It’s time to get
your gear connected. The more you understand about
how your guitars, effects, and amps should work
together, the better equipped you’ll be to
customize your setup, get better sounds, and handle
problems on the fly. The first thing we have to do is
plug everything in, and to do that you’ll need
some good cables -- and the right cables for the
right job. There are two basic types of cable that
you’ll need on a gig:
1. Signal Cable
2. Speaker Cable
Signal cable is the
cable that you’ll be using to get your signal
from the guitar to the amp. Now, you might be
thinking these cables are all pretty much the same,
right? Wrong. Cable can significantly impact your
signal and, therefore, your sound. Bad cables can add
microphonic ringing, unwanted hum, and radio
interference, as well as weakening your signal
strength and causing loads of other problems.
Regardless of what brand of cable you decide upon,
here are the key features that you’ll need to
eliminate as much of the hum and hiss as possible
from your system.
Jacket
The rubber coating on the outside of the cable. This
jacket protects the shield and the core. Its quality
and thickness greatly impacts the life of the cable.
Thick is good but you don’t want something that
you can’t even coil at the end of the night.
Think about what kind of a beating a cable is likely
to get. It has to stand up to someone rolling a case
over it (a big dent in a cable’s life span),
getting crushed in a fully-packed gig bag, and the
bass player jumping up and down on it.
Shielding
The lead in the cable that carries “earth”
or “ground.” This is the backbone of your
signal path, and without it you’d have no signal
at all. Bad shielding in a cable results in radio
interference and hum. You can hear stage noise being
picked up by a cable with bad shielding, and that
really doesn’t complement your playing too
nicely. A good shield should be braided around the
core of the cable. The stranded type shields you see
in some cable does nothing more than carry earth for
you, it won’t help you reject the ugly
interference. The only material that the shield
should be made from is copper. Some cable has
shielding made from hybrids of tin and copper. These
cables tend to be a bit cheaper but won’t last
long.
Core
This is the part of the cable that carries your
signal. A core that’s too thin won’t convey
the full frequency of your sound. A core that’s
too thick will slow down the highs, resulting in a
bassier sound. The core size should be in the range
of 16 – 22 gauge wire. Like the shielding, the
core should be made entirely of copper. It should
also be stranded, not solid.
Connectors
Most of the time you’ll be using a ¼" mono
male connector to wire up your rig. There are a
number of manufacturers out there. The two most
common are Switchcraft and Neutrik. (Mono male
connectors: Switchcraft 280, Neutrik NP2C.) Both are
well made. Their only differences being in the sound
of them. Take 2 x 10’ cables, one with Neutrik
connectors and one with Switchcraft. Listen to the
differences and pick the one that suits your tastes.
There are a few companies making a “solderless”
connector that has but one advantage and that is the
solderless feature.
Now that we have the world of signal cable covered
let’s move on to speaker cable. For your speaker
cable you're going to want a nice thick core, nothing
less than 14 gauge. Remember that when dealing with
cable, the lower the number, the thicker the cable
(opposite of penis envy). Why all of a sudden do you
need thicker cable here? Speaker cable carries Direct
Current voltage to the speaker. The higher the DC
voltage output from the amp, the thicker the cable
you need. That’s unlike signal cable, speaker
cables are something you don’t want in a
shield-and-core combination. Your signal now has
polarity, thus you want a polarized cable. Most
amplifiers use a ¼” female connector. The
speaker cable that you're going to use to connect the
two is going to have ¼” male ends.
A few pointers to remember
about cables:
1. Speaker cables are two
conductors side by side.
2. Signal cables are a core and
shield.
3. Never use one for the other’s
purpose, you'll do damage to your gear.
4. Both types should not be
coiled around your elbow and hand, but rather using
the “over under” technique like you would a
rope. If you don’t know how to coil a cable ask
the sound tech at your local club to show you. By
coiling a cable “round & round” you
slowly but surely break down the core and the shield.
A cable well built and well treated will last you
years.
