For some reason I seem to go through patch cords for my guitar more than Santana goes through musicians.

There always ends up being a short somewhere near one of the two ends, and the signal always comes in and out and makes lots of horrible noises and I end up just throwing them away.

I think I take pretty good care of them too, I always coil them up after use and try not to step on or bend them too much.

My question is, what are the best patch cords they make for guitar, in terms of sound quality and strength within a reasonable price? Also, what are some things I can do to keep them from going bad so easily?

thanks for your help,

Chet

I just got some ProCo ones from Sweetwater, under ten bucks apiece and they have a lifetime warranty. Probably not the best but they were damn cheap.

The best would probably be Gepco or Mogami but I know not of such things.

hey, sorry i cant help, but just wondering...what is a guitar patch cord exactly?

The most expensive cable is the one you keep having to replace. Look for lifetime warranties.

Before I had heard of Mogami, I redid my cabling with monsters. I was actually pleased with the monster as I could play my amp at a quieter volume while still retaining tone. I had chained my four or five effects through monster cable and straightpins and that was louder than my guitar going straight into the amp with a "crappier" cable.

Investing in good cables will improve the quality of your guitar sound and will allow you to do more with the instrument.

Oh yeah, Jn: Patch cables are the 1/4" tip-ring-sleeve kind, that are used with most "plug into an amp" instruments (bass, keyboards, guitars, some samplers etc.). You have most likely seen 'em before.

Faiz

Lifetime warranties are a good idea. Interestingly enough, I got a monster cable a few years back and the wiring was very shitty on it. It had a messy wiring job in one end of it when i bought it which would cause the signal to crap out every 5 minutes. Me being stupid, I never unscrewed the pieces of metal at both ends of it to check it when I bought it. I never bothered changing it in for a new one, cause I just thought they werent that great to begin with. Im only 18, and new to all the ins and outs of playing music. I did notice a lower amount of noise though when I used it for that short period of time.

Ill have to check out Mogami cables.

Thanks for your advice guys

I think I just have bad luck

Also, go ahead and buy a nice (or even cheap-ass) soldering iron and a spool of proper solder (and protective eye wear) and spend an evening once in a while listening to music and repairing chords. I do this about every four months or so if needed. It is simple and inexpensive.

Elliot Dicks even invites friends over to help him when he does it for his bad chords and buys the beer and pizza (for afterwards, of course. Don't drink and solder...).

kerble wrote:Oh yeah, Jn: Patch cables are the 1/4" tip-ring-sleeve kind, that are used with most "plug into an amp" instruments (bass, keyboards, guitars, some samplers etc.). You have most likely seen 'em before.

Faiz

oh ok. are patch cables also more specifically used to connect guitar head to cab, on stack amps?
perhaps this is just miscommunacation.....im british

cheers anyway

Actually guitar patch cables are just tip-sleeve (unbalanced). They should not be used to connect the head to the cab....but they look almost identicle to speaker cables.
-n

Planet Waves makes a pretty decent cable for around $30. I've been using one for a while, and it works great.

Monster sucks. I found three of their cables at a club I was playing at and used them on tour. By the end of the tour, all three had fallen apart.

My definitions:

1/4" T-S connection from pedal to pedal or in a patch bay: Patch Cord

1/4" T-S connection guitar to pedal\amp (between 5-20 ft. long): Instument Cable

I usually use, uh, I can't remember, I think pro-line. I've never been able to justify buying Monster cables. My only insistance is that the plug can be unscrewed for repair. I hate the ones with rubber coting.

Whatever the ones with the Blue protective covering... those ones I like.

I used to have some glow in the dark ones. They were kind of neat.