Players with custom pedalboards and/or lots of rack gear turn to custom cabling solutions whenever they want the cleanest installation and highest quality sound from their guitar and bass rigs. Cutting cables to just the right length gives you a tidy solution with the highest degree of audio quality as your signal doesn’t pass through extra feet of unused cable.
There are a handful of companies making custom cable solutions for the do-it-yourself rig builder, and while they all boast outstanding audio quality, the guitar gear editors at MusicPlayers.com proclaim the Planet Waves Cable Station solution our hands-down favorite of the bunch.
The tested Cable Station Custom Cable Kit includes fifty feet of uncut Planet Waves instrument cable. This is great sounding instrument cable, and we use Planet Waves standard, soldered cables for guitar-to-amp connections whenever we’re not running around wireless. The kit also includes four straight plugs, six right-angle plugs, and a mini cable cutter.
Assembly of the cables is one part of what makes this solution so fantastic. With ease, we cut cables with the supplied cutter, inserted them into the extremely heavy-duty plugs, pushed and twisted gently, then turned a set screw in the side of the plug until it turned no further. Voilà!
You should always test your cables before installing them into a rig, but we achieved 100% success on the first try with these cables, a feat we never matched with any other cable solution this side of a soldering iron.
If there aren’t enough plugs included in the kit for your wiring project, you can order extras à la carte from the Planet Waves online store or other retailers. The intention of this kit (based on the ratio of plugs-to-cable) seems to be to connect just a few pedals and then to make some lengthy instrument cables, but although these cable connections are extremely solid, we recommend sticking to cables with soldered ends wherever you find yourself repeatedly plugging and unplugging cables.
For permanent installations like your rack or your pedalboard, though, have no fear — these custom cables rock. Just plan to order a few extra connectors along with the kit, which at $80 street (MSRP $150) is a fantastic value. If you’re just wiring up a pedalboard, also consider the Cable Station Pedalboard Cable Kit. This less expensive kit includes ten feet of uncut cable and ten right-angle plugs for $60 street.
Contact Information
Planet Waves
www.planetwaves.com
