Cable Colour

maltingsaudio

Just ordered some Custom Lynx tour grade cable to make up some Guitar leads (NB excellant cable been using it for years and just as good as Van Damme) and the question of what colour to buy came up. Never really gave it much thought befor as cables should be Black right?

( I bought Copper colour , was going for yellow but bottled it!)

HAL9000

Red sounds better :-)

timmypix

I have coloured cables for when I'm using a 4CM setup, with corresponding coloured dots on amp/POD. Just makes setup quicker when you can see which cable's going where!

Headphones

Don't worry, they'll always end up black...

Danny1969

Van Damme Blues series, but mainly because I need the extra cores. Other than that all cables should be black as bright coloured cables look shit in theatres and dark stages when professionally lit. 

stickyfiddle

Black. I add a couple of electrical-tape-stripes at the ends so I can tell which is which when plugging in several or if something dies I can remember which one. 

Roland

Danny1969 said:

… cables should be black as bright coloured cables look shit in theatres and dark stages when professionally lit. 

My guitar cables are black. However all my XLRs are red because I was fed up with them getting stolen.

scrumhalf

HAL9000 said:

Red sounds better :-)

You are Eric Johnson and I claim my £10.

ICBM

Multicoloured woven cloth.

Offset

My guitar cables are day-glo yellow and day-glo orange.

DartmoorHedgehog

I'm not a big fan of coloured cables in general but my pedalboard-to-amp cable (longer than the rest) is blue just to make it easier to pick out from all the other black ones.

guitargeek62

timmypix said:

I have coloured cables for when I'm using a 4CM setup, with corresponding coloured dots on amp/POD. Just makes setup quicker when you can see which cable's going where!

This - nail polish works well

bloodandtears

Danny1969 said:

Van Damme Blues series, but mainly because I need the extra cores. Other than that all cables should be black as bright coloured cables look shit in theatres and dark stages when professionally lit. 

@Danny1969 does the Blues series come in different colours? asking for a friend..

steer

I usually avoid black cables. If you buy a different colour you are less likely to get any other musician picking up your cable after a gig thinking that it is theirs. 

Danny1969

bloodandtears said:

Danny1969 said:

Van Damme Blues series, but mainly because I need the extra cores. Other than that all cables should be black as bright coloured cables look shit in theatres and dark stages when professionally lit. 

@Danny1969 does the Blues series come in different colours? asking for a friend..

I don't think so yet  but I am always on the look for new mulitcore cable 

I never used to think too much about cable colours until I was taken to the back of a theatre and shown how things can distract, like the power on light of an amp or the reflective glow of a bright green cable or similar. This guy used to tape over the lights on amps and wedge monitors to stop the distraction. I disabled the  light on my amp and have never re-enabled it. 

You can buy rings which are numbered for XLR's and Neutrik jacks. I don't do this myself, I use heatshrink. I tend to use a lot of looms for drums and stereo feeds so not that many actual XRL's

I wouldn't use 4 separate cables for the 4 cable method, I use mulicore and 5 pin male and female XRLS either end. I have one 3 metre and 1 4 metre. For big stages I can join them together for 7 metres between amp and board. 

For a simple send /  return from amp effects loop to pedal board just use 2 x XLR to jacks convertor wired pin 1 = both grounds, pin 2 = send and pin 3 = return and then a mic cable between them for the length. Need a longer run then just stitch another mic cable in there

For stereo IEM down a single mic lead convert both sends to single ended by shorting pin 3 to ground then use pin 1 as common ground, pin 2 as left and pin 3 as right. 

p90fool

I always buy colourful guitar leads just to make the spaghetti de-tangling easier at the end of the night.
Apart from that, my mains leads are black and my speaker leads are either white or orange, depending on whether I salvaged them from a lawnmower or not. 

CavemanGrogg

Should of gone with day glow pink, orange, green, or yellow.  No other colour cable is capable of providing tones a good as neon day glow coloured cables do.

fretmeister

HAL9000 said:

Red sounds better :-)

Yukihiro Hayashi, the boss of Free The Tone pedals has actually argued that the colour of the insulation makes a difference. Different colour, different properties.

I'm just glad to have a non-financial reason to not buy from his company! 

gatheredinsong

I recently bought purple XLR leads to run from my pedalboard amp because I'm having a mid life crisis.

bloodandtears

p90fool said:

I always buy colourful guitar leads just to make the spaghetti de-tangling easier at the end of the night.
Apart from that, my mains leads are black and my speaker leads are either white or orange, depending on whether I salvaged them from a lawnmower or not. 

this is also me...

freakboy1610

I got a purple curly one last year (no reason...) and a straight purple Mojo Cables one at The Guitar Show.