Yeah, I’ve heard it and seen it. But this one really takes the cake. Not so long ago, I was buying more cables for my studio, because you never have enough, and I had put off my purchase by a couple of weeks, which resulted in the total price going up $4. not a lot, but still that was the loss of one cable that I could have gotten for the same price. One month down the road and I need more cables, because you never have enough. Those same $4 cables I was buying are now $10. Ten fucking dollars! For what used to be $4 only a month ago. So, this leads me to a place where people go in hard times – making it on your own.
Before I had gotten the sticker shock of buying the new cables, this was something I had briefly considered – that is, making my own cables. That particular moment was when I had run out of short cables and I was using big 10ft cables where I only needed a 3ft cable, and I was thinking maybe I should just cut the cable shorter and put a new end on it. I have the tools and skills for soldering now that I didn’t have previously, it’s not impossible. The only thing I was missing was the jacks.
And now with 3ft cables costing $10, the research began in earnest to see if I could make a cable cheaper. And it seems I could.
Since all my studio patchbays are TRS (stereo jack) and every device connects to a patchbay, all my cables have to be a single 1/4" TRS to two 1/4" TS (mono jack). These are typically sold as "insert cables", which are used for insert jacks on a mixer, where one TS jack is the output and the other is the return input, but yeah, they can also be stereo splitters, sure. And that’s how I use them. So I priced out the bulk parts that I would need: cable, jacks, and Y boots.
I can buy 100ft of stereo cable for about $.50/ft. TS jacks are about $1/ea in bulk, TRS jacks are about $1.20/ea, and surprisingly, the most expensive part is the Y boot, which are about $2/ea. If I want to be less pretty about it, I can just use heat shrink tubing which is probably under $1/ft.
So, roughly, a 3ft insert cable is 3ft of cable, two TS jacks, one TRS jack, and maybe a foot of shrink tubing. That’s about $5. So, a month ago, it wasn’t worth it for me to entertain the idea of cable-making. Now it is. And the benefit of having custom-length cables instead of 10ft of spaghetti wrapped up in my racks is a nice bonus. And, it’s another hobby. Why shouldn’t I try something new, especially when it involves saving money by spending money?
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