Is running a 40-50ft guitar cable for recording a problem?

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nbarts

nbarts

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I know all the guitar cable length talk is exaggerated, but is 40-50ft long cable still OK or I should go for a speaker cable?

I'm currently running 8ft to mxr-EQ 6ft to splitter & another 6ft to my amps (so total 20ft) with no problem. I want to start tracking in my control room, because headphones are killing me.

Since I run multiple amps a lot buying one long guitar cable would be a LOT cheaper than buying multiple speaker cables.

So who has experience tracking with long cables?
 
You could make your own speaker cable. It's not very expensive if you do it yourself - maybe $20 per cable if you use high quality cables and connectors. Just solder 'em together and you've saved yourself quite a bit!
 
TheMagicEight":3k0f7jez said:
You could make your own speaker cable. It's not very expensive if you do it yourself - maybe $20 per cable if you use high quality cables and connectors. Just solder 'em together and you've saved yourself quite a bit!
Click to expand...

Any particular model you would recommend?

The cheapest Mogami is like 1$/FT.
 
Using long speaker cables gives you an advantage as well: you can tweak the settings on the amp without having to go to the recording booth.
 
Loss of high frequencies and power on very long distances. But still better and much less sensitive for hum and interference by electromagnetic radiation than guitar cables. There's a lot more voltage coming from a power amp than from a guitar, that's why it's a much stronger signal. Hence the bigger diameter.
 
I found some 10 awg speaker wire at a car audio store. That should handle any current you want to put through it!!!!!!

The only plugs that I found that work with it are the GH bigfoot plugs. They are monsters!!!!!!! :rock:

BTW that is what I am using with my Peters 20 watt head (talk about overkill on a 5 ft run!!!! But it looks cool, and the wire that I got was cheap!!!
 
Thanks for responces dudes but Peter Diezel, what do you think of speaker cables being used instead of standard cables?
 
I think that the conversation is more putting the head, and cab in the other room, and running a long guitar cable, or putting just the cab in the other room, and running a long speaker cable.
 
Long Cables....

If the player needs to sit in the control room, it becomes necessary to run a long cable from the Control Room to the Studio. The problem
with running long cables is, due to the high output impedance of the guitar, the cable capacitance causes a severe high frequency roll off in the tone of the guitar.
A line driver or buffer will eliminate this, by converting the high impedance guitar output to a low impedance output which will drive long distances without high frequency loss.

I use one of these on the pedal board
http://www.axess-electronics.com/sc/BS2 ... 16133.html

Steve
 

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Don't use speaker cables instead of standard instrument cables! They're just not made for that purpose.

Speaker cable is not shielded and has far bigger resistance and capacity values than instrument cable. That's because a signal coming out of a guitar or fx pedal is a lot more prone to interference and loss of frequencies and needs to be handled with more "care". That doesn't mean instrument cable has to be thin. The trick with them is the balance between low capacity and good diameter, but on the other hand low resistance and flexibility. And good shielding.

A speaker signal means a lot more current and hence more energy. So in order to avoid the electrons coming from the power amp to collide with the copper atoms in that speaker cable too much, these cables can't have a big enough diameter to ensure the least amount of energy (and therefore volume and frequency) loss. That's why Hi-Fi freaks are paying a fortune for fat diameter speaker cable.
But for us guitar players, there is a limitation: as the signal passes the standard guitar jack at each end, a bigger diameter than the one given by the jack's soldering connection points doesn't make any sense. It's like the weakest link in a chain that determines it's overall sturdiness.

Vice versa, using instrument cable as speaker cable replacement is plain dangerous. It's an extreme example, but I've seen a cable catch fire at a live show, because the bass player used the cheapest cheapo pedal link cable to connect his cab to a 400 Watts Sunn monster of a tube bass amp. When the cable got hot and started to burn, the connection to the cab and hence the load on the power amp was gone as well. The guy was lucky as it only blew the amp's mains fuse. Could have been the OT, too. :doh:
 
I'm just keeping an open mind but I'll stick to Cordials instrument cables then :thumbsup:
 
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