General Music Chat

What kind of guitar,keyboard cables do you find work the best? Honest discussion without the hype.

I have been using the Evidence Audio Lyric HG and it seems to keep a good tone. I have used the George L's in the past and I dont see alot of difference. A little more brightness when I am playing distortion.

I have used a lot of different cables for our band. I just buy generic cables at the local shop these days. I dont see any real difference so why pay for some hyped up name brand stuff. I do prefer the instrument cables that have the cloth / tweed exterior. The store charges more for them, for some reason they seem to last longer.
not presently utilizingany pedals except for the Boss tuner. Straight guitar into tube amp to PA. I stay away fron any of the 90 degree cable ends. They just are too problematic.

"best" i believe would be for what you use it for.

Ibanez ICB 400ex here, !! Horizon Cables !! (sponsorship says i have to mention them, but they are amazing cables, one of mine has lasted 4 years) GK amps. Morely pedals and etc.

As for strings and misc gear. matters who has the best at the time.
GHS or Ernie ball usualy though.

I worked in AV sales for 5 years (recently) and at first I thought the cables and stuff were a scam.

I was wrong lol. After seeing the standard cables, inside and out, insulation, seperations, etc.. and then seeing the picture quality difference, and then the audio difference using the monster cables, I was floored. Even the 'monster imitators' couldn't hold a candle to it.

When it comes to studio, I would use nothing but the best. The recorded vibrancy will make or break the song. When it comes to rehearsals and playing live, it doesn't matter nearly as much. Ambient noise and the thousand other variables really cut into the difference heard.

Regarding instruments and strings and such, finding a guitar that feels great and stays in tune are the priority to me, I can always rip out the pickups and electronics. Finding a decent guitar is difficult IMO, 1 out of every 40 are worth keeping.

I switched to GHS boomers a couple years ago, used fender bullets for 20 years, but tried the boomers on word of mouth. Odd feel at first, the strech was a lot different, but they are so damn vibrant! I quickly adjusted and now prefer them. I tried out guitar research strings a few months ago, and damn if those strings didn't sound dead and the strings themselves wouldn't stay in tune. I set up the GHS on my lock nut Kramer, and I literally never have to tune it. I put the GR strings on it and 2 weeks later, it's still out of whack every time I picked it up. Switch ed back to GHS and booyah, everything great again.

I'm yaking a lot tonight lol... peace

Ummmm.. I think I use Monster cables... Is that the name brand?? Ya know..... I never really put much thought into cables..... I got a bunch in a suitcase and whichever one pops out, I use... I don't even think about it... usually when I set up on stage, it's pretty dark up there and I hafta use a flashlight in order to make sure I got the cables plugged in the right hole. As far as pedals.... I just use a channel switching pedal I switch from clean to dirty and I have one channel set for flange... and it has a wah attached to it. It's one of the simplest set-ups around. It's so funny when other bands open up for us and have thousands of dollars worth of pedals, Mesa Boogie amps and cabinets and then we go on with my simple Line 6 setup and we blow the doors off the freakin' place!

I used to use Whirlwind snake's but now I just grab the 2nd or 3rd level one's. I use D'adario string's...brass on acoustic and super slinky on electric.

I use some heavy cables from my pedals to amp. On my pedal board Im using some of those George Ls that you basically cut to fit. They sound all right to me. I have used GHS SuperBoomers for years 10-46. They have always been a consistent string for me.

Crip, I wish I could get Aint Yo Mama up your way for a gig so you could blow away my Mesa and pedal board. I need to pick up some new licks. Ive listened to your song samples here and there and from what I can hear on my little computor speakers you do have excellent tone. You must have done some tweaking on those Line 6 amps. I recently did some trading and got a POD PRO with a pedal board. I brought it home and plugged it into a Peavey CS 800 power amp I had sitting around and a pair of 4x12s. It has some really good sounds in it, but it just aint the same as the ole Mesas to my ears. Most of the younger bands that weve played with tend to set there amps up with too much gain. Thats fine playing at home pracitcing, but live when you crank it, it turns to mudd on a lot of them and they dont even know it. For me the POD PRO sounds the best on the clean sounds it has, I just couldnt get the various sounds I programmed to level out when I switch between them. Sounds like you just have a couple of sounds that work, so I guess keeping it simple is the best thing for hard rock.

My Mesa would make his Line-6 sound like a little school girl crying.

...and that's a bad thing???

No.. don't get me wrong, I can only dream of being able to afford a beautiful Boogie amp and cabinet... the point I was trying to make is that we are blown away with some of the equipment our opening acts pull out on stage. Some guys have a quatrillion pedals that, alone, prolly cost more than all my equipment together... they have stacks of cabinets and all this electronic stuff going on all over the stage whereas all I show up with sometimes is a cheap $200.00 epiphone LP and a Line 6 combo and we are the main act and honestly do blow our opening acts away. We are actually turning some gigs away now. It's in the skillz... I practice no less than 3 hours on my acoustic doing all my finger exercises, scales, arpeggios, et... and 2 hours on my electric perfecting all our tunes every single day 7 days a week! You can have the most expensive, increedible equipment ever and still suck! It's also how the sound engineer mixes you... our soundman knows exactly how to mix my "cheaposhit" Line6 and he's actually the one to perform the magic in the end! What I would do for nice Mesa or a beautiful Marshall at this point in my life, but that just aint gonna happen as I have a wife, 2 kids 4 vehicles and a mortgage to contend with right now so honestly I hafta make due with what I've got now and with extreme discipline, it's finally paying off!!

You know you've got nothing to be ashamed of Crip. Hell your out there rockin and your dedication shows. Equipment not withstanding, you ARE an inspiration to amiture guitarist ME.
When I get lazy all I have to do is think what it would be like to have to follow you, or be on the same stage. It's all too easy to get into a comfort zone with all the non musical distractions in our lives. I really have respect for that what you, and others do.
ROCK ON !

Wow! Thanks so much for those kind words....Like I've said before, this all started out for fun....just havin' a few guys over on a weekend night with a few brewskies.... this project snowballed into an actual show that is, for one reason or another, going great with the general public out here... so far in the past 2 weeks we have turned down 2 shows because there's no way we can handle back to back gigs yet as we all have families and 2 of us have handicapped children.. We just want to keep it once a week! On a side note, I'm getting nothing but positive critique on the way I have my Line 6 set up....

Wow! Thanks so much for those kind words....Like I've said before, this all started out for fun....just havin' a few guys over on a weekend night with a few brewskies.... this project snowballed into an actual show that is, for one reason or another, going great with the general public out here... so far in the past 2 weeks we have turned down 2 shows because there's no way we can handle back to back gigs yet as we all have families and 2 of us have handicapped children.. We just want to keep it once a week! On a side note, I'm getting nothing but positive critique on the way I have my Line 6 set up....

How do you set up your line6? Just curious, I'm using one too, but I play it clean only, I didn't care for any of the presets, built in fx, dist, none of it lol. Bought a gnx3000 pedal and it sounds amazing through the line 6 though. Tried it through fender, vox, marshall, peavey, and a few others and nothing sounded as good as the line6. Of course, I'm talking about cheap 75-120w combos ...lol

I have the 150 watt combo but I put it through a 4x12 stereo cabinet... it took me about 3-4 months to tweak each channel to my liking.... very hard to give you my specs as I don't have it right in front of me.

I posted this once before somewhere with my exact settings... took me about 1/2 hour to post my specs... here's a clear pic of my set-up... don't mind sweaty ole me... those stage lights are searing hot!!!

do you use the amps FX?