How to Make Your Guitar Cables Last Longer

Almost every electric guitar player has had the misfortune of having a guitar cable fail during a performance. Whether it stops entirely, or crackles, or has intermittent connections or pops, it is unacceptable for live performance or recording. Of course, you always want to have extra guitar cables with you at all time, but there are a few simple things you can do to make your guitar cables last longer.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Guitar cables

1. Buy only high quality guitar cables. In general, you get what you pay for when you buy guitar cables. For most people there is no reason to buy exotic, extremely high priced cables, but you certainly don’t want to buy the cheapest. Spend the money to get some really decent guitar cables.

2. Look at the connectors on the ends of the guitar cables before you buy them. Make sure they have rugged metal ends from companies like Canare or Switchcraft. Look at the spacer on the plugs on each end of the cable. Make sure there is a plastic or nylon spacer between the tip and the larger part of the plug. Some connectors use cork spacer. Over time that cork can crumble and fall out of the connector leading to a failure.

3. Insert and remove the guitar cables by grasping the connectors. Never pull the cord out of a amplifier or guitar by grasping the flexible wire.

4. Avoid stepping on the wire. Let’s be realistic…guitar cables get stepped on. On a crowded stage it is difficult to avoid stepping on a wire once in a while, but try to keep it to a minimum.

5. Never make a hard bend in the wire at the plug on the end.

6. Never make a hard “kink” in the wire.

7. Treat the guitar cables with care when storing or carrying them. Avoid coiling them into tight loops. Rather, let them hang more loosely.

8. Clean the wire occasionally with a damp rag. It is most important to do this if the cable has been lying in chlorine water (if you have been playing for a pool party), salt water (by the ocean) or other corrosive materials. (In general make sure your guitar cables are not immersed in any fluid.)

9. Use appropriate length guitar cables. For example, if you are connecting several floor effects units together, there is no need to use twenty foot long cables. Not only will that make a messy stage, but they will get stepped on, and your sound quality will be degraded by going through too much cable length.

10. Carry spare guitar cables. ALWAYS.

11. Learn to repair cables yourself. It is not difficult to do.

12. See step 10. Carry spare guitar cables. ALWAYS.

Tips & Warnings

• Avoid extremely low cost guitar cables.
• Choose reasonably high quality guitar cables. Look for some of the common brand names like Monster Cable, Mogami Cables, Whirlwind, or Fender.