It pays to invest in quality Guitar Effects Pedal Patch Cables

So I’ve been through a whole bunch of different patch cable brands - all the typical branded ones - Boss, Dunlop, Ernie Ball, Fender, Hosa, Mooer and Planet Waves (D’Addario) - before I stumbled across my current favourites ’EBS Gold Flat Patch Cables’ on the Andertons website.

I have a very extensive pedal chain consisting of some 36 pedals currently and I did not much like the usual thick-ish cable or jack-heads. The EBS ones are still the trimmest flattest versions I have comes across, they do have some evolving competition from the new Rockboard Flat Patch Gold Series which comes in a much wider variety of lengths, although I’m not sure about the way ends over-run the jacks - I much prefer the streamlined shape of the EBS jack heads.

Daniel Steinhardt of GigRig and That Pedal Show fame swears by the Evidence Audio Solderless Monorail system - but the jacks / caps on those are rather regular-shaped and the wire nowhere near as flat as either Rockboard or EBS especially.

Finally Free The Tone is a decent quality competitor to Evidence - and they do things very slightly differently to Evidence and at a similar price point. There are a whole bunch of slightly lower quality solderless options from companies like Boss, Donner, Hellion, Lava Cables, Mr Power and Planet Waves.

My personal pick of the bunch is still EBS, although if I need longer lengths - then I would source those from Rockboard. If I had to go solderless, I would pay the premium and go with either Evidence Audio or Free The Tone - depending on my needs. The Evidence Audio Kit seems to provide you with everything you need, although Free The Tone has a few advantages of its own.

EBS Premium Gold Flat Patch Cables

EBS (Efekt Bass System) are Swedish Electric Bass technology specialists and are responsible for my current favourite patch cables. The are the slimmest of those available with the smallest and skinniest end jacks - they sound just as good as they look.

The only downside being that they come in only 4 lengths as pictured :

• 10cm | 18cm | 28cm | 58cm

Andertons.co.uk stocks them, and they retail for :

• £6.99 | £7.99 | £9.99 | £10.99 - according to the above sizes

Rockboard Gold Series Flat Patch Cables

Just recently launched, these are now available at Thomann, they’re not quite as neat and tidy as the EBSs, but come in a greater variety of lenghts - which makes the 3 varieties over 1m particularly useful:

• 5cm | 10cm | 20cm | 30cm | 45cm | 60cm | 80cm | 100cm | 120cm | 140 cm

Thomann.de stocks these from :

• €6.60 | €7.30 | €7.60 | €7.70 | €8 | €8.20 | €9.20 | €10.20 | €10.60 | €11.50 - according to above sizes

Evidence Audio SIS Monorail Solderless Cable Kit - SIS1 & SIS2

This is the current king of solderless patch cables, Daniel Steinhardt swears by them and they are on all his pro GigRig guitar rigs and pedalboards. All the plugs / jacks are right angled - which is no different to the above two hard-wired alternatives. These come in 2 different kits - SIS1 has 8 jacks and 5 foot / c150cm of cable, and SIS2 has 10 jacks and 10 foot of cable c300cm - and they come in burgundy red and black cable varieties - you can buy additional jacks / plugs for $7.95 / £5.99 each and addition cable at circa $2.95 / £3 per foot.

Evidence Audio is available from most guitar gear shops including Andertons.co.uk, GAK.co.uk and Thomann.de :

• Evidence Audio SIS Kit1 (8 jangled acks + c150cm cable) is around £60
• Evidence Audio SIS Kit2 (10 angled Jacks + c300cm cable) is around £85

Free The Tone Solderless Patch Cable Kit

This high quality Japanese brand is less well-known than Evidence, yet adds its own twist by providing both straight and right-angled jack plugs. The kits come in 3 varieties - variously with straight and angled jack plugs but always with 300cms of cable.

HotRoxUk.com stocks these in the UK :

• Free The Tone SLK-L10 Patch Cable Kit (10 angled jacks + c300cm cable) is around £90
• Free The Tone SLK-SL-55 Patch Cable Kit (5 angled jacks + 5 straight jacks + c300cm cable) is around £80
• Free The Tone SLK-S-10 Patch Cable Kit (10 straight jacks + c300cm) is around £80

Final Thoughts

I can see the benefit in being able to cut the cable exactly to size - but using a combination of EBS and Rockboard cables will pretty much handle all scenarios and can give you the tidiest of boards or pedal chains. All of these are premium and use premium components, so high quality sound is a given. There are certainly lots of different choices out there, and sure - some of these are a few pounds dearer overall, but you really do get what you pay for here, and these cable solutions should benefit you in several ways.