Question about Diy patch cables

[TimWaldvogel]

Can I use old mic cable to make 1/4" patch cables? I read someplace that when you make mic cables it's good to have two conductors soldered to each pin in your cable to better resist electro static interference... Is this true for 1/4" cables at all? Can I just  solder ground of a everyday mic cable to ground and the two other pin wires to the hot/tip?   

[PRR]

Yes, but maybe better:

At one end, hook white to tip and black to shell, cut-off the shield. At other end, hook white to tip and black+shield to shell. Signal travels on white and black inside the shield. The shield is connected only at one end. This will usually be your "destination" end. Then garbage which hits the shield just goes to destination ground/chassis. The black signal-"ground" wire is inside the shield and gets less garbage.

[TimWaldvogel]

Just curious, why can I leave the shield connected at both ends? What negative effect does it have

[Ronsonic]

You can do it the simple way you described and there won't be anything bad about it. Almost all commercial cables are made like that and that's what I've done when I had mic cable to make guitar cords. Having the shield connected at only one end is a fraction quieter, not IME a factor in the world of guitar and all its noises. Like everything else it's a trade off, simple and rugged versus just a little quieter.

[TimWaldvogel]

Well I just didn't know cause it seems like a pain to remember which end is the "destination " end

[Processaurus]

A real, significant increase in reliability is preferable to marginal increases in fidelity.  If you use both conductors to carry the signal, and one breaks, the cable still works perfectly.

[TimWaldvogel]

So should I use one to carry the signal and one+shield to ground. Or two for signal and shield to ground. Which is more stable, reliable, and has best fidelity

[.Mike]

Well I just didn't know cause it seems like a pain to remember which end is the "destination " end

When I've done this in the past with some of my cables, I put a very small piece of heatshrink, about a 1/4" long, on the end of the cable where the shield is connected. It makes it really easy to remember.

Mike

[TimWaldvogel]

Yes but if this was such high fideliy increase, then why are guitar cables still being made the way they are? Idk if it's worth it. I doubt there would be an audible difference. Without using a frequency analyzer ya know?

[.Mike]

I was just giving a tip on how to differentiate the ends if you decided to give it a try.

I replaced all of my cables, but for a slightly different purpose-- a rack setup for internet talk radio. My gear is in a room with tons of other electronic gear in a 90 year old house with terribly noisy power. My mics require huge amounts of gain to bring them up to a usable level for live broadcast, so any noise is amplified as well. There was a huge audible difference overall after my rewire, but I'm sure it was a combination of many things-- replacing crap wire with high-quality shielded wire from Canare, using Neutrik connectors instead of generics, converting from unbalanced to balanced (using this technique on anything that had to remain unbalanced), etc.

[zombiwoof]

Yes but if this was such high fideliy increase, then why are guitar cables still being made the way they are? Idk if it's worth it. I doubt there would be an audible difference. Without using a frequency analyzer ya know?

There are commercial guitar cables made this way.  They will say they are "directional", and one connector is usually marked with a different color or something to show you which end goes into the amp.  They just aren't really popular, because as we all know guitar players are very conservative when it comes to this kind of thing, and most of us cling to the traditional things we know best.  That construction is supposed to help with noise and with ground problems when you use different amps and such from what I"ve read.

Al

[Jimi W]

I've had Planet Waves cables with one end marked with a guitar and the other with a speaker and therefore directional. Was before I got into the whole DIY scene so didn't really question why they were made this way. Guess I know why now! Not sure of the sound implications but I still buy Planet Waves.

Jimi

[TimWaldvogel]

Ok well I have a bundle of musiciansfriend mic cables I bought, two of them being broke in the xlr end. So I guess I will make some diy patch cables tonight :-)

[Processaurus]

So should I use one to carry the signal and one+shield to ground. Or two for signal and shield to ground. Which is more stable, reliable, and has best fidelity

Two for the signal, shield for ground.  I used to make patch cables from quad mic cable (because it came in great colors) and none of them have broken.  Mic cable actually isn't a great choice for long guitar cords because the capacitance is higher than instrument cable generally, and the shield is often the spiraled loose wire type rather than woven, but patch cables are so short those issues are nothing to worry about.

Has anyone with the "semi balanced" cable arrangement tried reversing guitar end and amp end, and been able to hear any difference in noise?  Electrostatic noise is normally a fairly weak current source, and functional grounds are usually such low impedance that it seems like separating the shield from the upstream instrument's ground reference, and tying them together at the chassis ground of the downstream device is academic in the case of guitars and pedals.

[PRR]

> an audible difference. Without using a frequency analyzer

In a very worst-case situation, with a flood of EMI in the room, there's a clear difference when you cut the shield at one end. I used to run 300' unbalanced in warehouses and offices. The shield can pick-up a large magnetic (not just static) induction. Not injecting this into the signal return sometimes makes the difference between enough buzz to spoil the gig and a happy customer. (And a happy me, because I avoided the cost of balancing.)

For short patch cables, the real trick is what Mike did. Don't site your patchwork between the generator and the arc-welder, keep things tight and neat.

[Processaurus]

I could see that, it is an interesting approach to push the limitation and noise susceptibility of unbalanced lines over long distances a bit.  If one were to insert pedals every 6 inches of that 300 feet, or even 10 feet though, it would compromise the whole pseudo "one end only" (the studio wiring scheme where balanced lines' shield is connected only at one end, usually the desk ) because it is stitching signal ground to chassis ground at each and every pedal.  You would need to keep them separate consistently through the entire signal chain (using xlr cables or something) to reap whatever benefit might be had.  Grounding is an interesting and worthy subject,  but there is no realistic advantage to this overcomplicated approach in the guitar effects world.