Guitar cable voodoo

[DeeDrive]

First off, let me say that I am in no way into the whole high dollar "magic" cable thing, nor do I believe that monster cable makes cables that are necessarily better than a cable costing ten times less. That said, here is something a little strange that happened to me while practicing with my band the other night.

My setup includes a Les paul into a crybaby, Blues Driver, Boss Tremolo, into a 1960's fender tremolux head and a 2x12 cabinet. While I was playing, the guitar cable I was using started to buzz and hum as I moved. Being that I only had 2 long cables, I swapped the (cheap) one going from my pedals to my amp with the one (a cheaper monster cable) going from the guitar to the pedals. (so the bad cable wouldn't move as much)

Instantly, the sound of my guitar was COMPLETELY different. And I don't mean in the way these "golden-eared" audiophucks claims after they switch to monster cable or whatever... I mean it was obviously drastically worse. It got very bright and tinny, and the bass completely dropped out. Everyone in the band noticed it instantly, saying "what did you do, it's sounds like sh*t."

So what happened here? It was the exact same signal chain, just 2 cables got swapped. My only thought was that the cable from my guitar to pedals was buzzing and humming, (probably shorting out), so maybe the hot and ground cables were ALMOST touching while I was playing, creating some kind of capacitor effect, possibly filtering out the top end, then when I switched cables, the problem was remedied?

This is very confusing to me, unfortunately my amp is about a hour drive away (where I practice), so I can't fool around with it more.

Any ideas? Anyone experience anything like this? I will say, my Fender head is sometimes tempermental, and doesn't always sound quite the same every day, but nothing too noticeable, certainly not like this. When I switched those 2 cables, the sound was very, very different.

[Ruudman]

I've had the same experience with George L cables.
I changed to Klotz and got a very different sound. and I usually don't buy any hype...
Now I won't let a GL cable near my amp.



ruudman

[DeepSpace]

A damaged or poorly manufacured cable can present resistive load, resistive drain, capacitance (also load) or any combination of the three. These effects are frequently microphonic to some degree. The fact that you were experiencing microphonics with one of the cables means that for sure you had at least one of the above issues in play.

All three issues interact with load impedances and may be frequency and/or amplitude dependant. So placing such a cable in a different part of the chain (where the source and termination impedances are different) will generally change the affect it is having on the signal. Not better or worse necessarily, just different. So no surprises there in what you're reporting.

A dodgy/damaged cable is a liability in any position in the signal chain and this can occur with *any* make of cable and especially cables that get flexed and stepped on and have heavy gear/wheels/feet going over them. I wouldn't necessarily blame the brand of cable.

[henryrobinett]

I had a siilar thing happen to me a couple of months ago. And I had discoveed this already years before. Duh.

I use MIT Ripcord instrument cables for my guitar. I had one go bad after about 6 years. I started using some other cables I had around. Didn't realize what had happened to the sound until, well I thought it was a tube going bad in the amp. Crackles, hum and just a bad sound. Finally I bought another MIT Ripcord and it suddenly sounded so BEAUTIFUL. I mean crystal clear and tone that I'd been missing for along while.

I don't know that I'm never using another cord, but I'll definitely test them out before I commit, if I decide to use something different.

[Improv]

would y'all think I'm out of line to say that level and impedance differences are more likely to be audible on Hi-Z instrument-level connections than on line-level connections? I've never heard much difference using different wire to hook up outboard, but I hear the difference a Zaolla cable makes when cutting guitar!

[DeeDrive]

Originally Posted by Improv

would y'all think I'm out of line to say that level and impedance differences are more likely to be audible on Hi-Z instrument-level connections than on line-level connections? I've never heard much difference using different wire to hook up outboard, but I hear the difference a Zaolla cable makes when cutting guitar!

From my experience, I would tend to agree with that, though I can't think of a real technical reason why.

[max cooper]

George L cables are pretty bunk, IMO. What's wrong with a good solder connection?

[DeepSpace]

Originally Posted by DeeDrive

From my experience, I would tend to agree with that, though I can't think of a real technical reason why.

I can.

If the impedance is greater than 1M ohm, a tiny bit of bleed between conductors (lets say also about 1M, causes a radical and very audible change in the electrical path - eg it may vary the line impedance by 50% or more.

Same deal with capacitance - small amounts are large with respect to the system impedance and, as we know, the signal is apt to follow the "path of least resistance".

By comparison outboard connections are generally much lower impedance (eg 10k or less) - so small resistive or capacitance bleeds are or less significance (the path of least resistance is still thru the termination rather than the leak). Plus they're are carrying much stronger signals (eg +4dBu) so tiny microphonic effects will appear 30 to 60dB quieter (with respect to the signal) than they would in a hi-Z instrument line.

[doorknocker]

Originally Posted by max cooper

George L cables are pretty bunk, IMO. What's wrong with a good solder connection?

George Ls are great. I play in about 7 different projects and my setup always changes, from very simple to pretty elaborate in the pedal department.

George Ls are very convenient to set up but like others I struggled with the angled connectors and threw tantrums on a few gig occasions when my 'big solo' was brutally silenced by a failing cable....

The solution was to simply get a George L cable tester. It works great: make your cable, test it and there you go.

http://www.guitarnoise.com/review.php?id=388

I played a gig last Friday after a whole day of recording and I had about 30 minutes to re-assemble my pedalboard which meant needing about 6 new cables.
It worked fine thanks to the cable tester and since the cables stay in place on the pedalboard, there's a pretty slim chanche of any sudden give-outs.

The George Ls are very clean sounding, don't forget that they were designed for pedal steel and that's fine with me.I find the George Ls to be very quiet and the clean sounds works well with more elaborate and potentionally tone-sucking pedalboards.

However, I wouldn't use all George Ls because it would be too clean and I found the thicker gauged George Ls that are supposedly good for longer connections to be very bad sounding.
So after quite a bit of experimentation I ended up with Planet Waves for guitar-pedalboard and pedalboard-amp and George Ls for all pedal connections. It works great.

A simple solution to prevent tone-loss with passive PUs is to have something like a MXR Micro Amp first in line acting as a buffer, all your hi-end and transparency will be retained. Though I found the Micro Amp to be TOO bright even when set to zero boost. The Z.Vex 'Super Hard On' is the same idea but probably even better sonically.

I currently use a AnalogMan BiComprossor as a kind of buffer. I set the 'Sustain' to almost zero and always keep it on in situation where I use a lot of pedals.

[kosi]

I think, one of your cables could have gone bad. Otherwise I don't believe this big sound difference. To me, it sounds like a not working mass-connection.
The differences between cheap and expansive cables are not so obvious, that suddenly the whole band starts talking about that (my drummer couldn't even tell the difference between a Les Paul and a Strat

Have you checked the cables directly into the amp, without pedals ? Any difference ?
The best way, to check cables is: record them. And then have a listen afterwards.

Very good cables, expensive, but not overexpensive, you get here:
http://www.petecornish.co.uk/

cheers

[Ruudman]

Originally Posted by doorknocker

George Ls are great.

No they're not. They're crap.
But that's just my very honest, humble, true-hearted, single-minded, dog-walked, woman-dated opinion :-)


ruudman

[Jim Williams]

Any shielded cable is going to effect the reponse of a guitar when facing a 1 meg ohm input impedance. Cable capacitance is the major offender. Try a low capacitance wire like Belden 8421, it brings out extra tops that are absorbed by other cables.

I use Canare guitar cable, the small diameter stuff. I don't recommend this for passive electric guitars due to the excess capacitance. I have all active guitars with low output impedance so cable issues are a thing of the past for me.

Jim Williams
Audio Upgrades