Coily cables (I'm absolutely livid!)

WiresDreamDisasters

I can't believe no-one is taking this seriously  

ICBM

Yes, it’s all a bit dull...

What you really need to do to sound like Hendrix is use full-length curly cables as patch leads between all your effects pedals... then you’ll notice .

stonevibe

I know my coily cable weighed a lot and has pulled out a few jack plates whilst I'm gigging, I still use it though as I find I trip over it less then my straight cables. A very heavy cable, and you don't realise until you unplug it just how much it drags your guitar downwards, great for negating headstock dive!

mbe

Hendrix was inspired to write a song about the crosstalk parameters of coily cables. Crosstown Traffic.

merlin

ICBM said:

Yes, it’s all a bit dull...

What you really need to do to sound like Hendrix is use full-length curly cables as patch leads between all your effects pedals... then you’ll notice .

What you really need to do to sound like Hendrix is practice your ass off. Every day for many, many years. Then practise some more. 

Then get a curly cable. 

stephen.wood125

Wait, were the cables African or European?

jdgm

Curly leads are evil.

TTony

jdgm said:

Curly leads are evil.

Possibly - but we were discussing coily cables.  None of that odd curly stuff.

Jalapeno

It's a guitar hero thing surely (not the game) - Brian May, Paul Gilbert etc

Voxman

merlin said:

ICBM said:

Yes, it’s all a bit dull...

What you really need to do to sound like Hendrix is use full-length curly cables as patch leads between all your effects pedals... then you’ll notice .

What you really need to do to sound like Hendrix is practice your ass off. Every day for many, many years. Then practise some more. 

Then get a curly cable. 

I think where he went wrong in the test is that @TTony ;didn't use the exact same plectrum as Jimi or hold the guitar behind his head, but most importantly he didn't use his teeth to pluck the strings, where he'd then have heard a variation in floss capacitance. 

Handsome_Chris

@WiresDreamDisasters , actually the fact of the matter is that coiled cables act as inductors, as do all coiled wires (ie coils) (Paul, 2019) and as such affect tone.  Press here if you would like to know more.

References
Paul, C. (2009) Inductance: Loop and Partial. 1st edition. [Online]. Somerset: Wiley.

merlin

Voxman said:

I think where he went wrong in the test is that @TTony ;didn't use the exact same plectrum as Jimi or hold the guitar behind his head, but most importantly he didn't use his teeth to pluck the strings, where he'd then have heard a variation in floss capacitance. 

He must have very Sensodyne hearing. 

Adey

Voxman said:

merlin said:

ICBM said:

Yes, it’s all a bit dull...

What you really need to do to sound like Hendrix is use full-length curly cables as patch leads between all your effects pedals... then you’ll notice .

What you really need to do to sound like Hendrix is practice your ass off. Every day for many, many years. Then practise some more. 

Then get a curly cable. 

I think where he went wrong in the test is that @TTony ;didn't use the exact same plectrum as Jimi or hold the guitar behind his head, but most importantly he didn't use his teeth to pluck the strings, where he'd then have heard a variation in floss capacitance. 

I can play with my teeth....

.... but I have to take them out first!

......

       .......

                ........

I'll get my coat.

HAL9000

As already pointed out - which way the coil goes makes a huge difference to tone. Clockwise for Hendrix; Counterclockwise for those Thames Delta Wilko Johnson sounds.

Barney

They give More of a springy sound

ICBM

HAL9000 said:

As already pointed out - which way the coil goes makes a huge difference to tone. Clockwise for Hendrix; Counterclockwise for those Thames Delta Wilko Johnson sounds.

But for Drew it will be the other way round, because he plays a reverse guitar .

Nerine

I have a coily Lava cable. It’s lovely and expensive. 

But I do notice quite a significant loss of brightness when I use it in my rig. It’s definitely an audible loss in comparison to one of my fat-cored Van Dammes. There’s definitely a change in brightness. No one could convince me otherwise on this one. 

ICBM

Nerine said:

I have a coily Lava cable. It’s lovely and expensive. 

But I do notice quite a significant loss of brightness when I use it in my rig. It’s definitely an audible loss in comparison to one of my fat-cored Van Dammes. There’s definitely a change in brightness. No one could convince me otherwise on this one. 

To be serious for a minute, you're absolutely correct - but it depends on the type and quality of the coily cable, and length of cable you're comparing it to.

Firstly as p90fool said, the difference is purely due to capacitance and is directly related to length - a typical '10 foot' coily cable is actually about 30 feet long, if you pull it out straight, so a coily cable will have about three times the capacitance of a straight 10' cable, and 50% more than a 20' one.

Secondly, capacitance is *not* directly related to quality. It's largely a function of the thickness of the insulator layer, and slightly of the exact type of plastic, although there isn't that much difference between the various materials - which means that generally, a fat cable with a thick insulator will have lower capacitance, and a thinner cable - like traditional coily cables - higher.

BUT it depends on how much shielding there is... if the shielding layer doesn't completely surround the core, its surface area - which is the other factor other than separation and insulator material which determines the capacitance - will be much smaller and hence the capacitance lower. And if you look inside many old coily cables you will find very poor shielding made from only a few strands of copper wire, not an overlapped or braided shield - in other words, *lower* capacitance.

Hence it is entirely possible that a cheap coily cable could have exactly the same capacitance as a shorter high-quality straight cable, and thus will sound the same.

The real trick with cable manufacture - and why low capacitance is usually associated with high quality - it because it's hard to make a cable with *both* proper shielding *and* low capacitance. But in fact, the worst possible cable you could use from a shielding point of view - plain parallel two-core - has very low capacitance.

And in fact, high-quality, well-shielded coily cables do have very noticeable treble roll-off if you compare them to straight cables which are really much shorter. The guitarist in my band has an old Whirlwind one which sounds like turning the tone control down halfway, and I guarantee anyone with properly functioning ears will hear it.

Nerine

Let’s all remember that some household name guitarists use a coily cable and it forms part of their sound due to a (subtle) pre-EQ before the guitar signal hits the amplifier. 

A coily cable into a bright Vox could be a good generalised example. 

Seziertisch

Nerine said:

Let’s all remember that some household name guitarists use a coily cable and it forms part of their sound due to a (subtle) pre-EQ before the guitar signal hits the amplifier. 

A coily cable into a bright Vox could be a good generalised example. 

I have a GigRig Z Cable, which allows you to emulate different cable lengths, and it really is a sort of pre-eq; a longer cable is definitely more appropriate with some amps.

I took a punt on it a few years ago for 80 quid on EBay, even though there weren’t any good demos of it online, and was very pleasantly surprised.