As well as a guitar and amplifier, the setup of your average guitarist is likely to include a pedalboard loaded with effects, and to efficiently connect up those effects to complete the chain, you'll need patch leads. So you can bridge small to wide gaps and neatly route your cables to complete a clean board, patch cables come in a range of different lengths.
Short Jack Cables for Linking Guitar Effect Pedals
In principle, a patch lead is basically a really short jack lead - the cable you use to plug your guitar into your amplifier. So, in most cases, a patch cable will come fitted with a 6.3mm mono (TS) jack plug at both ends. With any kind of jack lead, the longer the cable, the weaker the audio signal gets as it reaches the input, meaning that longer cables can be a risk. So, when you're using effect pedals, the distance that the audio signal needs to travel from your guitar to your amp is widened even further, meaning that you need to use the shortest patch leads possible to link your pedals. However, patch leads come in a range of lengths, the most popular being around 15cm. From there, you could use a 60cm-long patch lead to connect your pedalboard to the effects loop of an amplifier. If you're looking for patch leads for a synthesizer or mixer, then you'll find them in our Pro audio patch cable department.
Optimised Effect Pedal Patch Cables
When picking out patch leads, thinking about what you'll be using them for is essential. You can get patch leads fitted with right-angled jack plugs or straight jack plugs, or one of each. Right-angled plugs save a lot of space between your pedals, while straight plugged patch leads tend to be used to link 19 inch rack-mounted gear. Then there are different levels of quality. For example, you can get patch leads with plugs with a solid mantle or even gold-plated plugs. For the professional or more-discerning musicians, there are even patch cable kits, or cabling sold by the metre so it can be cut to length and soldered with jack-plugs to complete your own custom patch leads.
