Would this create too much noise

Skodadad

I was thinking of mounting some guitar jack sockets in my pedal board.Going from the beginning and end of my fx chain to the side of the board. I could then route my amp and guitar cable around the outside of the room leaving just enough to reach the board.
It would make it easier to pack away and avoid the kids messing with it and tidy up the trip hazards. Just planning on cutting a patch cable in half and soldering underneath.

Gassage

I have been down this road a few times.

The simple fact is you're introducing another level of un-needed complexity and another level of potential failure in the interests of pose factor (don't mean that quite as harshly as that but...)

I decided against long ago.

Skodadad

Well nobody sees it but me so nobody to pose to lol. I do like a tinker though and often sacrifice function to please form so guilty as charged!

Gassage

Pose factor isn't quite what I meant.

But my point remains that it's another level of complexity that doesn't add any real value other than neatness.

stickyfiddle

In terms of noise, you're adding a big extra length of cable, so you'd get a bit of treble loss if you don't have a buffer on the board. 

If I'm reading right you want guitar -> long cable -> board -> long cable -> amp , in which case you can mitigate half the treble loss with any buffered pedal (which you may well already have), and it's probably not a big issue for home use. God knows so many classic tones have been recorded with mega-long curly cables.

Gassage

@stickyfiddle

There's a school of thought that says the increased impedence in curly cables (they're longer than their 'real' length if you get my drift) offers a tone change which some like- may be snake oil but Hendrix types deffo believe this.

stickyfiddle

Gassage said:

@stickyfiddle

There's a school of thought that says the increased impedence in curly cables (they're longer than their 'real' length if you get my drift) offers a tone change which some like- may be snake oil but Hendrix types deffo believe this.

Absolutely - it's physics. Increased capacitance from a long cable means higher losses of high frequencies. Any cable is basically a tone control - the longer the cable the further the control is rolled off. 

A strat with a wah pedal into a dimed Marshall is a recipe for crazy harsh trebles. The combination is treble losses from non-true bypass fx switching and long coils cables is what made it sound so sweet for Jimi. (Jimi's own fingers notwithstanding)

Skodadad

I could actually keep the cable length down a bit by doing it like this because most of my cables are too long anyway. I cut cut and resolder allowing just enough to reach the amp (currently have around 4ft unused) and the guitar which has even more unused. My playing position never changes, I play in the dining room which is the only place I can. I think as @gassage says the failure is probably more if an issue but that's not a real one for me as I can fix easily enough or just go back into the pedals themselves at a push. I designed my board to stand on edge under my desk for ease. I have to put it away after use as its in the way. I'd also rather break a jack on the board than on the pedals as they are plugged and unplugged a lot.

ICBM

stickyfiddle said:

Gassage said:

@stickyfiddle

There's a school of thought that says the increased impedence in curly cables (they're longer than their 'real' length if you get my drift) offers a tone change which some like- may be snake oil but Hendrix types deffo believe this.

Absolutely - it's physics. Increased capacitance from a long cable means higher losses of high frequencies. Any cable is basically a tone control - the longer the cable the further the control is rolled off. 

A strat with a wah pedal into a dimed Marshall is a recipe for crazy harsh trebles. The combination is treble losses from non-true bypass fx switching and long coils cables is what made it sound so sweet for Jimi. (Jimi's own fingers notwithstanding)

I was watching an old BBC documentary about him recently, and being the geek that I am, I also noticed in old live photos and footage, that when he was only using one head - rather than linking two or more via the inputs and yet more curly cable - he used the Low input. That also drastically rolls off treble, and gives a much softer sound.

On the OP's question - yes, it's a perfectly sensible idea and what a lot of people do, including me. I have a connection box at the corner of my pedalboard into which I plug my guitar and amp with normal long cables, and the jacks in the box are connected to the first and last pedals literally with a couple of patch cables cut in half.

steamabacus

Lots of people do this (including myself). There's no real problem so long as you use decent cable and mount the in/out jacks in a screened metal enclosure. You can even buy suitable ready-made in/out boxes from somewhere like Bright Onion.

As mentioned above, if you intend to run long cables you could do with a buffer/line driver to avoid treble loss from the high capacitance of long cable runs. Just make sure you have a good buffered pedal or get a small buffer box (klon-style or cornish-style are common - check out you friendly local Fretboard pedal builders).

In a studio, long cable runs would also be balanced (which means they carry two signals in- and out-of-phase which are then summed back together at the end - exactly the same principle as in a humbucker pickup) but this would probably be overkill for a home practice setup.


Having everything set up and ready to go with just the throw of a couple of switches has made a huge difference with my own setup. I can literally be plugged in and playing in seconds. If I had to set up all my pedals, etc individually each time it would take at least 10 minutes (and I used to do exactly this at gigs years ago and so got pretty efficient at doing so!) -  so much nicer to have it all ready to go.

ecc83

Yes, the increased capacitance will result in a treble loss but as IC says, you might like it!

Then, if tinkering is your game, why not build a buffer and run the guitar into it first? This can be a very simple TL072 unity gain follower but break the guitar worlds habit and use TWO PP3s as a split supply! This will give such high headroom that the buffer will be totally transparent with even the hottest humbucker. 

Having a low Z start to the wires will also combat hum.

One possible problem is RFI on such long, unbalanced cables. I suggest the use of two core "mic" cable and use the second core as the return conductor. The shield is just connected to earth and forms no part of the signal path.

And err, longer, higher capacitance cables mean a LOWER Z not higher.

Dave.

Skodadad

I said tinkerer not physicist