Foot Switch Cables?

[Mr. Blues]

Does the type of foot switch cable make any difference as to noise/performance of a Mark IIC or Studio .22+?
i.e. speaker cable vs guitar cable, shielded/unshielded and/or lengths of these cables? Loss of highs, lows, volume, noise?
Thanks for all replies.

 

[thunda1216]

not really. the cable just breaks the circuit (like the wires to your wall light switch). The actual switching is done inside the amp. no tone travels through the cable.

 

[RR]

I'm using speaker cable for channel switching. All a footswitch does is toggle between channels. No signal is going through the footswitch after you toggle to the other channel.

[ edit note thunda1216 beat me to the punch ] :wink:

 

[Mr. Blues]

Thanks all!
That's what I figured...trying to save $$$
by using sale priced guitar cables instead of
stock foot switch cables.

 

[LesPaul70]

Just a little note - even though no sound travels there, you want to make sure that your footswitch cable is in good working order. I.e., don't recycle your old broken guitar cables! :wink:

I had a very strange volume problem with one of my Mesa amps. The volume would disappear, and come back slowly if at all. After a very lengthy troubleshooting project (which involved careful retubing, the inspection of transformers, pots, caps, and other components, etc.), the culprit turned out to be my footswich cable - which I was using there because it no longer worked that well as an instrument cable.

 

[zebpedersen]

+1 on that, it can be cheap from a tone perspective, but consistency is vital. Cheap cables have cheap jacks and cheap jacks will end up causing channel weirdness.

 

[yelly]

I found that with my Mark iii that cables can make difference if you are using fx and the loop. I never worked out why but found that some screened guitar cables could cause hum to be picked up on my pedal board. This disappears if you use speaker cables. As these are more robust any I have stayed with them. Go figure.