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Post subject: MSTG II 1/4"/mini cable for "phones" out recording
Posted: Mon Oct 27, 2014 1:17 pm
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Joined: Sat Jun 23, 2012 8:01 am
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I'd like to buy a quality short cable with one end a straight 1/4" jack and the other end a right angled Mini Jack- and hopefully 3 feet or less. I think the Mini Jack needs to be stereo.

When checking online, I encountered all of these options:
balanced/unbalanced?
stereo/mono?
TRS/TS?
and other options.

I don't know what to choose.

I'm going from the MSTNG's "phones" out using a combination of a typical TS male/male patch cable) and a stereo Mini Jack adapter into an M-Audio 1/4" input.
(Then, M-Audio> PC> Reaper DAW).
I love this method and don't want to change it.
I just want a short cable that has the proper ends so I don't have to use any adapters.
I don't mind to spend the right $ for quality.

Could someone (who knows for sure) properly guide me please?

Thank You,
Kurt


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Post subject: Re: MSTG II 1/4"/mini cable for "phones" out recording
Posted: Mon Oct 27, 2014 2:51 pm
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Joined: Sun Jun 17, 2012 11:37 am
Posts: 1315
Location: England
The Mustang's headphone-out socket is stereo, unbalanced.

You need a 3.5mm stereo jack plug (TRS; I think tip is left, ring is right and sleeve is earth/ground).

[NB - A 3.5mm TRS plug for a 'balanced' connection is mono - it needs all three connections for the balanced mono signal. This is not the sort of cable you want for this application]

[NB2 - TRS just means Tip/Ring/Sleeve - ie a plug with three separate connectors along its shaft. A TS plug is Tip/Sleeve - two connectors, so like the cable you use to connect your guitar to your amp]

I don't know the specs of the M-Audio, but if it has a 3.5mm stereo socket, it's probably identical connections to the above.

That is, a perfectly ordinary stereo audio cable with 3.5mm stereo (TRS) jack plugs at each end, is probably what you want. Doesn't matter whether the plugs are straight or angled.

Or, if your M-Audio has separate inputs for left and right, you'll need a Y-connector to split the stereo signal from the amp. You can get cables that have a 3.5mm TRS stereo plug at one end, and two mono plugs (3.5mm TS, 6.35mm TS, phono, etc) at the other end.


Last edited by scott-uk on Fri Oct 31, 2014 1:06 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Post subject: Re: MSTG II 1/4"/mini cable for "phones" out recording
Posted: Fri Oct 31, 2014 12:34 am
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Joined: Sun Jun 17, 2012 11:37 am
Posts: 1315
Location: England
The OP PM'ed me but I think the message and my reply to it belong in the main thread of the forum.

Quote:
Actually, what you are suggesting I get is EXACTLY what I am using now. I am already using a patch cable (male/male TS) with a stereo Mini adapter.
The whole point of my question (the explanations were good-thanks) was that I wanted to get ONE cable that would have a 1/4" TS on one end and a stereo Mini jack on the other.

ps- The "straight" end and the "right angle" end are just subjective choices I made.

If you have a male/male TS cable, that's a mono cable. If you're using a stereo adapter at one end of it, all you're doing is splitting the mono signal into two mono signals. Or rather (if I guess correctly that the adapter is at the Mustang end of the cable) you're just merging the Mustang's stereo output into a mono signal. In general that's not a good way to mix two signals (whereas it usually kind-of works, particularly if the left and right channels are carrying the same signal anyway, I won't digress into the electrical reasons why it's not the right way to do it).

I don't think you'll find a cable ready-made that has a 3.5mm TRS stereo plug at one end and a 6.35mm TS mono plug at the other - precisely because it's not the right way to mix-down a stereo signal into a mono signal. You have four options that I can think of:

- make your own cable with the desired plugs, and join together the left and right output signals at the TRS plug; this will (usually) work but is electrically wrong and will be problematic if you ever have a genuine stereo signal (ie different signals on left and right channels) - they won't be accurately transmitted and in the worst case you risk damage to the amp, although that's unlikely with the low voltage on this signal

- get (or make) a cable with a 3.5mm stereo TRS plug at one end, with only one channel (left or right) connected, that goes to a TS mono plug. You currently have a mono set-up so by definition aren't using any stereo effects on your amp, so both channels out of the Mustang should be the same anyway

- get a little mixer, take the stereo signal from the Mustang into that, and use the mixer to combine both channels into a single mono signal to pass to your M-Audio

- just take the Mustang's stereo signal to two inputs on the M-Audio, and do any mixing etc there, if you really do only want a mono signal going into the PC for recording

If it were me, I would do the last one above. Or, just take the Mustang's USB (digital audio) output straight into the PC rather than converting the amp's digital signal to analogue (headphones out), going to the M-Audio and converting back to digital.


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