Those of you that build your own guitar/patch cables, please step inside...

War_in_D

War_in_D

Well-known member
Getting ready to set up my guitar room at home. I've built myself a shelving unit (for lack of a better word) to hold my heads, with space across the bottom to house 4x12 cabs. In the middle, I built a 12 unit rack space that will house a power conditioner, my Fryette PS100 and a De Lisle 8x8 Deluxe switcher (possibly some rack mounted effects unit at a later time).

My question is about cabling.. There will be a lot of cables flying around between all these heads, the switcher, the Fyrette and cabs.. and whatever else happens to get thrown into the mix. I've always heard great things about Mogami Gold cable, but buying them pre-made is going to be cost prohibitive. So, I was looking to buy bulk and make my own. I'm fairly competent with a solder gun, so I think this is doable. Anyone have any tips, tricks, warnings or other information they could share to possible help me avoid any cable building pitfalls? Any insight would be appreciated. Thanks!
 
OH! I was also going to mention that I'm going with Mogami as they seem to be the industry standard when it comes to quality cables. But, does anyone have any other suggestions for something comparable that might not be quite so expensive?
 
Use flux all the time on both cable ends and plugs or whatever surface you're soldering the cable to. Always prep both ends with a touch of solder to ensure a nice connection... dont overheat surfaces by holding iron on them a long time.

For mogami cables.. I use 2524 and 2319.. if I recall, the inner jacket has this black sheilding stuff that has to be scrapped off, otherwise it'll cause issues with your sound/tone.

I've made all of my rig cables my self. made it easier to cut to length and wire things up.

oh and do your self a favour.. (some people may not agree) but dont cheap out on the connectors. Good connectors will pay off. I use a combo of Neutrik and Square Plugs.

Hope that helps and good luck,
 
Thank you for the tips.. I had read something about that black shielding somewhere, but I'm glad you had mentioned it because I probably would not have remembered it. I plan on using Neutrik plugs too, so hopefully that will be good enough.
 
War_in_D said:
Getting ready to set up my guitar room at home. I've built myself a shelving unit (for lack of a better word) to hold my heads, with space across the bottom to house 4x12 cabs. In the middle, I built a 12 unit rack space that will house a power conditioner, my Fryette PS100 and a De Lisle 8x8 Deluxe switcher (possibly some rack mounted effects unit at a later time).

My question is about cabling.. There will be a lot of cables flying around between all these heads, the switcher, the Fyrette and cabs.. and whatever else happens to get thrown into the mix. I've always heard great things about Mogami Gold cable, but buying them pre-made is going to be cost prohibitive. So, I was looking to buy bulk and make my own. I'm fairly competent with a solder gun, so I think this is doable. Anyone have any tips, tricks, warnings or other information they could share to possible help me avoid any cable building pitfalls? Any insight would be appreciated. Thanks!
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Mogami is a standard and I really like their premade cables. I still use them as my go to for studio monitor cables. That being said, when I needed a ton of cables I bought spools and connectors (Neutrik) from Redco (and cut and soldered them myself) and they held up like champs. If you needed breakout boxes/snakes/plates with labels and jacks built in (for wall plates etc) they will build them for you also and it was reasonable.
 
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Yeah, I'm not going to get thaaat far into it. LOL This won't be for like a home studio or anything, I'm just wanting to set my stuff up so I can pick this head, with that cab, etc.. I don't play out, so moving my stuff around isn't a priority. I'd just like to be able to play what combo of gear I want without having to recable everything. I was more concerned with noise in the chain, that's why I was thinking about going with Mogami Gold.
 
War_in_D said:
Yeah, I'm not going to get thaaat far into it. LOL This won't be for like a home studio or anything, I'm just wanting to set my stuff up so I can pick this head, with that cab, etc.. I don't play out, so moving my stuff around isn't a priority. I'd just like to be able to play what combo of gear I want without having to recable everything. I was more concerned with noise in the chain, that's why I was thinking about going with Mogami Gold.
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Yeah, that makes sense. I love Mogami stuff personally. I am building a giant bastard of a switching system for 15 heads and 4 cabs and multiple preamps/fx units and haven't had any issues with my mix of Mogamis and self made.
 
I like mogami for front end and Daddario which was planet wave for post preamp and speaker cables. For mogami definitely neutrik cable ends.
 
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So, I see that Mogami 2524 is being mentioned a lot, and the link above is for the regular W2524. Do you all think that going with the Mogamil Gold is worth the difference in money, or is the W2524 going to be all I need?

Or is the W2524 the Gold? I'm a little confused by these model numbers.
 
War_in_D said:
So, I see that Mogami 2524 is being mentioned a lot, and the link above is for the regular W2524. Do you all think that going with the Mogamil Gold is worth the difference in money, or is the W2524 going to be all I need?

Or is the W2524 the Gold? I'm a little confused by these model numbers.
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according to amazon's Mogami Gold Instrument 10 guitar/instrument cable straight ends 10 feet page, it says "The Gold Series Instrument Cable uses Mogami 2524 High Definition Instrument Cable. This extremely low-coloration design maintains the unique personality of your Guitar or any instrument. Mogami's exclusive hi-density shield eliminates electrical noise, and handling noise is nonexistent as we use carbon impregnated PVC as an additional layer. If you are serious about your music, this cable is for you."

Again, this my personal opinion, but I couldnt justify paying $100 for a cable I can make for less than $20.. and trust me, I've made them my self without issues. Even if there's a tone "difference", i dont think it'd be enough to justify paying $100 for 10ft of cable.

mogami 2524 cable that's 12ft from my guitar to pedal board has Neutrik Silent right angle plug on the guitar side and neutrik straight on the pedal board side. The Mogami for my pedal board snake from my pedal board to amp is 20ft with a neutrik right angle on pedal board side and straight on amp side.

I buy all my bulk cable from a local canadian reseller Economik
http://www.economik.com/mogami/w2524-1c-20awg-pro-guitar-price-per-foot/
For the price you pay for bulk cable, its almost worth the trial and error to learn how to do it properly.. :)

Cheers
 
War_in_D said:
So, I see that Mogami 2524 is being mentioned a lot, and the link above is for the regular W2524. Do you all think that going with the Mogamil Gold is worth the difference in money, or is the W2524 going to be all I need?

Or is the W2524 the Gold? I'm a little confused by these model numbers.
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It was my impression at the time that the W2524 Mogami was the best cable you can buy here in the states. There was one higher quality cable form Mogami that they didn't sell in the USA. Again it was a while ago I researched this.
 
Geo said:
It was my impression at the time that the W2524 Mogami was the best cable you can buy here in the states. There was one higher quality cable form Mogami that they didn't sell in the USA. Again it was a while ago I researched this.
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Ok, good to know. I've been looking into this a while, and the reason I think I've had so much confusion is I'm finding that part number scattered around the internet, some with the "W" and some without and one that I even think had a "G" at the end of it. There is also a pretty wide range in prices from $1.40/foot for cable that has Gold in the title, down to .80 cents/foot for the stuff up above at Redco. I wasn't sure if there were different grades of 2524 cable.
 
War_in_D said:
Ok, good to know. I've been looking into this a while, and the reason I think I've had so much confusion is I'm finding that part number scattered around the internet, some with the "W" and some without and one that I even think had a "G" at the end of it. There is also a pretty wide range in prices from $1.40/foot for cable that has Gold in the title, down to .80 cents/foot for the stuff up above at Redco. I wasn't sure if there were different grades of 2524 cable.
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I have had excellent transactions with Redco, you can also get the 1/4" male connectors as well.
 
Yeah, I was going to buy my cable from Redco for sure after seeing that link above. Especially if it's the same stuff that Sweetwater has, as it's about .65 cents/foot cheaper than Sweetwater. Thanks for that link, it's going to save me a ton!
 
Redco has great stuff and they always threw in another 1/4 Jack or two when I've ordered them. The angled switchcraft jacks are kinda a pain in the ass to solder compared to the straight ones. I'd suggest using heat shrink on the cable under the jack cover and one overtop on both the cable and the jack cover.
 
So, now lets add another level of complexity to this.. Maybe. I just got my De Lisle head switcher in, and it's saying to use instrument cable for all AMP INPUT jacks, and speaker cable for basically everything else? I never know cables were this complicated! Do I now need to buy two different kinds of cable, or with the W2524 cover everything?
 
War_in_D said:
So, now lets add another level of complexity to this.. Maybe. I just got my De Lisle head switcher in, and it's saying to use instrument cable for all AMP INPUT jacks, and speaker cable for basically everything else? I never know cables were this complicated! Do I now need to buy two different kinds of cable, or with the W2524 cover everything?
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Instument cable is just a fancy way to say guitar patch cord. The 2524 is perfect.

Speaker cable is a diiferrent animal. It has no sheilding and is usually a higher gauge copper wire. Use a diiffernt cable such as https://www.redco.com/Mogami-W3082.html
 
War_in_D said:
Perfect, thanks! That was going to be my next question. I had seen that on the Redco site, and was going to ask if that was what I needed.
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Make sure your connectors fit the cable you are buying, speaker cable is usually a bigger cable.
 
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