The Veins of Your (my) Modular Synth
Patch cables — arguably more necessary to a modular synth system than the modules themselves. I was a bit inspired to write this after reading Bogdan Raczynski’s article about super thin patch cables; his article goes into some detail with regards to the the benefits of the Tendrils right-angle cables as well as comparing the Tendrils to the Ctrl-Mod cables. What struck me about the article while reading it was that you don’t hear a lot about the very things that you use to make a modular synth modules communicate with each other. You can find his article at https://bogdanraczynski.com/eurorack-thin-patch-cable-comparison-tendrils-ctrl-mod/.
As I mentioned, Bogdan’s (if I may be so informal) article lit a bit of spark in me (though I’ve been sitting on this spark for many months now and it has finally developed into a fire, or maybe a fever!) to share with other folks, maybe some just getting into modular, my thoughts on eurorack modular synth 3.5mm patch cables. As I mentioned above, the cables may seem on the mundane end of the spectrum of equipment, behind the modules, the enclosures, the splitters, adapters, and whatever else. They are however, the most critical part of the system, and likely the component in the system that you actually spend the most time with. That said, you should really find cables that you’re happy with. Life’s too short to be walking around in an uncomfortable pair of shoes that you bought because they were $30 less than the comfortable shoes you really wanted.
I started off my modular extravaganza with a Tiptop Audio HEK with rack ears but no rack to attach it to (which is fine because they were designed to also sit as a desktop unit), a Make Noise Wogglebug, a Make Noise STO, and a handful of Hosa 3.5mm patch cables and I was off to the races.
For a few years following that time, I mostly bought the Hosa patch cables which come in a small variety of standard English lengths, 6 inch, 1 foot, 1.5 feet, and 3 feet. They come in packs of 8 in which there is one cable of each of the fairly attractive vibrant colors, gray, purple, blue, green, yellow, orange, red, and brown. The 6 inch length is great for the short connections, and the 3 foot length easily spans a 104hp 7U Intellijel Performance Case from corner to opposite corner. I originally chose the Hosa cables because they were the best price per quantity that I could find at the time, which I believe was significantly less than 3$ per cable at the time for the 1.5 foot lengths.
Hosa also has the matching “Hopscotch Cable”, which comes in the same yellow, blue, green, orange, and red colors as the other patch cables in various lengths, which basically serve the same function as the Tiptop Stackcables, except that they are in a “pigtail” formation, which means that at the end of the day you could do multiple stacks without reaching skyscraper heights on your synth. Hosa also has a lifetime warranty on their cables. I’m not sure how they do this, and maybe folks don’t often take advantage of this; a couple of my Hopscotch cables stopped working after a time, so I can attest to the fact that they honor that warranty. Hosa also has a wide variety of other cables, so my allegiance extended beyond the 3.5mm patch cables to a variety of adapters and ¼” cables and ¼”-3.5mm adapter cables for routing to my mixer and a few pedals, as well as my Moog Werkstatt.
Other than the price and good quality of the Hosa cables, my original theory at the time of starting out was that having cables with a variety of colors would make it easier to trace source to destination in patches. Some folks take this methodology a bit farther and employ colors to indicate specific connections. In the early days this proved to work out well; however, as my system grew, and my mania to “use all the cables” rampaged out of control, tracing the source to destination unfortunately became quite the challenge, and in lower light situations some of the colors blended together anyway. The colors were nice on camera though, so that’s how it went for some time. In addition, the Hosa cables, while not the thinnest cables out there, are a decent width and have a good feel to them. I haven’t had any issues with any of the straight cables, and the casing on the cables is still as good as when I bought them, with no brittleness or stickiness developing over time. The cable barrel on the Hopscotch cables is, however, a bit on the large side, due to the fact that it houses both outgoing lines.
Along the way, due to the space of time I was without the Hopscotch cables for the warranty replacement, I invested in a small number of the Tiptop Audio Stackcables. There isn’t too much to be said for these as their reputation speaks for itself — these are solid cables, work as advertised, etc. The size of the cable body is smaller than the Hopscotch cable (the only drawback being that if you use more than 2 your stack will get pretty tall) and you have the advantage of creating 2 additional jacks on either end, as opposed to the Hopscotch cable, which really just gives you that extra one (unless you daisy-chain them). Their cost, however, is proportional to their quality x reputation. Starting I believe at around $6 (at least they were) a cable, they do end up costing considerably more than the Hosas, so when you are starting off, you can’t get as many for the same budget. In addition, when in mixed use with the Hosas…[gasp]… you end up having a clash of colors; your beautiful rainbow gets struck with a random black or mismatched blue cable (or mismatched yellow, cyan, red, green, and purple if you stay at the 1.5m or shorter lengths). Concern for this is either silly or serious depending on the level of visual aesthetic you’re going for; if you are just patching for the sheer enjoyment of the process of building patches in modular then it is a non-issue, but many do like their visual aesthetics. There is a difference in the approach that the TipTip Stackcables take with regards to color — the cables of the same length are all the same color. There is a certain wisdom to that which I’ll discuss later.
At some point I suppose you could say I doubled down on my theory that having a bunch of random colors made it easier to sort out what was going on in that jumbled birdnest mass of wires that made up my patches. I was scoping out cables one day since I was running out of cables on every patch, and found the braided patch cables on Modular Addict. Since I originally dove into the Modular Addict site, I believe they have upped their cable game. I don’t remember if they had these when I shopped originally, or maybe they were out of stock, but they also have stacking patch cables now, as well as “skinny” patch cables, which look pretty decent. At a bit over a dollar a pop, I’m considering checking out how much it would be to get some shipped to Japan to check out the quality since they are super skinny, come in nice colors, and can be bought a la carte in various color/length combos. However, I digress… my original Modular Addict cable purchases were the braided patch cables. And, as I mentioned before, I was still going with the rainbow treatment on the cables, so I ended up buying a set of the same length in different colors. These cables feel pretty nice, but they sure are thick; perhaps this is pretty nice for the longer lengths, but for the shorter length cables they feel a bit ridiculous, with the outer jacket being nearly as thick as the barrel. The barrels are average size, about the same as the Hosas. I have not had any issues with these cables, though admittedly more recently I haven’t used them that much. They do come in a nice variety of colors as well. (Oh yeh, Modular Addict also carries banana cables if you’re a banana wo/man, though they are a bit pricey (though I think a bit less than you’d pay for the Buchla cables).)
Now here is where my story changes. Over time I began to be more and more frustrated by the amount of time I was spending organizing my cables after breaking down a patch, which I do fairly often. Into which length pile does which cable go!? One by one I’d need to (and still do if I use my back arsenal) pick up each cable, determine its size, and then place it in a pile of its like-sized brethren. As the time to move to Japan loomed, I was also checking out some of the folks that perform on modular synth in Japan, including z-hyper (red cables), tatata5 (blue cables plus cute Sylvanian Family characters), yumi katayama (yellow cables, yellow case, plus Snoopy’s cat friend Faron) — it seemed that having one color cables was a thing in Japan. It looks really nice, and kind of gives you a sense of branding for the player as well. Since the various color tactic really didn’t work out so well for me in terms of usefulness in the patch, this seemed totally fine for me as well. That burrowed its way into my consciousness and along with the post-patch-sorting frenzy, the TipTop Audio cables came back to my mind. [insert face-palm here] I finally came to the realization that I needed to for future cable purchases to steer more toward the TipTop audio way and assign specific colors to specific lengths of cable. (not to mention the giant number of varied mismatched colors had really been bugging me, especially since the color variation really wasn’t helpful) As long as my color vision holds up, sorting the cables becomes super easy if all the cables of one color are the same length. Since I didn’t particularly care for the colors of the TipTop Stackcables, so began my quest to find affordable cables that offered colors in varied lengths, sold a la carte, so that I could choose a palette of colors, one color per length.
After looking extensively, I ended up going with a selection of colors from the camo line of cables from Control, opting to get all colors except for the brown for a nice muted palette. The Control cables have a thin and relatively short barrel, as noted in Bogdan’s review. I won’t go into too much depth here since he covered them rather extensively in his review, but I really like the Control cables; they feel really good, not too rubbery, not too stiff, and their width and height are good for having them in cramped spaces. In addition, for the camo line, the barrel and outer jacket are the same color, so they look great too! I ended up picking up some of the “Crono” cables as well, because, well, they are what Cronenberg would use to patch his modular, because they are a creepy flesh color?
I was also looking at the Ad Infinitum cables, which are sold at Clockface Modular in Tokyo (which is a great online shop that just (re?)opened a showroom / patching space in Tokyo) — they are very affordable, but the cable barrels are rather large and the colors are fairly limited, if the colors you want at the length you want are in stock.
I was also introduced to Moddict at the Tokyo Festival of Modular, and have since tried out some of their cables (white) as well (they also have some good, reasonably priced utility modules that they design and sell). Their cables are quite thin, super thin, even thinner than the Control cables, almost to the point that they fall through the slots on my cable hangers. They have a more springy feel to them and a more rubbery texture. I have not had them long, so I will need to see how they hold up and how the rubbery jacket fares in the higher humidity. I got them in the same length as the white Control cables, so they still work with my color scheming.
I know that I must sound obsessed by now, but it really is sometimes the smaller more mundane things that make all the difference. Since using mostly the cables where color corresponds to length, the reorganization time post-patch-breakdown takes literally half the time or less than it used to. Rather than going through each cable one by one, I can now just grab out all the cables of the same color, bundle them, and put them on the hanger. It is a huge time saver, and acts to remove one of the barriers to being creative.
Speaking of cable hangers, I picked up a couple of the Pomona 1508 Test Lead Holders. They are the perfect size for patch cables (the 1508 specifically), and easily hold 184 cables, up to 200 probably if you were clever. Get organized! (ok, maybe I am a little obsessed).
If I were to do it all over again, I’d probably opt for the Control cables out of the gate. I really like the camo colored cables I purchased from them, and I could live with just those cables. Add to that I think that Bogdan mentioned that they also have the right-angle cables now, which give you even more flexibility with the way you want to patch your modular. Moving forward, I may also try out the Modular Addict stacking and skinny cables. If the quality approaches the price, they would be a good deal, and both the stacking and skinny cables come in a variety of lengths per color (and you get a discount for buying in bulk).
I hope this article is informing and if not at least entertaining, and maybe helps guide your choice of and strategy for patch cables. Thanks for reading!
Note: this article is sponsored by none of the companies mentioned above, but I did use my Amazon affiliate links just for kicks and maybe some kickback if anyone uses the links for a few of the listed items.
