Cable Capacitance, Buffers and Cable Length ?

Alnico

Ok so i have (I think) understood what i've read about long leads and pedal runs sucking tone and what buffers do. So after some thought i hit upon this as an idea, would this work...........

I use a 15ft guitar lead to my first pedal.

A few of my pedals have buffers in them, a Boss TU 3 at the start of the chain, a TC Corona Chorus halfway through and a TC Flashback X4 at the end.

What if i run out of the flashback in stereo using two patch leads straight into two of these attached to my pedalboard........

http://www.gak.co.uk/en/orange-mt-micro-terror-head/56749

........and then run long speaker leads to two cabs behind me.

Questions

1/ would this work in the first place and be loud enough to gig with?

2/ would there be a noticeable benefit by not using a long guitar lead to an amp behind me?

3/ would there be a negative effect on tone by using a longer speaker lead than normal or do they not suffer from capacitance the same way a guitar lead does?

4/ Are there any problems associated with running in stereo or will this actually sound good with the stereo effects i have (And ones i might buy in the future) ?

Thanks for any input and advice on this

Danny1969

Probably be loud enough for me to gig with but depends on your situation

The loss of treble through a load of pedals can normally be compensated for on the amp unless it's a really huge amount. 

There's no tone loss on speaker leads, only loss of power over long runs

I run stereo in one band, one nice thing is you can send a dryer FOH mix from one cab and have a wetter one for the stage sound

Gassage

This may assist

http://www.petecornish.co.uk/case_against_true_bypass.html

Alnico

Gassage said:

This may assist

http://www.petecornish.co.uk/case_against_true_bypass.html

Thanks that was interesting. Now i'm even more confused about what to do. I guess this is why / how people end up with Multi Fx Units?

Cirrus

Once the signal is buffered, long cable lengths don't really matter. To test this, I once made up a 100ft instrument cable and a 6 foot one.

I first plugged guitar into amp using the 6ft cable. Nice and sparkly. Then substituted it for the 100ft cable. It was like my amp was buried in a pile of duvets. Then I went guitar ->6ft cable->buffered pedal->100ft cable->amp.

Nice and sparkly.

For most practical purposes, the only place capacitance is an issue is between the guitar and the first buffer.

So I DEFINITELY wouldn't solve the non-existent problem of a long pedalboard->amp cable by using two terrible little amps. 

)

OK. so they're not TERRIBLE... but still.

ThePrettyDamned

I've often wondered ( @gassage may know more of PC's thoughts?) on the benefits of having a switchable buffer on a mini switch in the guitar.

Regular passive pickups and tone, but a buffer just before the output that can be switched off when needed. The pc buffer is a small circuit (well, they all are) so I don't see what the great difficulty would be, bar room for a battery?

Alnico

I can feel a 'Back to Basics' purge coming on...........

Keep an eye on the classifieds.

ICBM

Cirrus said:

Once the signal is buffered, long cable lengths don't really matter. To test this, I once made up a 100ft instrument cable and a 6 foot one.

I first plugged guitar into amp using the 6ft cable. Nice and sparkly. Then substituted it for the 100ft cable. It was like my amp was buried in a pile of duvets. Then I went guitar ->6ft cable->buffered pedal->100ft cable->amp.

Nice and sparkly.

For most practical purposes, the only place capacitance is an issue is between the guitar and the first buffer.

Actually a buffer at the end of the pedalboard can improve things too, because not all pedals have a low enough output impedance to operate well enough as a buffer when driving the long cable to the amp.

For what it's worth I agree with your original opinion on the Micro Terror . It's also worth mentioning that they are very impedance-dependent - they only produce maximum power into 4 ohms, less into 8 and much less into 16 - although they do sound less terrible at higher impedances... so that may be a consideration if you do want to use them.

ecc83

Hah!

"- although they do sound less terrible at higher impedances... "

Talk about "Damned with feint praise"!!!!

Dave.

Alnico

Thanks for all your input guys.

I've pretty much made the decision to sell all of my pedals and my (HIDEOUS) Vox AC4 C1 to buy a decent amp and get back to basics.

My Telecaster is about as good as any guitar i could ever want and with a simple few pedals to enhance whatever amp i end up with (Hopefully a Fender) i think i will be better off and much happier.

If i'm honest i have no idea what most of this actually means, i wouldn't know wet and dry if it jumped up at me, i've obviously convinced myself that i need way more 'sounds' than i actually do for what is essentially just a rhythm guitarist and the constant desire for yet another pedal to add to what i've got but then inviting more tech problems i don't understand...............it's maddening.

Stop the roundabout please. I want to get off.

Majorscale

Capacitance of an instrument cable will affect tone that's a given. It's become popular of late to obsess on "low capacitance" values when buying cable and the shift has been the lower the better. However, too low a capacitance (<23pF) results in a very trebley bright tone which may work for some, but I've found that I prefer to have a bit more capacitance in my cables for a softer warmer tone. Try a few cables out as the results are obvious and what works amazingly in one person's rig won't in another.

The story goes Jimi's preferred coily cables had a huge capcitance of 3000 pF and folks have been chasing his tone for decades!

ThePrettyDamned

Alnico;405321" said:

Thanks for all your input guys.I've pretty much made the decision to sell all of my pedals and my (HIDEOUS) Vox AC4 C1 to buy a decent amp and get back to basics.My Telecaster is about as good as any guitar i could ever want and with a simple few pedals to enhance whatever amp i end up with (Hopefully a Fender) i think i will be better off and much happier.

If i'm honest i have no idea what most of this actually means, i wouldn't know wet and dry if it jumped up at me, i've obviously convinced myself that i need way more 'sounds' than i actually do for what is essentially just a rhythm guitarist and the constant desire for yet another pedal to add to what i've got but then inviting more tech problems i don't understand...............it's maddening.

Stop the roundabout please. I want to get off.

If you like simple amps like the vox, have you seen the mjw bantam?

I'm more of a jtm/jmp sized amp man, but I could make an exception for one of those. So cute!

Dave_Mc

ThePrettyDamned said:

I've often wondered ( @gassage may know more of PC's thoughts?) on the benefits of having a switchable buffer on a mini switch in the guitar.

Me too. Then I wonder if that might be too bright. Though if on a switch, no real problem...

Gassage

ThePrettyDamned said:

I've often wondered ( @gassage may know more of PC's thoughts?) on the benefits of having a switchable buffer on a mini switch in the guitar.

Regular passive pickups and tone, but a buffer just before the output that can be switched off when needed. The pc buffer is a small circuit (well, they all are) so I don't see what the great difficulty would be, bar room for a battery?

Not sure, although I seem to recall that was one of the reasons they used the EMG's in the red strat, the other being the lighting rig RF.

Alnico

On my way home from PMT in the car.
I kept my TC Spark booster and Traded in all the rest of my pedals and my Hideous Vox AC4 in for a brand new Fender Blues Junior III.
I got really great prices on all my stuff and very nearly got a straight swap. The staff at PMT Northampton were excellent. Gave me a sound proof room to play on as long as I wanted to and were really friendly. I took my Telecaster along to try things out with which became quite a talking point once I had finished demoing the amp.
So now I have a tuner and a booster, I will get the wah pedal I wanted in the first place (weeping demon) and that's it I'm done with pedals. My new amp gives me exactly the sound I want and instead of being frustrated and constantly wanting something else I've got a great amp I can gig with and I'm really satisfied and happier than ever.
Thank you for people's input and advice.

ThePrettyDamned

Nice work guv.

Weeping demon's kick arse, I have a vai sig wah atm but I'd trade for one of those in a heartbeat, good as the bad horsie is.

Alnico

The original Weeping Demon is still available new at Woodbrass and Thomann.

£88 - £95

bandmaster188

The gig rig make a thingy that might help. Not cheap though! http://www.thegigrig.com/acatalog/Z-Cable.html#SID=13

ecc83

Re buffer inside guitar:

Does not need to be. You can build a small unit to clip on a strap and connect to guitar with a very short cable, 300mm of cable is unlikely to have a capacitance of more than 30-50puff and that is half to a third of the inescapable C'in of a valve amp.

The op Z of an IC can be less than 100 Ohms or with a neat trick of Duggy Self's, next to bugger all. A bypass switch can be a simple DPDT since there is no way to get an earth loop.

Dave.

strtdv

Live, no-one will notice the tone suck from your pedals.

At home you could well do.

Buy some decent quality cables (a lot of people like George L's, I personally prefer Klotz, but there are lots of good quality ones available that don't cost a fortune)

The boss tuner is likely to have major tone suck.

TC's digital pedals tend not to be terribly transparent either in my experience, certainly their nova system and the rest of the nova range weren't.

There are several ways to avoid this:

-don't worry about it. Your audience won't notice and if you don't either then you shouldn't worry about it

-Get a pedal with a decent buffer and put it first in your chain. A lot of people like the buffer that comes in a Klon Centaur, and as a result a variety of very good clones are available. The cheapest of these is probably the EHX soul food, the buffer on which sounds very good and transparent.

-Try each pedal individually and compare it with the sound of your guitar straight into your amp. Find the ones which suck the most tone, and buy a true bypass loop to run them in, so you only actually have them in the signal path when you use them.

There's a strong argument for having a decent buffer at the start of your chain, my personal preference is to have a good buffer at the start, and put the worst of the tone sucking offenders (Boss and MXR in my experience) in a true bypass loop after the buffer.

ICBM

strtdv said:

The boss tuner is likely to have major tone suck.

No, it's a very good buffer - as is the older TU-2 - you may be thinking of the non-pedal TU-12 etc which do indeed suck tone very badly if left in line.