Moog Music Forum

Had to move part of my rig due to Christmas tree (yes, my 'studio' is in the family living room) but my Foogers and rack (patch panel, etc) is mounted to the wall so it's staying put above my combo amp.

The TRS cables I normally use are about 2' so now I"m using a pair of 10' cables to push CV out of my Voyager to my Freq box (sending KB CV to FREQ in). Except it doesn't quite reach there either so I had to route it through a Sampson S-patch plus (using Thru setting) just so I can push it another 2 feet.

Anyway, I notice serious inconsistencies in pitch tuning. I can tune up the base not well enough but the further I got either up or down the keyboard, the more 'off' the tuning gets.

Any ideas on whether or not this is a distance issue, or the type of cable or if it's the Spatch panel that is degrading the signal?

Upon experimenting, I also noticed that the patch cables are particularly susceptible to interference (they are Hosa 2' TRS)... just moving them around or near other cables seems to cause fluctuations in pitch.

It doesn't matter much when it comes to CV pushing filters or other things that an expression pedal would normally be used for. Any ideas or maybe I was just tired (this was at 3am last night).

Thanks.

-Mike W. from NJ

High quality cables won't degrade until you start to get over 50'. For CV using speaker wire is better than the shielded microphone/instrument wire. 18ga resistance is negligable at 100' (50' run) The ultra thin wiring in Hosa will cause voltage drop at even relatively short lengths. Also, the shield is poor and it will pick up induced noise on audio. It's always a balance between sound and affordability. Good cables are expensive. It gets cheaper if you are good at soldering and buy wire in bulk and make your own.

I just stumbled onto this post doing a search for something else...wow, if this is true, I might start making my own CV cables out of 18ga lamp cord.

I have enough regular patch cables by now, to use for any audio

Reminds me of the first Radio Shack 1/4 inch cable I cut in half. There was about 6 thin wires for the shield and no drain wire. The core conductor was even less metal.

Poor cable indeed.

In the 90’s I once had a sales rep describe this type of cable as: “if your looking for something more affordable, this is our 24 hour patch cord.”