Practical tips for testing cabling on a pedal board

[janine doubly]

I am getting ready to re-do some of the wiring on my large, traveling pedal board and would love some help from some of the more technically savvy folks around here.

I am re-wiring my Trailer Trash board, so all of the wiring goes underneath the board. This makes for testing and checking any of the cables impossible except with a multimeter (i.e. I can't make a cable and test it with my ears using a guitar and amp). Unfortunately, my expertise with a DMM is limited to continuity testing only. In my experience with this the first time around, continuity only tells me part of the story. I had problems with a few of the pedal links testing good with continuity, but having issues with full frequency band width, sounding "blah", etc.

With a DMM, are there any practical, easy to learn techniques that will tell me I am getting the full bandwidth on each cable run?

I will be using Evidence Monorail cable, Switchcraft 226 right angle ends and hard wiring the ends and cable by soldering them.

[DougDoppler]

a non technical answer would be, as you finish each cable, test it before you connect it on the board - by ear. I'd suggest getting the first two pedals in your signal chain, and running into the first and out of the second with your main leads and then trying each cable one at a time to insure audio integrity. In turn study what happened physically on any funky sounding cables. The new lead free solder heats slower and cools faster so maybe it's just a matter of how you are soldering. It is also possible that you got some bunk cable. Again, testing it by ear first saves much heartache after the fact. Also, some cable (it may have been Belden) is rumoured to actually sound different running in one direction compared to the other in your signal chain. It was a reliable source, and they did some blind tests supposedly backing it up. You might try flipping your other cables around and see what happens. You never know...

[janine doubly]

I appreciate your response. If I could do ear checking, I would, as my ears are the best "measuring tools" I own. :-) However, the Trailer Trash board I use, runs the wires through and under the board the pedals are mounted to and I have to do the wiring and soldering on the board itself. So once its wired, its impossible to remove from the board and test by ear. I just purchased a new DMM and was wondering if anybody had some practical applications on how to test each cable run to determine if I am getting maximum signal pass through with each run.

All of your applications are very helpful and I appreciate your response. So I hope I am not sounding like a "yes/but" guy. ;-) I have had good luck with Switchcraft 226's and Evidence Audio Monorail in the past.

Do you know of a practical (i.e. easy and affordable) way to measure frequency bandwidth on ends, cables and finished terminations using a standard DMM?

[drfrankencopter]

Why do you need to remove the cable from the board to test it? I'm guessing that you are running the cables under the board, and will not be drilling hoes big enough to remove them. If this is the case, all you need to do is wire the cable up into the destination pedal, but remove it from the board (no velcro), and run a patch cable from its output to your amp. Voila, you can test with your ears. Maybe I'm not understanding something...

Alternatively, you can (and should) measure resistance (not continuity) between tip-to-tip, shield-to-shield (these should both be low...<10 ohms), and tip-to-shield (this should be 'open'...infinite). If your meter measures capacitance you can check that too.

Cheers

Kris

[DougDoppler]

I don't sorry. I'd suggest looking up Stinkfoot on this forum. He's probably someone who can answer that for you. Send him a pm...

[janine doubly]

Cool!!! Thank you again for your help and referral. I appreciate it!! :-)