Where can I get the Lava cable cutter and the George L Plugs on its own?

hywelg

Contrary to what @guitargeeksimon experienced, I had loads of problems with George L RA jacks, not the straight jacks though.. If like me you are continually moving pedals around, taking out and adding new ones in, they are NOT good. I had so many failures, and those failures were not presented just after a move, they sometimes cropped up midway through a set or a song. I ended up redoing every end just before a gig to be sure.

I changed to Lava cables and they are fine, the way they grip the shield is much more secure, they are slightly smaller and only take about 30seconds extra per end to make up, if that. I still move pedals around regularly and have not had a single problem post installation. I had one bad one after making the ends but the test showed that up straight away.

Danny1969

What am I missing, why do you guys even bother making your own patch cables when you can buy one for about £3 already made which would last a lifetime

Serious question, not knocking it just can't understand it ?

RaymondLin

Danny1969 said:

What am I missing, why do you guys even bother making your own patch cables when you can buy one for about £3 already made which would last a lifetime

Serious question, not knocking it just can't understand it ?

Custom lengths.

dindude

Danny1969 said:

What am I missing, why do you guys even bother making your own patch cables when you can buy one for about £3 already made which would last a lifetime

Serious question, not knocking it just can't understand it ?

What type do you get for £3, again serious question. I think you would struggle to get a good patch cable for under a tenner because essentially the key costs - quality jack plugs, the fact that they both need soldering (so the same amount of labour), remain the same, despite them being tiny and thinking they "should" cost less. The cable is the cheap bit and you wouldn't buy a £3 guitar lead would you?

Even our very own Kabl, who I consider very good value, wouldn't sell you a patch cable for £3.

Don't scrimp on the boring bits I say. I bet you've got a gorm for a pedalboard too

:P

ThePrettyDamned

dindude said:

Danny1969 said:

What am I missing, why do you guys even bother making your own patch cables when you can buy one for about £3 already made which would last a lifetime

Serious question, not knocking it just can't understand it ?

What type do you get for £3, again serious question. I think you would struggle to get a good patch cable for under a tenner because essentially the key costs - quality jack plugs, the fact that they both need soldering (so the same amount of labour), remain the same, despite them being tiny and thinking they "should" cost less. The cable is the cheap bit and you wouldn't buy a £3 guitar lead would you?

Even our very own Kabl, who I consider very good value, wouldn't sell you a patch cable for £3.

Don't scrimp on the boring bits I say. I bet you've got a gorm for a pedalboard too

:P

Yeah, I agree here.

I make my own because it's cheaper, but a few Neutrik angled plugs are expensive! The cable itself is the cheapest component.  And I don't use the cheap'n'nasty either.  

I solder mine because it's custom lengths (not that I'm that bothered) and because solder works well. 

Danny1969

dindude said:

Danny1969 said:

What am I missing, why do you guys even bother making your own patch cables when you can buy one for about £3 already made which would last a lifetime

Serious question, not knocking it just can't understand it ?

What type do you get for £3, again serious question. I think you would struggle to get a good patch cable for under a tenner because essentially the key costs - quality jack plugs, the fact that they both need soldering (so the same amount of labour), remain the same, despite them being tiny and thinking they "should" cost less. The cable is the cheap bit and you wouldn't buy a £3 guitar lead would you?

Even our very own Kabl, who I consider very good value, wouldn't sell you a patch cable for £3.

Don't scrimp on the boring bits I say. I bet you've got a gorm for a pedalboard too

:P

I could sell you a patch cable with Neutrik right angled ends up to 1M length for £7 (and I would make a profit on that) but for a guitar pedal board a simple moulded one would work equally fine. There's not enough length in the cable for any core to screen stray capacitance to be an issue and as it's a pedal board your not stressing the strain reliefs by constantly pulling on the cable. 

I understand good cables, every single mic cable used the studio (all 150 odd ) was made by me using Neutrik ends and decent cable. I also wired all 42 inputs into a 142 way patchbay. 

The 1\4 patch leads I use came from CPC at about £15 for a bag of 10. These get used constantly routing aux sends to headphone sockets. They would be fine on a pedal board and come in 3 different lengths ...... and multi colours

But take no notice, ever since I decided to make a living from music I've become very tight fisted

hywelg

Danny1969 said:

I could sell you a patch cable with Neutrik right angled ends up to 1M length for £7 (and I would make a profit on that) but for a guitar pedal board a simple moulded one would work equally fine.

Making money and making a profit is not the same thing. Pay yourself minimum wage and that £1 you make for soldering  two Neutrik NP2C ends will soon disappear and become a loss. Moulded ones work but only if your not fussy about your tone.

Danny1969 said:

There's not enough length in the cable for any core to screen stray capacitance to be an issue and as it's a pedal board your not stressing the strain reliefs by constantly pulling on the cable. 

Indeed there is. Multiply 30cm x 10 pedals and poor cable becomes very noticeable.

Danny1969 said:

I understand good cables,

Clearly not in relation to pedal boards. Capacitance is very important. Size of jacks is very important, hence why Neutrik jacks are not that popular. Cables of the correct length are also important for a neat layout.

RaymondLin

Looking at some youtube videos...Lava cables needs clipper, stripping, even the tightrope one needs some work.  With George L you just cut, push and twist on the back?

 

So what advantage of getting lava cables since they are both unsoldered?

guitargeeksimon

hywelg said:

Contrary to what @guitargeeksimon experienced, I had loads of problems with George L RA jacks, not the straight jacks though.. If like me you are continually moving pedals around, taking out and adding new ones in, they are NOT good. I had so many failures, and those failures were not presented just after a move, they sometimes cropped up midway through a set or a song. I ended up redoing every end just before a gig to be sure.

I changed to Lava cables and they are fine, the way they grip the shield is much more secure, they are slightly smaller and only take about 30seconds extra per end to make up, if that. I still move pedals around regularly and have not had a single problem post installation. I had one bad one after making the ends but the test showed that up straight away.

Sorry you've had problems mate. I very rarely change my pedals as they wired into my gigrig switcher so I cant be bothered to move anything! Plus I use all human strength to make sure the nut is tight. I might be interested in trying the lava cables at some point though.

Danny1969

hywelg said:

Danny1969 said:

I could sell you a patch cable with Neutrik right angled ends up to 1M length for £7 (and I would make a profit on that) but for a guitar pedal board a simple moulded one would work equally fine.

Making money and making a profit is not the same thing. Pay yourself minimum wage and that £1 you make for soldering  two Neutrik NP2C ends will soon disappear and become a loss. Moulded ones work but only if your not fussy about your tone.

Danny1969 said:

There's not enough length in the cable for any core to screen stray capacitance to be an issue and as it's a pedal board your not stressing the strain reliefs by constantly pulling on the cable. 

Indeed there is. Multiply 30cm x 10 pedals and poor cable becomes very noticeable.

Danny1969 said:

I understand good cables,

Clearly not in relation to pedal boards. Capacitance is very important. Size of jacks is very important, hence why Neutrik jacks are not that popular. Cables of the correct length are also important for a neat layout.

10 x 30cm of cable is 3 metres. Even if all the pedals were true bypass and the high z guitar signal had to drive through the lot you wouldn't hear a difference unless you chose the cheapest nastiest audio cable you could lay your hands on. To be honest the fact the cheaper cables had proper soldered joints would improve things since as a low pass filter the resistance of the joints to the jacks are in series and the stray capacitance of the cable is in parallel 

The bigger size of the Neutriks is more of a point I guess but couldn't add more than 5cm in width across 10 pedals could it ?

I still think your better off learning to solder and making your own if custom length is important 

RaymondLin

nickb_boy said:

http://www.soundsgreatmusic.com/products.php?product=Lava-Cable-Tightrope-Solder-Free-Kit-Limited-Edition-Ultramafic-Cable-Upgrade

If I was starting again with making up some pedal board leads I'd check these versions out. They're smaller than anything else and apparently very easy to put together. I use the older lava plugs and they certainly give you very sore fingers and can be a bit of a headache to get the board done in an evening! But they do work well!

These ordered  

fretmeister

Get Rob from this forum to make them:

http://www.kablonline.co.uk/instrument.html

He has the low profile Hicon plugs that give you a bit more room on the board too.

Drew_TNBD

Those pancake jacks are horrible to work with. I made a bunch too using those Hicon jacks, and they suck tone like a motherfucker - the cable was Mogami too, not some cheap crap!!

You owe it to yourself to buy some cheap multi-coloured patch cables from Maplins and just compare them to whatever you've got now, and compare them to George L's and Lava once you get them.

My bet is that you'll hear very little difference. I use Planet Waves right angled cables right now, because I was given an Amazon voucher.

Bidley

Yeah I use Venom cables, cheap and cheerful and you can still get into the jacks should you need to repair them. I could never see the point in stuff like George Ls either, seems like a massive outlay for minimal gain.

RaymondLin

Drew_fx said:

Those pancake jacks are horrible to work with. I made a bunch too using those Hicon jacks, and they suck tone like a motherfucker - the cable was Mogami too, not some cheap crap!!

You owe it to yourself to buy some cheap multi-coloured patch cables from Maplins and just compare them to whatever you've got now, and compare them to George L's and Lava once you get them.

My bet is that you'll hear very little difference. I use Planet Waves right angled cables right now, because I was given an Amazon voucher.

I am less concerned about cable brand and names, if it is oxygen free copper then it is oxygen free copper.  What I like most is something easy to assemble and takes up not a lot of room.

hywelg

Danny1969 said:

10 x 30cm of cable is 3 metres. Even if all the pedals were true bypass and the high z guitar signal had to drive through the lot you wouldn't hear a difference unless you chose the cheapest nastiest audio cable you could lay your hands on.

Sorry, I did a direct A/B with my pedal board with Van Damme Instrument cable (red, if it makes a difference, but not very good for capacitance I later found, but it is nice and flexible, Klotz La Grange is much better but too thick and inflexible) with Neutrik RA jacks compared with straight to the amp via a George L 10' cable, using a loop switcher. Huge tone suck.

Danny1969 said:

The bigger size of the Neutriks is more of a point I guess but couldn't add more than 5cm in width across 10 pedals could it ?

It made such a difference that I now have room for 3 more pedals. Think about it, pedals with a side entry, you cannot stagger them and have the cable ends nest together, you can with George L or Lava, so you can lose nearly 1.5-2cm with every gap by using Neutrik.

Danny1969 said:

I still think your better off learning to solder and making your own if custom length is important 

 I can solder perfectly well thank you, and I did indeed make my cables to the correct length.

George L cable + RA jacks made a huge difference to the tone, were very easy to make to any desired length, even 2" long, made changing pedals and pedal order very easy indeed, something that is very much more difficult with soldered cables. I only changed to Lava because George L's were unreliable, Lava cables are much much better.

Danny1969

@hywelg

If you can hear the difference between 3m of Van Dam and George L then I applaud you cos 99 out of 100 people won't ..... there just isn't enough of a difference

As for George L cable being unreliable that just seems insane to me, I just couldn't put up with any cable being unreliable. I can accept amps becoming faulty and PA's etc but not a cable that's sat between 2 pedals not even under any stress. But if the pedal board cork sniffers will put up with that shit so they can get a "neater" look on their pedal board ........ and lets face it .... it is all about looks cos any sane person would just stagger the pedals if they wanted them closer together then fair play to em

hywelg

Danny1969 said:

If you can hear the difference between 3m of Van Dam and George L then I applaud you cos 99 out of 100 people won't ..... there just isn't enough of a difference

You would if you tested it properly with an A/B loop switcher. If you test by swapping cables, by the time you make the change your brain has forgotten the nuances of the previous cable. Believe me there is a very marked difference between Van Damme Instrument and George L cables. Planet Waves not so much, but still there, Lava Soar and GeorgeL almost identical. Providence is just as good. Those were all I had to test apart form one absolute P.O.S. cheap cable which was appaling. Oh, and I tried a 30' Van Damme as well, one I had made up for my PA use, not guitar. Dreadful.

Danny1969 said:

As for George L cable being unreliable that just seems insane to me, I just couldn't put up with any cable being unreliable.

Hence why I went with Lava. Best of both worlds. In fact they are slightly smaller, definitely more reliable, in fact I'd go as far as to say, as reliable as soldered ends, never had one go bad yet.

RaymondLin

Well, this is what came today.

Figure why buy those cable tester when I can just use a multimeter.

cbellanga

I have the feeling you won't use the multi tester anyway. Never had a problem with those lava tightrope. They just work fine from the first time.