****** Warning: Potential cork sniffery / triggering alert *********
Last night's rehearsal between songs I swapped out a Fender Deluxe cable for a Fender Professional (both 3m I believe) going into my pedal board. The former one is double the price of the other.
I immediately heard a difference. Not major. My band mates didn't notice obviously but playing the song ... I heard... something different...not exactly a harshness but an increased... treble?? .. something had changed. Immediately went back to the cable before.
I do not profess to have golden ears. I remember Paul Reed Smith saying every bit of your rig matters (like duh... but after last night ... errr.. gulp ...right) and it's got me thinking of cables and what I will buy in the future.
This isn't exactly a slam dunk either. I've had the pricey (very) Klotz cables in the past and couldn't tell the difference. I've had cheap Dáddarios .. fine..
So ..what's your approach ... and what do you swear by...
...she's got Dickie Davies eyes...
Comments
But the impedance of the guitar and the input impedance of the amp /pedal input will also affect how much the cable affects the tone too.
So I just set the amp to how bright I want it regardless ... if it's a big stage and I'm using a 5m cable there will be a slight loss of treble but I will just set the amp slightly brighter to compensate.
The guitar signal is buffered and pre amped on a traditional radio transmitter and receiver system. So capacitive loss wouldn't be an issue as that's only an issue from a high impedance source. But there is signal degradation due to other factors like Squelch which kind of acts as noise gate, switching off if the amplitude of the signal falls below a certain level.
Digital wireless solves some issues of radio but adds a little latency due to the analog to digital conversion
Some cable types are less prone to noise than others but all are generally better if looked after and coiled nicely after use. Some of my friends tie notes in there's to make them smaller before they get shoved in a bag and their cables are always noisy.
just because you do, doesn't mean you should.
I also make cables for others, if they ask nicely
As @Danny1969 has already said, the difference you heard was probably due to the 2nd cable having a lower capacitance than the 1st one.
Your guitar cable really is an integral part of your sound, and you can change things significantly by changing cable. For example, if you go from a cheapish 10m stage lead to a wireless transmitter you will probably find your sound will become noticeably harsh and "toppy".
So,make sure you test any new cables in your rig at home/rehearsals before taking them to a gig.
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As a crude analogy, if you translated a book into German, then took out every letter "a", then did your best to translate it back, you wouldn't get the original without any "a"s.
I've saved thousands over the course of my life (including studio cables).
These days the only ones I don't solder myself are DB25's- I've done them before but they are too fiddly.
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The longest lasting cable I ever had was a Venom cable, not sure what model either cobra or python, that lasted me 17 years (including some periods of heavy gigging). Outlasted every other single cable I bought in that period including various flavours of Fender.
Midi, mic, guitar, patch, speaker etc etc - 2 price points - mid/low and top quality - Low end we looked at Stagg and top quality we had 2/3 meetings with Horizon, a USA brand of similar quality to Whirlwind - As such all cables would have been branded with a corporate name, be it AOS or Academy of Sound etc - As a big Leeds fan I proposed a play on words based on Super Leads
As it happens it never got off the ground, in part as I left AOS and shortly after they sold out to Sound Control
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For a lot of gigs I use a Line6 G30 between guitar and pedalboard, and I can't say I ever noticed a difference in tone going from cable to wireless. Having said that, a lot of people notice significant "tone suck" from non true bypass wah pedals, and I don't. My ears are nearly 58 years old, which probably has a lot to do with it.