#42

I’m really happy so far with these cables from EFN. they are well priced and don’t have wrinkles like the ad infinitum I bought from schneiders before. slicker ends too.

edit: if you’re in EU, you should consider buying from EFN in general. ulf has been super helpful and ultra quick responding. also often better priced than schneiders… and yeah, he threw some bribe gummi bears in there too. glad monome hooked me up with him! (indirectly that is)

1 Like
#43

New contenders from Pittsburgh

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#44

Shout out here for the Befaco cables - got a pile from Thonk and they’re thinner than the Mutables, nicely flexible, and colour-coded to length. And they’re cheap. Very happy indeed.

1 Like
#45

I mostly use LMNTL cables and am happy with it. Learned from a MW thread that it’s close to/rebranded Black Market cables?

#46

The Pitts cables look really nice but the barrel connector looks real long.

While patching today I began to see the wisdom of color coding by length. I’m considering getting rid of all my random Ad Infinitum cables sizes/colors and only using my stackables, 6 inch ad infinitum cables and 65 cm Control chrono cables. I’m using a 104 hp/6U case next to my giant 104hp/18U studio case.

Everything in the 6U can be routed with 65cm: 6u = 26.67cm, 104hp = 52.83cm, sqrt(52.83^2 + 26.67^2) = 59.18cm.

Have people who got rid of intermediate cable lengths found it irritating? Is it worth getting rid of the rainbow soup?

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#47

Im looking forward to having rainbow soup. Color coded length means I end up having to trace cables between source and target to remember which goes where instead of just quickly looking. Rainbow soup from Hosa has been ordered, we will see.

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#48

I couldn’t care less about color coding. in fact, I love my mixed cable rainbow. (I also laugh at the existence of grayscale panels though, specially since I love make noise designs)

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#49

supposedly the same factory that started out making the BMMs also now does the LMNTLs and a few others. i have a couple of pink/coral LMNTLs (freebies from PCA), but otherwise i only use BMMs. the LMNTLs are not as good, soft, or flexible as the BMMs.

i just ordered another few packs of the latter, to make sure i can reach clear across my isms (the 3x3 bus is always full!). the LMNTLs are slightly longer than the equivalent class of BMMs, but simply don’t feel as nice. also, they’re shipped folded and perma-kinked, whereas the BMMs come bagged in an open, loose hoop, no kinks or tight folds. i highly recommend them.

i color-code my cables not based on length, but function: blue for CV, white for audio. a limited palette, as i want to easily distinguish colors in dim lighting.

2 Likes
#50

Does anyone know a shop that will ship a single pack of BMM cables to the UK for minimal shipping costs?

#51

The Hosa ones are actually my current favorite for feel and size. I like the small barrel size of the control ones but not the feel of the cables.

#52

I happened to buy a set of these, just because they were the only cables in the store when I went in, and they’re great. Nice colours and not too stiff - I like 'em floppy. Bonus pair of adapters for connecting to pieces of kit with 1/4" jacks. I’ll be getting more.

1 Like
#53

Without much to plug them into yet, I’m looking to start buying some cables, and am curious about length and quantity. I really like the compact jack of the Control cables, especially since I plan on leaving things plugged in for the most part, but it looks harder to find them, so the BMM cables look more like the way to go.

In terms of lengths and amount of cable. Is there a role of thumb to be aware of?

I’m planning on rocking 6U of 70hp, so fairly compact. I don’t think I’ll need cables bigger than 75cm.

It seems like a (reasonable?) jumping off point is calculating a fully connected system, so there’s enough to connect “everything”, as unlikely as that would be.

I count 170 jacks in my (planned) system, so 170 / 2 would mean 85 cables… which is a lotta fucking cables.

BMM makes 25/50/75cm cables. What’s a good spread of cable lengths? Mostly midsized with some big and some small? (bell curve style)

I’ll probably aim for color coded lengths at first, with maybe some HOSA rainbow soup in the mix as well. If my Max patching is any indication, I quite like the color=functionality thing, but we’ll see how that translates to physical cables/hardware.

Lastly, I was looking at Schneiders for purchasing in the EU/UK (possibly even in person, next time I’m in Berlin). Any better sources for cables on this side of the pond?

This is the current plan, as a point of reference:

Screen Shot 2017-07-19 at 2.27.51 am.jpg1600×1104 723 KB

2 Likes
#54

The optimal length depends on how you organize your modules. Using long cables to connect two modules that are next to each other is not super efficient/easy to read.

For me, with a 7U 84HP case, I’d say I need about a third of small cables (15cm I think), a third of 30cm ones and a third of 60-70cm ones.

I have a mix of stackcables and Erica Synths cables (same as BMM, I got them with modules to save on shipping costs). both work well. The BMM-type ones are really good. Much better than Ad Infinitum for example.

And I also color-code cables. Chosing colors you actually like is quite important if you care about aesthetics, I find that the colors of the cables has a bigger impact on the look/feel of a patched system than the color/material of the panels, for example…

Sadly, the Stackcables’ colors are not that great in 15cm/30cm but heh…

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#55

For 2x104HP with ~190 jacks I have 24 6", 24 12", and 8 24" cables. I have never run out of cables, but I wish I were weighted more in the long and short directions, more 24" and 6" cables. the 12" are often too long for short runs and too long for long runs. I would like some 3’ cables as well. I tend to use cables in this order: short, long, medium.

1 Like
#56

Don’t forget your cable hanger! :wink:

cable-hanger.jpg1368×1832 2.18 MB

13 Likes
#57

If you’ve never run out of cables you’re doing it wrong :slight_smile:

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#58

Ok mister smartypants with all the HP and every darn module, maybe you can tell us: what’s the formula for cables per HP that a new eurorack person should buy? I’m thinking 3 per 10HP, but sounds like you’d put the number higher?

And I’m thinking you want more shorts and longs than mediums, but I’m not sure if that’s a rule or more of a consequence of the way I’ve arranged my modules.

#59

Lol.

To be honest, I’ve never really thought about a formula until this thread. When I started I bought about 20 medium cables, and just got more as i needed them.

However, I run out of cables all the time. My case is 104hp 12u, so it’s on the larger size.

Maybe a cable per number of jacks is a good formula? I feel like I would want 1/4 to 1/3 cables of the number of jacks in my case. ???

For those IFM modules I often want to use all the ins and outs at once.

Over on MW they say you can never have enough VCA’s, but I’d say you can never have enough cables instead.

1 Like
#60

Really good to know. Based on the above, this looks like a good jumping off point:
BMM cables
10 x 9cm (black)
25 x 25cm (15 x pink, 5 x yellow, 5 x red)
10 x 50cm (green)
5 x 75cm (blue)

Looking at the layout in my rack, I don’t see too much need for long cables, and in this context, 50cm is pretty long, so a total of 30% “long” cables.

1 Like
#61

I always heard 3-4 cables per module. Maybe a few more if you have an especially large/deep module - maybe assume a module is 20hp or less to estimate those. It’s at least a starting point. I have two handfuls of cables that can stretch across my shared system diagonally and the rest are shorter. I have probably 10 shorty cables less than 6". These are great for common connections.

Generally, I buy 3-4 cables whenever I buy a module and just get the size that I feel I’m lacking. I’m not super systematic or organized about it.

2 Likes