How are you securing your guitar cable?

urowinner

urowinner

Member
Just wondering if anyone else out there has figured out a technique for keeping their instrument cable securely fastened to the front instrument input in live shows?

I know the input jack looseness has been discussed on the forum in the past. The AxeII seems to be more secure than my Ultra was, but I still have occasional moments through the course of a show when my cable gets jostled and comes slightly out of the jack, instantly killing sound from my guitar. This has happened in a few live shows, resulting in awkward scrambling to quickly plug in. I'm not complaining about the input jack at all, I just want to come up with a reliable solution.

My guitar cables are plenty long. Usually it's just someone (me or bass player) accidentally stepping on the cable that causes it to pull out.

Does anyone have a solution they have come across? I've been using a velcro cable tie to fasten the jack to the right handle on the face of the unit. It usually helps, but hasn't been accident-proof.
 
Try a right-angle plug.

On the other hand, if it's too secure, the same tug that pulls the cable loose could send your rig crashing to the floor.
 
At the guitar end I use the traditional method of passing the cable over the end pin, so it is trapped between guitar and strap, and then drop a short loop through my belt behind my back. This helps prevent damage to the guitar if you step on the cable. At the rack end I prefer to let the cable pull loose for the reason Rex mentions.

If you are moving round a lot on stage then wireless is a good option.
 
antcarrier said:
Pass your cable through one of the handles before plugging it in.
Click to expand...

This would certainly prevent it from pulling out of the input and it would certainy enable the Axe-FX to come crashing to the floor. Unless it is bolted to a really heavy object, in which case it just might damage the case or the input. Remember that the force being exerted by this cable can be considerable, by leverage even greater than the weight of the person exerting it.


Seen it happen. To a Dual Recto. It was my Dual Recto. It survived but I aged 3 years in a sec.

Wireless is your safest option. Nowadays pretty good and not that expensive any more.
 
antcarrier said:
Pass your cable through one of the handles before plugging it in.
Click to expand...
This. And to avoid your Axe crashing on the floor, I recommend puttin it inside a rack placed on a trolley/cart. Unless you pull really hard, the only thing that will happen is that your rack might run over you... I gotta say that would be amusing when playing live...
 
To pull your rack over, you'd need to be using a wire too short for the given gig and at the end of its reach. When not using a wireless, I like to have an extra 5~10' of cable on the floor by my rack to give me room to move beyond my expected range.
 
When playing with a smaller 4 space rack. I will have it on top of my cabs...which makes me nervous as well.
I use the short Velcro cable wraps and have one end velcro'd to the cab handle or at least looped around it so it pulls the cab if anything.
I mainly use wireless live so not a worry in that case.
 
I do the loop through the strap method at the guitar. At the axe i plug in then tape the chord to the floor securely with a little bit of extra slack so that if I pull the chord loose I'm pulling at the tape first. If that breaks i then have another 2 ft of give before it rips from the axe itself.
 
I loop one end around the handle on my rack and then into the Axe-FX input.

Look at the top of the SKB here (that's my rig):

IMAG0495.jpg
 
I built a small box that has an input and an output which sits on the pedalboard.

A passive volume pedal can work as well.
 
I used to use a large enough/heavy enough pedalboard that I could run the end of the cable going into the pedalboard under the rubber feet - snug but not crushing the cable, didn't move at all... Even if you're not passing audio through the pedalboard you could clip your instrument cable to your pedalboard as an anchor point... even if just clipped to an MFC-101 you'd notice you were dragging that around long before you would pull your rack down...
 
I go wireless if it's a big enough stage to justify using one of my batteries (how's that for cheap?), but otherwise I run the cable through the bottom of my rack stand (that way, if I pull on it, nothing topples over).
 
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