2343
Joined: 03 Jun 2016

02 Nov 2018

Yeah, forgot to say, I roll my own cables. It's cheaper and you can use those white Neutrik jacks that you can only buy from Thomann to make your cables sexy-lookin' and easy to spot. ;-)

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