George L & Planet Waves Cables: Quick Question!

[duffin123]

hi guys, I have a quick question here

I have this solderless planet waves cable kit and I'm running out of its cable, apparently I keep cutting it too short
anyway, I was thinking to buy a george L cables (the DIY one) and use planet waves plugs instead of the george L plug to make patch cables. is it possible? will it work?

thanks in advance!

 

[Cagey]

I think the George L cable is substantially thinner than the Planet Waves cable, so you may have issues there. Also, they both use insulation displacement as a connection scheme, so the wire gauge is critical as well. Long story short, I doubt the parts are interchangeable.

In both cases, their claim to fame is partly the low capacitance of the cable, and partly the lack of soldering skill necessary on the part of the user, not on any intrinsic quality of the results. For what they charge, I'm not sure it's worth it. Low capacitance is a Good Thing, but for the short runs between effects, capacitance isn't an issue. Capacitance is an issue for the long runs from the guitar to the pedalboard, from the pedalboard to the amp, or just from the guitar to the amp, but an insulation displacement connector isn't very robust. If you could make cables cheaper by going that route, then I might be slightly more impressed. But, the opposite is true. They're substantially more expensive. So, I'm not sold on either of those products.

 

[Alfang]

LOL Cagey, I love the "long story short", then you kept going anyway.

 

[duffin123]

thanks a lot for the info, cagey!

what patch cables do u recommend then?

 

[bagman67]

LOL Cagey, I love the "long story short", then you kept going anyway.

That's our brother Cagey - always generous with his opinions.  Which can be exasperating, or tremendously enlightening and helpful, as the case may be.  I think it's my admiration of his broad and deep knowledge - and generosity with same - on many topics that makes it possible for me to ignore the occasional political swipe.


Bagman

 

[Cagey]

LOL Cagey, I love the "long story short", then you kept going anyway.

Hehe! I saw that myself, then decided to let it stand because I changed subjects. I answered the question, then moved on to beat up on the cables <grin>

 

[Cagey]

thanks a lot for the info, cagey!

what patch cables do u recommend then?

For patch cables, I think any old thing will work. They're too short for resistance or capacitance to be an issue, and they don't get any real physical abuse so they don't need to be milspec parts.

For long cables, there are a number of good ones out there, with the Mogamis probably being the most reasonable in the field of ridiculously-priced cables.

I've been using these long cables from Guitar Fetish...

...but they have a variety of low-impedance cables to choose from. If your guiltar uses an Electro socket for the output jack, you may want to avoid the ones I chose first, and go with these instead. The electrosocket can interfere with the ones above because the shoulder transition from the plug shaft to the plug body is square, which can prevent it from plugging in all the way in some instances.

 

[Cagey]

That's our brother Cagey - always generous with his opinions.  Which can be exasperating, or tremendously enlightening and helpful, as the case may be.  I think it's my admiration of his broad and deep knowledge - and generosity with same - on many topics that makes it possible for me to ignore the occasional political swipe.

I've always been resentful of the "because I said so" argument and assume most others are as well, so I try to provide some reasoning. I may be wrong or misguided, but I'm perfectly willing to change my mind in the face of better information.