5-conductor shielded cable: can I use it for a "pedal board snake"?

[Hardtailed]

Right now I need 4 cables to and from my pedalboards since some pedals go in the FX loop, and I keep my wireless unit in the back where beer won't get spilled on it.

I saw at the local surplus store some nice 5-conductors shielded wire. Something like 22-gauge too, so no worries there.
I thought about using that as a form of pedalboard snake so I'd have just one cable to route from the amp to the pedalboard.
But kinda worried about having all the signal grounds merged together.
I'd need at least 7 conductors + the shield to keep the signal grounds separate, but they didn't have that.

Anyone done something like this?

[Steve Conner]

Is that 5 conductors individually shielded, or 5 pieces of wire all bundled inside a common shield? If the latter you might have trouble with crosstalk.

The individually shielded stuff is commonly used for plumbing VGA video over long distances. It's basically 5 miniature 75-ohm coax cables, plus a couple of unshielded lines, all inside a plastic sheath. I once found about 20ft of it in a dumpster and have been looking for a use for the stuff ever since!

[HTH]

multicore is what you want - if you only want 5 conductors it shouldn't cost too much.

[tedmich]

partsexpress sells ProCo 8 twisted pair individually shielded snake cable, 10ft for ~$19. Its 24awg each of 16 conductors so its thick: 3/8" dia. Or run 2 x cat5e cables as they are well shielded and cheap as dirt.,

[rockinrendell]

what you need is a product called "PEDALSNAKE" i use one for same type set your probably trying to accomplish. they have din plugs on the snake cable and use "pigtails" that have different types of ends to suit the specific use. a bit pricey but good stuff. PedalSnake.com

[Mark Hammer]

Cables like that are intended to send the signal on a fairly lengthy "voyage" that can add wads of cable capacitance if the signal is not properly buffered. Make absolutely sure that you do buffer it appropriately, because something like that sort of snake, combined with a zeal for true bypass, can be the kiss of death for signal definition.

[rockinrendell]

i believe my pedalsnake is only 18ft. no longer than a normal stage cable. i just recently got an skb powered pedal board and it has a line buffer built in, in case i need it.

[Guitarist]

Cleaning the ends of your cables can help restore your brilliance lost by connection/solder/switches. Cables, we just have to live with them, dangit!

[J M Fahey]

Fully agree with Mark Hammer.
All that coming and going will suck tone badly.
I would use a regular pedalboard at my feet, send a regular cable to the amp (or use a wireless link), and another pedalboard close to the amp, with some remote switching (relays) .
Zig zagging too much is not the best.

[Guitarist]

That is a great idea, having two pedal boards. Perhaps the initial/under-foot one could use essentials so as to be versatile and portable with different amps. I recently got turned on to AA battery packs that put out 9 Volts. With whatever batteries you use they last weeks before browning down. This saves a wall wort lead.

Any more info on your relay approach? Voltage; any pcb