What guitar cord do you use?

[galaxiex]

I mostly use Yorkville cords made by Long & McQuade here in Canada.
10 footers.

They are inexpensive and seem decent quality.

Recently gone back to using my wireless from guitar to pedal board.
Still use a Yorkville cable from P/B to amp, or in live show, direct to P/A.

I have a DI box at the end on my P/B chain.

TBH I have never noticed any real difference in cables as far as sound goes.
As long as they work, I'm happy.

I do have a few Planet Waves cables and 1 or 2 20 footers if I need a long one for some reason.

I have done the comparison test with a 1 foot compared to a 10 and 20 foot.
In a quiet home situation I could hear a difference in the treble response.
In a band situation it doesn't seem to matter.
I play Tele's and they are quite bright anyway.
Besides that, I play mostly rhythm and don't want too bright a tone.
I chug away in the background so nobody can hear my mistakes...

I just measured one of my Yorkville 10 footers.

262pf

[g1]

I'm with Justin, although I do stick pretty much with 20 footers. I use enough hearing protection that I'm never going to notice that kind of subtlety in tonal variations.
And pedals are for bikes.

[nosaj]

I'm with Justin, although I do stick pretty much with 20 footers. I use enough hearing protection that I'm never going to notice that kind of subtlety in tonal variations.
And pedals are for bikes.

I think that right there says a lot. i think you can get carried away with trying to take measurements here and there and slice and dice it down to a cable's pf. But really what are you gonna have with a drummer, a singer , a bass, and a guitar. I suspect nothing that an audience is going to hear, so at this point you have to wonder if you;ve become captive to your madness.

Chasing the tone (It's always out of reach)

nosaj

[The Dude]

I'm mostly wireless. On the rare occasion I do use a cord, I just grab whatever is available. Amps have treble knobs.

[The Dude]

I have a Sennheiser wireless, in case you care. Turning the volume down does, in fact, also come with a slight loss of highs, but not enough to worry about or be objectionable, IMO. I wouldn't say it's any more or less than a reasonably good cable. I'm happy to volunteer any other info you like, if I can help.

[Chuck H]

I have a Sennheiser wireless, in case you care. Turning the volume down does, in fact, also come with a slight loss of highs, but not enough to worry about or be objectionable, IMO. I wouldn't say it's any more or less than a reasonably good cable. I'm happy to volunteer any other info you like, if I can help.

That's interesting. I would have expected the short connection to the wireless to be of negligible capacitance and then the reamped signal to be from a low impedance amplifier.?. Strange that it should be similar to a cable. Unless, perhaps, that is designed into the system.?. I might have to research this before I'm through.

[The Dude]

DO NOT hold me to this, but I think I remember reading that some sort of "cable simulation" is built into the front end. Then again, a little research might just bring to light how much the cable has to do with the phenomenon.

Edit: This is not the exact same model wireless system I have. I'll have to look next time the bus is unloaded if you want to know. But, this model does say it has cable emulation.

https://en-us.sennheiser.com/wireles...ance-ew-572-g3

[g1]

I know with the early Samson's they told us what cap to put across the cable at the body pack, for customers who didn't appreciate the newfound brightness.

[Enzo]

Well, it is the same pack they used for wireless mic, so it has wide response, maybe not as desirable for guitar. Throw a cap at it to roll it off.

[Chuck H]

I'll try to find out just what sort of cable they're emulating. In the mean time I suppose I should participate.

I use a 20' cable. Usually straight to the amp. Occasionally through a couple of pedals. Like Helmholtz I like to have one of the pedals provide a low impedance mirror rather than true bypass because I don't prefer the effect of more than 20' of cable. I sometimes test at my bench with a 10' because it's right there and handy, but I always use a 20' for practice and gigs because it's what my ears are use to now. I think I chose the 20' early on thinking it would give me enough lead to roam a little on stage if that came up. But I'll bet I never moved more than five feet from my mic at any gig. Still, you imagine you're a rock star. So you have to be ready to run over to the bass player for a rhythmic dual guitar neck wag if it comes up. It never really did

[big_teee]

I just try to find and use one that isn't open continuity, or shorted out, and hasn't been rolled over too many time with the 5 wheel office chair.
T

[Helmholtz]

I have a Sennheiser wireless, in case you care. Turning the volume down does, in fact, also come with a slight loss of highs, but not enough to worry about or be objectionable, IMO. I wouldn't say it's any more or less than a reasonably good cable. I'm happy to volunteer any other info you like, if I can help.

Some 30 years ago I found a 680pF capacitor in the guitar input of a Sennheiser wireless.

[Helmholtz]

BTW, plugging directly into a tube amp adds another 80..150pF input capacitance (mostly Miller capacitance of ECC83 + wiring).

[Chuck H]

After some perusing of the other, less tech oriented gear forums it looks to me that for the average guitar monkey it's the 10'-20' lengths that dominate with only a few mentioning capacitance. Interestingly, when capacitance IS mentioned it's not only with a negative connotation. And there were some references to hearing the difference between cable lengths and choosing based on that. One guy at TGP mentioned that he only uses low capacitance cable when he has to have a long cable between his guitar and amp. I think he mentioned an 18' cord as being his standard. This has been interesting because it demonstrates that players DO hear a difference and care when you get away from the typical lengths of 10'-20'.

I really should have just done the research peripheral to this forum in the first place. No offense guys, but what I'll get here is either going to be ALL about a specific capacitance, be it low or high, that is chosen (read technical reasons) and everyone else here who knows about those reasons and has decided not to care. When I go to the player forums it seems about half just use the normal stuff (10'-20') because the size is right and the other half do mention the tonal affect of cables, but in a more blunt way. As in: "I tried the low capacitance cables but it made my guitar sound shrill" or "I try not to use more than 20' of cable or it makes my guitar sound dull". That sort of thing. Players that have just sort of gravitated toward a preference without knowing a lot more than what sounds good or bad to them. Perfect! And it does seem that the ubiquitous 10' to 20' standard cable is the preference. This would also explain the 680p capacitance in the Sennheiser wireless. That would be barely more than a standard 20' cable. And probably chose as the nearest standard cap value.

[pdf64]

BTW, plugging directly into a tube amp adds another 80..150pF input capacitance (mostly Miller capacitance of ECC83 + wiring).

My thinking is that the actual, measurable capacitance will be what loads the instrument, whereas the input tube's Miller capacitance affects the stage freq/phase response?

I use a 20' George L 225 (into a buffered tuner pedal etc), as it works well to minimise the tone getting muffled when the instrument volume is turned down a bit.