Members Anal Log Posted December 30, 2005 Members Share Posted December 30, 2005 Is there any reason guitars still use unbalanced cables, as opposed to balanced TRS or XLR? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members dot-dot-dot Posted December 30, 2005 Members Share Posted December 30, 2005 1) Cheapness2) Simplicity3) Because otherwise you'd have thousands of cloth-eared guitarists, most of whom had never actually tried a balanced system, insisting that it "sucks tone", without actually being able to define "tone" in the first place. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Anal Log Posted December 30, 2005 Author Members Share Posted December 30, 2005 ...and a bunch of incompatible gear. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members pinkjimiphoton Posted December 30, 2005 Members Share Posted December 30, 2005 Originally posted by dot-dot-dot 1) Cheapness2) Simplicity3) Because otherwise you'd have thousands of cloth-eared guitarists, most of whom had never actually tried a balanced system, insisting that it "sucks tone", without actually being able to define "tone" in the first place. +10,000:thu: Dot, what do you think of telescoping the shields??i've been doing it for years , it does seem to help...a little bit, anyways.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members dot-dot-dot Posted December 31, 2005 Members Share Posted December 31, 2005 Originally posted by pinkjimiphoton Dot, what do you think of telescoping the shields??i've been doing it for years , it does seem to help...a little bit, anyways.. Telescoping? Not a term I'm familiar with I'm afraid... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members LongJohnny Posted December 31, 2005 Members Share Posted December 31, 2005 Most guitars are only in need of one signal output, so a TRS end is not needed. You can split the connection as many times as you want after that, but only a TS connection is need at the guitar. XLR connections are too bulky, and offer nothing in terms of sonic enhancement over mono signal. John Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members pinkjimiphoton Posted December 31, 2005 Members Share Posted December 31, 2005 my old tech Mikey hipped me to the idea of "telescoping" the shields....basically it's using standard 3 conductor mic cable....ya connect hot tip to tip, ground to ground, but only connect the SHIELD to ground on the earth side only .it makes a few db difference in terms of noise when ya have a lotta crud hooked up or long lengths of cable, say 20 feet back to your amp from your pedalboard.it can be a little weird figuring out which end hooks up to WHICH earth....get it backwards, and it'll hum worse...but if you get it right, you can make a noticeable difference in the noise floor.perhaps a more accurate term would be to "float" the shielding...like usual, i don't know the actual name for it, but it does seem to work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Anal Log Posted December 31, 2005 Author Members Share Posted December 31, 2005 Interference? Quality loss? XLR cable is no more bulkier than guitar cable. The plugs are, slightly... but they also lock in and won't pull out easily. In a full PA set up, XLR only carries mono. Never stereo. So how could it not do good for guitar, either? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members pinkjimiphoton Posted December 31, 2005 Members Share Posted December 31, 2005 too much resistance/capacitance maybe??beats the {censored} out of me.typical xlr connections need to use transformers as well...a balanced lo-z line will be much more noise free and you can run long cables...but you need to have a transformer on each end. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members dot-dot-dot Posted December 31, 2005 Members Share Posted December 31, 2005 Originally posted by LongJohnny Most guitars are only in need of one signal output, so a TRS end is not needed. You can split the connection as many times as you want after that, but only a TS connection is need at the guitar. XLR connections are too bulky, and offer nothing in terms of sonic enhancement over mono signal. TRS is mono, but balanced. And you can use a TRS jack which is no bigger than a normal guitar jack. The cable can be the same overall gauge. As for "no sonic enhancement", balanced offers almost total noise rejection. I'd say that's quite a bonus. PJP - ah, I know the technique. I suspect it does offer a slight advantage for noise, but the capacitance of two-core cable tends to be higher, so you lose out a bit on high end. If you have a buffer in the guitar, though, you could have the best of both worlds... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members GuitArtMan Posted December 31, 2005 Members Share Posted December 31, 2005 Originally posted by pinkjimiphoton my old tech Mikey hipped me to the idea of "telescoping" the shields....basically it's using standard 3 conductor mic cable....ya connect hot tip to tip, ground to ground, but only connect the SHIELD to ground on the earth side only .it makes a few db difference in terms of noise when ya have a lotta crud hooked up or long lengths of cable, say 20 feet back to your amp from your pedalboard.it can be a little weird figuring out which end hooks up to WHICH earth....get it backwards, and it'll hum worse...but if you get it right, you can make a noticeable difference in the noise floor.perhaps a more accurate term would be to "float" the shielding...like usual, i don't know the actual name for it, but it does seem to work. This is the correct way to set up a shield - only grounded at one end. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members sirhcathome Posted December 31, 2005 Members Share Posted December 31, 2005 Try making a fuzz face a balanced output. Either a transformer is needed or a lot more circuitry. Then it goes into an amp that is single ended anyways. From there you have: 1. History. Patch cables go all the way back to the original phone connections. Those operators that sat with a wall of jacks and plugs. IIRC RCA started using the same technique for their early mixing consoles and it just went from there. 2. Cost. A 1/4" jack and plug are cheaper than an XLR by a good margin. 3. Needs. XLR is needed when you have several hundred feet of cable between a low output microphone and the mixing console. It is amazing how much cable there can be. Guitarists don't usually have that much cable and the signal is usually higher output. 4. Sanity. If those guitarists had the same cables as the PA guys, then they would be stealing all the clubs cables. Incompatibility is good here. 5. Size. XLR and the jack are a lot bigger than a 1/4" cable. In parts of Europe DIN connections were the original standard for guitar. That went in the end. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members pinkjimiphoton Posted January 1, 2006 Members Share Posted January 1, 2006 Originally posted by dot-dot-dot TRS is mono, but balanced. And you can use a TRS jack which is no bigger than a normal guitar jack. The cable can be the same overall gauge.As for "no sonic enhancement", balanced offers almost total noise rejection. I'd say that's quite a bonus.PJP - ah, I know the technique. I suspect it does offer a slight advantage for noise, but the capacitance of two-core cable tends to be higher, so you lose out a bit on high end. If you have a buffer in the guitar, though, you could have the best of both worlds... Dot, can you reccomend a really simple to build buffer?i looked at anderton's, the one that runs off a 9 volt batterybut could never get the power supply right.would be nice to insert a signal buffer at a few points in my rig!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members dot-dot-dot Posted January 1, 2006 Members Share Posted January 1, 2006 Originally posted by sirhcathome 5. Size. XLR and the jack are a lot bigger than a 1/4" cable. So use a TRS jack. Same size as a TS one... though I'd generally agree that balanced isn't really needed for guitar applications. Though it could get you noiseless single coils that sound like single coils, with minimal extra expense... pjp - I usually just use an op-amp follower, or have a look here - I've not tried it myself, but it's a well regarded design: http://www.till.com/articles/GuitarPreamp/index.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members TheGZeus,OnFire Posted January 1, 2006 Members Share Posted January 1, 2006 doesn't really make a difference under 20 feet, and the fact that we're using high-impedence electronics for hte most part makes using that lenght of cable a bad idea. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members TheGZeus,OnFire Posted January 1, 2006 Members Share Posted January 1, 2006 Oh, BTW, I'm planing on building a passive balancing transformer into a bass. probably only attached to one of three pickups. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members andreas Posted January 1, 2006 Members Share Posted January 1, 2006 Originally posted by dot-dot-dot So use a TRS jack. Same size as a TS one... though I'd generally agree that balanced isn't really needed for guitar applications. Though it could get you noiseless single coils that sound like single coils, with minimal extra expense... Absolutely - the type of contact doesn't matter, as long as it can carry the three connections needed. So TRS 1/4" plugs will work just as fine as XLR's. However, a balanced guitar -> amp cable wouldn't remove hum from single-coil pickups, would it? After all, that hum is already there before the signal becomes balanced. AFAIK, balancing only cancels noise that is generated or picked up between the two balancing points (i.e. in the cable). Er... I think. /Andreas Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members TheGZeus,OnFire Posted January 1, 2006 Members Share Posted January 1, 2006 Amps aren't balanced, though. That bass's balanced out will only be sent direct. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members andreas Posted January 1, 2006 Members Share Posted January 1, 2006 Obviously, the amp's input (or the input stage on the first pedal) would have to be balanced too - that goes without saying. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members TheGZeus,OnFire Posted January 1, 2006 Members Share Posted January 1, 2006 The 'directional' cables Monster sold did pretty well, too. Guitarists don't use common sense. No amps will do this. It'd be totally impractical to re-design a preamp to that degree.It's only the first stage, but it's still a decently large change to a amp. All for maybe a couple decibels on lo-fi(yes, guitar pickups ARE VERY lo-fi devices) high impedence electronics... It's not a big deal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members zachary vex Posted January 1, 2006 Members Share Posted January 1, 2006 Originally posted by pinkjimiphoton my old tech Mikey hipped me to the idea of "telescoping" the shields....basically it's using standard 3 conductor mic cable....ya connect hot tip to tip, ground to ground, but only connect the SHIELD to ground on the earth side only .it makes a few db difference in terms of noise when ya have a lotta crud hooked up or long lengths of cable, say 20 feet back to your amp from your pedalboard.it can be a little weird figuring out which end hooks up to WHICH earth....get it backwards, and it'll hum worse...but if you get it right, you can make a noticeable difference in the noise floor.perhaps a more accurate term would be to "float" the shielding...like usual, i don't know the actual name for it, but it does seem to work. lifting the ground on a guitar cable going directly to the guitar will cause immense hum and loss of signal. it's not going to work except in a situation where there is already a shared ground connection between the guitar and the amp and you are trying to avoid a ground loop. in studios, it works well, because everything is grounded together. in a guitar system it is very difficult to implement. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members sirhcathome Posted January 2, 2006 Members Share Posted January 2, 2006 Remember too that right now most pedals automatically shut off when the cable is pulled out. That is because they use the ring connection to short to ground. Use the ring for signal you need a new way to disconnect pedals. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members dot-dot-dot Posted January 2, 2006 Members Share Posted January 2, 2006 Originally posted by andreas However, a balanced guitar -> amp cable wouldn't remove hum from single-coil pickups, would it? After all, that hum is already there before the signal becomes balanced. You're absolutely right. What I was thinking (and I might be wrong) is this; take the hot and cold outputs of the coil as normal, but have another connection halfway through the windings, and connect that to ground. Then the two halves of coil will be picking up the same noise, but erm, no. Sorry, my idea doesn't work. Doh. The noise and signal will both be in-phase. Don't mind me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members TheGZeus,OnFire Posted January 2, 2006 Members Share Posted January 2, 2006 Originally posted by sirhcathome Remember too that right now most pedals automatically shut off when the cable is pulled out. That is because they use the ring connection to short to ground. Use the ring for signal you need a new way to disconnect pedals. Actually a FEW pedals are switched at the output. DSD-2, for example. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members gappie Posted January 2, 2006 Members Share Posted January 2, 2006 im happy that my guitar works well with unbalanced cables. im not a big fan of soldering, but i do most of my own cables. im thankfull that i do not need to solder all those patch cables for my board with balanced cables. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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