Guitar cables

[plesiosaurus]

Woaaaaaaaaaahhhhh that was negative. Having a bad Valentine's day?

Now if you were to coil it correctly, it would still be a stiffer cable but you would have none of these problems.

That is not true.

Even after I get it completely untangled, after minimal movement while playing they tangle up again. It's not like I undo my coil and immediately complain that my cord is all tangled.

But if you have a coiling technique that would make it stop tangling after I've completely uncoiled and untangled it, please share!

[James]

Woaaaaaaaaaahhhhh that was negative.

Not negative. Just intolerant of this lazy 'blame something else' attitude. You wouldn't throw your guitar about and then wonder why it goes out of tune when you do so and gets a few chips, so you should realise that not treating your cables properly will lead them to have unnatural twists and kinks that will cause you problems.

I'm all for laziness but I can not stand the type of laziness where a one minute task is avoided that woudl prevent a potential problem and that avoidance leads to a five minute problem later on. This cable situation is exactly that sort of thing.

When you untangle your cables they will still have kinks in them and you're not fully sorting the problem out. You will still get twists and small things in cables that are looked after, but when you coil them back up you'll remove them and they'll never build up to the stage where there are unnatural twists and kinks in the cable that cause the sort of problems you're talking about.

It's fine to say 'I can't be arsed to coil my cables properly and they are regularly tangled as a result' but don't complain about it when you caused the problem yourself.

I just looked and there are dozens of videos on youtube showing the method I refered to as BBC earlier, where you alternate the direction of loops. With short guiitar cables I generally just go in one direction and it causes me no problems. With a long XLR I'd go in both. Have a watch with a cable handy and copy it. You'll realise quite quickly that your cables don't fall into natural loops because they've been mangled by however long of improper use, but you should be able to gently twist them back to something approaching how they started.

[plesiosaurus]

Well there are other cords that don't display this phenomenon, so I imagine there is a way to design cables that are less susceptible to poor coiling technique. And since the topic is about guitar cables and not coiling techniques, that's what I mentioned.

And that's assuming that poor cable coiling technique is truly the cause of the tangling, of which I am not entirely convinced. Apparently heavium and the_dude seem to recognize the tangling attribute as well, so I am not entirely alone when I talk about this. I think heavium's explanation that the rubber has a quality that makes it stick and warp more than others seems to be the one that makes the most sense to me.

Regardless, I couldn't find any cable coiling videos that had to do with anything called BBC, but is this correct?
[youtube][/youtube]

Otherwise, please link me to the video that you were specifically referring to, since I can't seem to find it.

[James]

..in what is generally seen as the more useful industry standard way where you alternate the direction of the loops (I've heard this called the BBC way but I know there are other names for it)

I just looked and there are dozens of videos on youtube showing the method I refered to as BBC earlier, where you alternate the direction of loops. With short guiitar cables I generally just go in one direction and it causes me no problems. With a long XLR I'd go in both.

I'm not sure how it's not clear that BBC isn't the active search term here. It's about alternating the direction.

[plesiosaurus]

Wow, you're making this hard.

Is what's in that video what you were referring to?

It seems you're more intent on being smarmy than actually trying to share.

I only mentioned BBC again because I didn't see anything that mentioned it, so I wanted to make sure I was learning correctly.

[euan]

It is called the bbc way because that is how all the bbc broadcast engineers coil cable. Way back from when the bbc was set up. Now to understand why proper coiling is required you need to realise that a cable has a natural coil and it will always try to return to that. The properties for the plastic remember that shape. Through improper coiling you twist and introduce new turns to the cables shape. When done enough you change the natural coil and you get what you have now.

Better quailty sheaths will resist this longer and be easier to coil but the fact remains, any cable coiled and stored properly will keep itself untangled.

[Reece]

i learned to coil my cables properly and any problems i had with them tangliging up and twisting stopped.

plus it keeps them from tying themselves in knots, there's no reason not to do it no matter whether you think it will help or not.

[Bacchus]

Wow, you're making this hard.

Is what's in that video what you were referring to?

It seems you're more intent on being smarmy than actually trying to share.

I only mentioned BBC again because I didn't see anything that mentioned it, so I wanted to make sure I was learning correctly.

Fuck off. If you don't want to take our advice, then don't. Enjoy your shitty tangled cables.

I don't know who you are, but you're coming across like a bit of a troll here, jumping in to a thread and arguing with people about how they should coil their cables. This works for us, if you can't be bothered finding out why, then that's up to you.

[mellowlogic]

haha this thread is shocking.
I never would have guessed that people would take coiling cable this seriously.

That's not to say it isn't important, but to argue about it.. really? :p

[Reece]

haha this thread is shocking.
I never would have guessed that people would take coiling cable this seriously.

That's not to say it isn't important, but to argue about it.. really? :p

welcome to shortscale.org

you must be new here, i'm zaphod.

[mellowlogic]

i see what you did there

[James]

haha this thread is shocking.
I never would have guessed that people would take coiling cable this seriously.

That's not to say it isn't important, but to argue about it.. really? :p

It absolutely is something to take seriously. It's looking after you gear.

You wouldn't expect to play a gig, grab a tangled mess of 3m cable from your bag and struggle with it, and then get sympathy from the sound guy as he quietly unwinds his 10m XLR cable with not a kink in sight.

Don't look after your cables and they will piss in your cornflakes. There's nothing to argue about with it.

[euan]

You should be able to take a coiled cable, hold one end and throw it. The cable should unravel and lie without any twist, kinks or tangles.

[Reece]

don't do it in an enclosed space.

you knock over glasses and the dog runs away and people shout at you loudly asking what the fuck made that loud crashing noise.
i expect...

[Bacchus]

haha this thread is shocking.
I never would have guessed that people would take coiling cable this seriously.

That's not to say it isn't important, but to argue about it.. really? :p

It's not about cables though is it? It's about complaining that his cables are always tangled, receiving advice on it, then arguing against that advice with seemingly no basis for an argument. He could always just ignore the advice and live with tangled cables, but to argue about something that clearly works for people with plenty of gigging experience* is just silly.




* I'm not talking about myself here. I've played plenty of gigs, but I could hardly call myself and old hand, like.

[mellowlogic]

haha this thread is shocking.
I never would have guessed that people would take coiling cable this seriously.

That's not to say it isn't important, but to argue about it.. really? :p

It absolutely is something to take seriously. It's looking after you gear.

You wouldn't expect to play a gig, grab a tangled mess of 3m cable from your bag and struggle with it, and then get sympathy from the sound guy as he quietly unwinds his 10m XLR cable with not a kink in sight.

Don't look after your cables and they will piss in your cornflakes. There's nothing to argue about with it.

Ah man I wasn't telling you not to take it seriously, if you care about your music you take care of your equipment.. simple as that.
I was just remarking that I thought it was funny that there was in fact a seemingly heated argument going on in here about something so straightforward as cables.

It's not about cables though is it? It's about complaining that his cables are always tangled, receiving advice on it, then arguing against that advice with seemingly no basis for an argument. He could always just ignore the advice and live with tangled cables, but to argue about something that clearly works for people with plenty of gigging experience* is just silly.

This is more or less the real issue, however he *did* ask for help on the video and got sniped for mentioning the bbc rather than more specific search terms. To be fair, in reading James' original reply I gathered that bbc style or whatever he said was some sort of technical description that would likely pop up in a search for cable coiling.

[Sloan]

Regardless, I couldn't find any cable coiling videos that had to do with anything called BBC, but is this correct?
[youtube][/youtube]

I really like this method, but the disadvantage is that if you grab the wrong end or pass an end through a loop, your going to get knots. So, if your band members/crew don't do it this way, there are most likely going to be knots all over the place and it's a pain in the ass.

[plesiosaurus]

Wow, you're making this hard.

Is what's in that video what you were referring to?

It seems you're more intent on being smarmy than actually trying to share.

I only mentioned BBC again because I didn't see anything that mentioned it, so I wanted to make sure I was learning correctly.

Fuck off. If you don't want to take our advice, then don't. Enjoy your shitty tangled cables.

I don't know who you are, but you're coming across like a bit of a troll here, jumping in to a thread and arguing with people about how they should coil their cables. This works for us, if you can't be bothered finding out why, then that's up to you.

Are you fucking kidding me?

I am trying to learn and he's acting like I'm a fucking idiot. I know that's a reasonable thing to assume from someone on the internet you don't know, but other people have commented in support of what I said who have been on here longer than I have.

James went on off me for what he thought was whining, when I thought I was just discussing my experience with the Monster cables. I wasn't trolling, my tone was just in response to what I felt was unkind.

If you think my shit gets tangled because I don't coil properly, fine. That's cool; I remain unconvinced. And if you want to show me a better way to coil cables, fucking great. Tell me and I'll start coiling my single Monster cable like that and hopefully the problem will go away and I'll be proven wrong.

But I have no goddamn clue where you got the idea I was trying to tell other people how to coil their cables. That just did not occur.

[luke]

Wow, you're making this hard.

Is what's in that video what you were referring to?

It seems you're more intent on being smarmy than actually trying to share.

I only mentioned BBC again because I didn't see anything that mentioned it, so I wanted to make sure I was learning correctly.

Fuck off. If you don't want to take our advice, then don't. Enjoy your shitty tangled cables.

I don't know who you are, but you're coming across like a bit of a troll here, jumping in to a thread and arguing with people about how they should coil their cables. This works for us, if you can't be bothered finding out why, then that's up to you.

Are you fucking kidding me?

I am trying to learn and he's acting like I'm a fucking idiot. I know that's a reasonable thing to assume from someone on the internet you don't know, but other people have commented in support of what I said who have been on here longer than I have.

James went on off me for what he thought was whining, when I thought I was just discussing my experience with the Monster cables. I wasn't trolling, my tone was just in response to what I felt was unkind.

If you think my shit gets tangled because I don't coil properly, fine. That's cool; I remain unconvinced. And if you want to show me a better way to coil cables, fucking great. Tell me and I'll start coiling my single Monster cable like that and hopefully the problem will go away and I'll be proven wrong.

But I have no goddamn clue where you got the idea I was trying to tell other people how to coil their cables. That just did not occur.

Stop swearing, you knob.

[mickie08]

I usually just strangle my drummer with my cables at the end of a show... Sure it is a waste of cables, but I somehow always feel better.