cords, cords, and more cords

[Anonymous]

What is your favorite way to organize the maze of cords that end up laying all over your music room? Some run from effects pedals into and out from the amp effects loop across the room and back and of course there’s the main cord from the amp that travels to my other effects back across the room and then into the guitar. Then the channel switch box cord from the amp over to the pedals area. I’ve tied some up with basic twist ties to shorten them to the length they need to be, but there still seems to be cords everywhere. Once in a while I get a foot tangled up in one trying to get past my music gear to get to my desk. I’ve looked at sleeves and guitar cord racks, but nothing really intrigues me. The cord that plugs into which guitar I decide to use does need to be longer and free simply because sometimes I play in front of the computer while learning a piece and sometimes, I’m in my guitar chair with my pedals at my feet. I suppose that is the one that gets tangled up the most. Maybe everything guitar such as amps, pedals, and guitars should be Bluetooth now. I wonder if that would affect the tonal quality.

[sunjamr]

Lotta people don’t like using Bluetooth because they claim they can hear some latency (signal delay). That could be misinformation, because I can’t tell the difference. I’ve seen some famous bands playing on stage, and the stage floor is littered with cords, but they just seem to deal with it. I guess a lot of it is just being aware of where the cords are relative to your feet, so maybe playing barefoot would be a good idea so that you could feel them as you step on them. Some people even think a floor covered in cords means you are a hard-working musician totally focused on your music, with no spare time to be tidy. If you figure out a solution, I’d be very interested to know.

Sunjamr Steve

[Jean-Michel G]

There are many reasons why you may get latency in Bluetooth signals: the number of devices communicating over Bluetooth, the distance between sender and receiver, interference with other signals in the same frequency range, mismatch between software versions, etc.!
If you use few homogeneous devices in a small room you won’t experience any latency, but a large crowded stage is a very different ballgame…

As for the cords… go acoustic! 😉

[Richard G]

Hi Robert,
A couple of suggestions jump to mind if you’ve not already done them.
1) Fix all your pedals to a pedalboard with one cable to a power source (Pedal Power/ISpot) which in turn feeds each pedal.
2) Your pedals don’t necessarily need to be at your feet when you’re learning new pieces. Your pedals/pedalboard could be nearer to the main wall socket power source if that tidies things up. Once the pedals are set as you want them, you then don’t need to be near them.

I suppose these are a bit obvious, but sometimes it helps.

Richard

[Richard W]

Hey Robert, this might not be much help, but that’s one of the reasons I love my Helix Floor unit as the main piece of gear in my music room. All amp sounds, effects and foot pedals on one unit, with a guitar cord going into it and two XLR cables going out. Stays pretty tidy.

But if you are using traditional pedals, then as Richard G said, a pedal board with an onboard power supply unit is the neatest way to go. Pedaltrain boards are quite popular and come in a variety of sizes. And you can mount something like the Strymon Zuma pedal under the pedal board to serve as the power supply to all your pedals. That way, you have only a single power cord going into the Zuma (or equivalent) on your pedal board.

Be warned though, that set up can get a bit expensive, but it’s also kinda fun to put together. You can buy nice short 6” or 12” cables to wire all the pedals up to each other.

[Anonymous]

There’s some good suggestions. Thank you. I don’t have a pedal board but my power cords for my pedals are mounted to a surge protector on the wall and twist tied so they are out of the way. It’s mostly the sound cables themselves. Right now it’s an ok situation but adding any more gear (which will happen at some point) is going to cause me to re-think my setup. At lease everything works the way I want it too.

[John H]

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