In my previous columns, I’ve
discussed specific qualities of
amps, guitars, and pedals that
help contribute to good tone.
This month, we’re going to look
at how cables play a major role in
shaping your tone, while keeping
all of the components of your rig
connected. Over the years, I’ve
purchased many different brands
of instrument cables and I’ve had
both cheap and very expensive
cables fail at one point or another.
However, I have two instrument
cables that have held up on
tour for over 13 years without a
single problem. Today, those same
two Spectraflex cables are in my
current touring rig.
To learn more about what goes
into making a quality cable, I
called Dave Russell, the founder
of Spectraflex, and asked him to
share his insights. If you’ve ever
been in an Otis elevator, had a
CT scan, or flown a B-1 bomber,
chances are you’ve been closer
to a Spectraflex cable than you
realize. Russell took the knowledge
he gathered from making
cables for aircrafts, elevators, and
medical equipment and applied
it to manufacturing high-quality
instrument cables.
“When you play a note on a
guitar,” says Russell, “the string
vibrates and that energy is detected
by your pickup. The signal
goes through your guitar’s electronics
and down to your input
jack. From there, what travels
through your cable is an electrical
imprint of the sound, not the
sound itself.”
Through my conversations
with Russell, I learned that the
signal from your guitar travels
down a copper wire inside the
instrument cable at the speed
of electricity, which is around
66 percent of the speed of
light—or 122,760 miles per
second (the speed of light being
approximately 186,000 miles
per second). Once the signal
travels through your amplifier
and comes out of a speaker, the
note is traveling at the speed of
sound, which is 768 miles per
hour in dry air at 68 degrees.
Now, with that bit of science
in mind, let’s venture inside the
cable and look at its components,
beginning with the copper wire.
The center conductor of a cable
is made out of stranded copper
wire. These copper strands, as
opposed to a solid copper conductor,
allow the cable to be flexible.
On a standard guitar cable,
there are about 41 36-gauge
copper strands that make up a
standard 20-gauge center conductor.
Copper is a good material
because it is highly conductive.
Other metals that are also very
good conductors are gold, silver,
and platinum. But when you’re
making a $20 guitar cable that’s
going to get stepped on and
thrown around on tour, those
precious metals are not the most
cost-effective materials. Right
now, copper costs about four
bucks a pound. Gold is selling
for around $1400 an ounce, so
you can see why center conductors
in guitar cables are not made
out of gold!
Another important aspect
of an instrument cable is the
shielding. Shielding takes on two
different roles. “The first role
of shielding in a bi-directional
cable—which describes a standard
high-impedance instrument
cable—is to complete the signal
from your guitar to your amp by
implementing the return signal,”
says Russell. “The second role
of shielding is to block electromagnetic
interference from the
outside world, such as radio
stations, fluorescent lights, aircraft,
missiles, UFOs, warps in
the space-time continuum, and
black holes.” [
Laughs.]
Poor shielding in a cable can
affect your tone by letting a radio
signal, hum, or buzz into your
sound. So you always want to use
a cable that has sufficient shielding.
When you test a cable, shake
it around to see if it makes any
crackling sounds. Noise can be
caused by a loose solder joint or
shielding moving around inside
the cable. In a well-built cable,
you won’t hear any crackling,
because all the components
inside the cable are being held in
place properly.
Along with shielding and center
conductors, cables also have
a layer called the dielectric. The
dielectric is the white-colored
material that covers the center
conductor. The dielectric physically
and electrically insulates, or
separates, the center conductor
from the shield. It also contributes
significantly to the characteristics
of the tone, depending
on its size and the material from
which it’s made.
As you probably know, solder
is the silver-colored material used
to connect the wire to the cable’s
plug. Typical solder is made of
lead and tin. Individually, tin and
lead are fair electrical conductors,
but both require extreme heat
to melt, which makes them
impractical for use in electrical
connections. Too much heat
can damage other components
that are close to the area you’re
soldering. When you combine
tin and lead, they melt at a lower
temperature and provide a good
conductive connection. Some
cable companies, such as George
L’s, offer cables that don’t require
any solder at all. George L’s also
sells kits for making your own
cables, which is a great option if
you like DIY projects.
Several companies make high-quality
cables, so your choice
depends on what kind of sound you
are looking for and how much you
want to spend. Most guitarists use
a trial-and-error process—similar
to testing strings—to find the cable
that best suits their needs. Some
companies, like Monster Cable,
offer cables that are designed for
specific genres of music and specific
instruments. The two main reasons
I prefer Spectraflex’s Original Series
cables are that they sound great
and have been 100-percent reliable
for over a decade.
Happy cable hunting, and
please send me an email if there
are any topics you’d like to suggest
for an upcoming column.
Paul “TFO” Allen
is a multi-instrumentalist
who has worked with
Big & Rich, Sebastian
Bach, 112, Jake Owen,
Montgomery Gentry,
Larry the Cable Guy,
and many others. He also has his
own project called Ten Finger
Orchestra, and can be reached at
tenfingerorchestra@yahoo.com.