Low Capcitance Cables - Too much of a good thing?

[Keith Howard]

I've heard allot of players talking about how their steel came alive when they switched to low capacitance patch cables such as George L's or Bill Lawrence.

My rig consist of a 1989 Mullen D-10 with BL 705's, GD Walker Stereo Steel Amp, Walker 15" cabs with JBL D 130's, TC Electronics M one XL effects, Telonics Volume Pedal etc...

Some time back, I developed a very intermittent spiking in volume which was generally followed by some overdrive or distortion and then would clear up. The volume spikes could be so loud they would hurt and last for 1 second to 3 seconds. This would happen usually during the third or fourth set of the night making me suspect a overheating issue. Ruled this out and moved on. (As Murphy's law would suggest, this usually happened during a very intimate steel part on a given song.)

Next I replaced my Hilton VP with the Telonics. No change.

Throughout this process I spoke to Mr. Hilton and Mr. Walker, privately. They each are great individuals who stand behind their products and did all they could to help me solve the issue.

By process of elimination, we determined that the TC Electronics unit was the culprit. The best I can describe it, it randomly turned up its own input to like 11 out of 10 causing very short spikes in my volume. Mr. Walker sent me a new TC last week and I was excited about playing a "safe" gig.

I installed the new TC unit in my rack Friday to "test" it out. Right away I heard the distortion creep in but mostly on the higher strings and only when I was playing at the volumes my band plays at. Tried the TC unit in two different SS amps with same result. Ready to give up at this point.

Backtrack a few months- I purchased some low capacitance cable and ends thinking that maybe I had poor quality patch cables creating the distortion/spiking issues.

Well, In desperation (Friday), I pulled the George L's and used my old patch cables and the sound cleared up nicely. My only reasonable explanation is that the hot pickups, Great VP, very short cable lengths (26" guitar to VP and 24" VP to Amp) and low capacitance were simply too much of a good thing.

Anyway, played a 4 hour gig last night and we are back to that sweet Stereo Steel Sound that I and my band mates have loved. Thank you GD Walker for staying with me through this process and next time someone is fighting distortion, have them try some good ole (cheap) patch cables to trim the input a little.

[Stephen Cowell]

(snip)
By process of elimination, we determined that the TC Electronics unit was the culprit. The best I can describe it, it randomly turned up its own input to like 11 out of 10 causing very short spikes in my volume. Mr. Walker sent me a new TC last week and I was excited about playing a "safe" gig.
(snip... still has problem)
Backtrack a few months- I purchased some low capacitance cable and ends thinking that maybe I had poor quality patch cables creating the distortion/spiking issues.

Well, In desperation (Friday), I pulled the George L's and used my old patch cables and the sound cleared up nicely. My only reasonable explanation is that the hot pickups, Great VP, very short cable lengths (26" guitar to VP and 24" VP to Amp) and low capacitance were simply too much of a good thing. (snip)

The way I read it... you were having the problem *before* you got the low-cap cables... right? Then... you replaced the low-cap cables with the ones you had before and this fixed it? Having problems here...

Here's your TC specs:

http://www.tcelectronic.com/m-one-xl/tech-specs/

Here's a handy conversion chart:

http://www.jacmusic.com/lundahl/tech-pa ... _VOLTS.PDF

As you can see, your input will clip at +24DBu... this equates to 12.28 volts signal, which I've seen hot humbuckers exceed, not to mention perfectly buffered ones.

So... perhaps your TC's input FET got perforated and was clipping out at a lower voltage... or whatever. Glad it works now. A 200pF cap across the input of the TC would probably give the same results AFA attenuating some of the pick transients.

[Roger Francis]

Interesting, plugged straight into my walter or the cube 80, volume set less than half pluck strings a little hard above 10th fret i can overdrive the amps but not if im plugged into nashville 112 using the same cord, input impedance on amps maybe?

[David Mason]

I use a fat, cheap, shiny 10ft cord very early in my chain, if I go all Lawrence it's just too much treble. It's quite customary for serious Stratocaster addicts to keep a nice, old-fashioned high-impedence cable around to tame things down when needed. According to Mr. Lawrence himself, the reason Jimi Hendrix used the coily cords as the first thing was because a Strat into a Fuzz into a wah into a Marshall needed some squelching of frequencies. Some amps may be better off with a blanket thrown over 'em.

The most sensible explanation I've read to date as to why pedal steel guitar pickups more than doubled in power from 1970 to 1990 was because of the mechanical noise of the instrument, a high-powered pickup would proportionately drown out the clacking - but all the delrin bushings and tighter tolerances haven't led to a subsequent lowering of the power, not yet.

[Pete Burak]

The original problem sounds like a GeorgeL cable that just needed to be re-seated in the jack.
My 2cents.

[Keith Howard]

Stephen,
The original problem was VERY intermittent. There was times it would go 2 weeks sounding great (playing everyday) and then just suddenly have a horrible volume spike. Sometimes it cleared right up and sometimes the spike was followed with a light distortion or overdrive tone for the next 5 to 30 minutes. There were times that I practiced for two hours with a beautiful tone, shut the system down for 30 minutes for a break and when I fired it back up it had an entirely different tone (with overdrive distortion). Things like this made it clear that it was an internal issue in one of the components since no hardware changes were made during the 30 minute off time.

Sometime in the middle of all this, I did switch to the Low Capacitance cables and in hindsight, I was battling the low level distortion ever since. I finally determined the TC was the problem by buying a second SS amp (from a forum member). On the second day of using the TC with the new SS, It replicated the exact high level distortion/volume spikes that I was having before. The only common piece was the TC Electronics M one XL. After replacing the TC, I still had some LOW level distortion at higher volumes and especially if you would grab 2 or 3 strings up past the 8th fret or so. We do Conway Twitty's "Lost in the Feeling with you" and the lead just sounded horrible on stuff like this. Switching back to old patch cables cleared it up. I conclude, just too much treble/high end getting through the chain.

[chris ivey]

The original problem sounds like a GeorgeL cable that just needed to be re-seated in the jack.
My 2cents.

while we're on that subject, pete, do you have any tips for this? i've never had much luck with seating the cables in the ends, though i love them when they work. thanx.

[Stephen Cowell]

The original problem sounds like a GeorgeL cable that just needed to be re-seated in the jack.
My 2cents.

while we're on that subject, pete, do you have any tips for this? i've never had much luck with seating the cables in the ends, though i love them when they work. thanx.

My fave GeoL cable has soldered-on Switchcraft ends... made it myself, years ago... still going strong. When you solder the plug on, the secret is to a.) get the strain relief right and b.) leave a little slack in the center conductor. I bend the tabs around the trimmed shield, then solder all the way around it. I also heat-shrink the assembly inside the shell, with the shrink sticking out about 1" from the back of the shell.

[Mark van Allen]

When I assemble them, Chris, I make sure the end has a clean cut, no stray "hairs" from the shield touching the center conductor, and stick it down into the (straight) connector and rotate the cable a bit to get the center needle seated in the center conductor. Then tighten the ground screw enough to pierce the cable. Then check with a cable tester.
The right angle plugs are tougher, and require a bit more finesse- not bending the cable over too far into the groove, and not over-tightening the connection screw. They also fail a lot more often IMO. Great cable, though.

[Pete Burak]

Well, there's no pretty way to say this (think, birds & bees), but, here are a few tips...
Use a very sharp cutting tool to cut the cable without deforming the roundness of the cable, a razor blade works better than anything like wire-cutters. Make sure the last inch of cable is straight (no weird curve/bend at the end).
Put the end of the cable in your mouth and get it a little wet, then slide it all the way into the jack, rotate the jack a bit as you push the cable in.
Now here's the deal... put the little screw in and screw it down just enough to dent the outer cable. Now pull the jack off, and take the razor blade and carefully cut away the little round area of outer cable where the little screw goes in, so that you can see the braided ground wire.
Now re-insert the cable into the jack and make sure you can see the exposed cable in the screw hole, and then put the screw in snug but not crazy tight.
Do this for both ends, and don't forget to put the stress-reducing plastic thing-ees on there first!
Test it, if there is any noise, intermittent anything, volume flutter, etc... when you wiggle it, you did something wrong, do it over.
In general, it should work perfectly for a long time.
If it's a right angle bend, cut away the outer casing where the end-cap dents it instead of where the set-screw dents it.
You might not get it right the first time, or every time, but when done right, it will work perfectly for a long time, imho.
I had one that did that intermittent volume loss/gain thing once... I cut an inch off the end and put it back together, and that fixed it.

[chris ivey]

thanx for the tips....

i should mention the two short ones i use from steel to stomps have worked great for years and years...in abusive conditions...straight ends.

when repairing others in the past, i always just wondered if the pin was actually pushing down the center ofthe cable to the hotwire. i guess the ground screw can be the main culprit now.

[Keith Howard]

Pete,
You offer some great tips and advise. I should point out that my volume spiking problem began before I made up the George L Cables. I should also point out that I tested the George L's thoroughly with other instruments (guitar etc) to ensure that I had the connections good. Pulled, tugged etc while instrument was being played.
Even so, your advise is appreciated and I will utilize it going forward. I have a pretty extensive background in electronics and everything you said makes perfect sense.

Perhaps I am doing something else really wrong or just have a weird setup but I'm telling you, with the George L's, I have to trim my presence and treble settings to about -7 just to be able to stand the sound and to keep it from distorting/breaking up. With regular patch cords I can run the presence and treble around 0 or even a little boost on the plus side and get a warm, clean sound.

[Len Amaral]

I agree with Dave Mason. If you have a rack and all cables are George L it can create a high end situation. The same is true with a pedal board if every pedal is jacked with a George L especially if the pedals are true bypass. I have a Boss 65 reverb pedal that is buffered so that tames the high end zing. Also ,sometimes I use a regular wire with a George L wire from effects to amp. Then again, no rules here, If you have a darker sounding steel the George L all the way may brighten the overall sound.

Just an opinion here but try every thing to see what happens.

Lenny

[Keith Howard]

Just another point of clarification here. Pete says he had a George L that had intermittent Loss/Gain once and he redid the connection and it was fine.

In my case there was no Loss of volume. When it spiked, it was going 2 or 3 times louder than I had the amp volume set at with the volume pedal fully depressed. A cable cannot (to my knowledge) triple the volume of your amp intermittently. I really thought it was the SS amp but as I stated, it was the TC Electronics M one XL that was voluntarily increasing its output volume above where I had it set at. It was as if someone was grabbing the input knob on the TC (which I had set at 9 O'clock) and cranking it up all the way and then turning it right back down. Just to clarify, the TC is running in an effects loop with the amp. Chain is Guitar, VP, Amp. Therefore, it was the "wet" signal that was tripling in volume when it spiked. New TC unit has solved this issue completely. Old patch cables has solved the low level distortion on higher notes.

[Pete Burak]

I won a 3' GeorgeL patch cord in a drawing and it was assembled with the method where you turn the set screw until it breaks the outer casing, instead of removing the outer casing. I thought it was working normally until I bumped it with my hand one time and my volume went way up.
When I re-set it using my method it worked fine.
That's why I thought the cable/jack connection might be bad.

I have to believe that your problem and what Len says is also true, and the cable characterisitcs may be the culprit. I just haven't had that particular issue yet.
I pretty much always have a buffer following the pickup, so that might be why I haven't seen this issue.
I use GeorgeL cable with an 8-loop True-Bypass pedal and don't hear any distortion or volume spike issue. I will mess around with it and see if I can figure it out.
Sorry if I stared a wild goose chase.

[Paddy Long]

I bought several of the "Masters" series right angled plugs from Gloria Surratt at Dallas this year and they are far better than the standard right angled jobs -- unfortunately for some inexplicable reason they have disccontinued them ..... !! maybe if we make enough "noise" they might bring them back (excuse the pun)

[Gary Reed]

Master series George L
http://www.tonetronix.com/p/George-L-Ma ... -plug.html
http://www.buygeorgels.com/-Master-Seri ... _p_40.html

Watch the .225 or .155 selection.