Getting the 2007 Strat. MIM tomorrow.
Thank you all for your support and wisdom.
Now I need the cable to the amp.
Does any brand and model come to mind?
Will be learning jazz and blues.
Thank you,
Mike

Depends on how much you want to spend. There are many good shielded instrument cables on the market. The Fender curly cable is cool looking and a good value.

But the key is "Instrument Cable" avoid a speaker cables. If your up for some reading, check out the on-line contraversy on instrument cables. There is a lot of discussion on just how much a cable affects your sound.
Some say cables affect tone/sound, others say it does'nt.

This may sound weird but, I'm using a cheep $5 cable from Musicians Friend I purchased in the mid 90s and it is my main cable. I'm still waiting for it to break so I can use my $40 Mogami cable.

Happy hunting.

Yes cable affects your tone, Some cable lacks of definitio or high end. It's not the more expensive the better.

Fender curly cable is too heavy IMO

Theres a lot of marketing hype about cables, more so than pretty much any other instrument related area.

All you need to look for is a low capacitance, shielded cable. Look for one that is 130 picofarads (pf) or less per meter. Don't be talked into paying out for goldplated jack plugs. Gold is a excellent conductor but the 5-10 microns thick plating of most gold connectors does nothing but look nice for a week or two then wears away. Also you'll find that the connector sockets at your guitar and amp aren't gold plated. Negating the effect.

A good cable does nothing for your tone, it just sounds better than a bad cable hampering your tone.

If you're buying speaker cable, just get high current cables. Don't worry about shielding.

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No no and no

+1000

Arjay

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"Here's why reliability is job one: A great sounding amp that breaks down goes from being a favorite piece of gear to a useless piece of crap in less time than it takes to read this sentence." -- BRUCE ZINKY

I've heard good things about DiMarzio instrument cables. I've tried and like Monster Cables, but I think they're over-priced.

Pretty much what I was going to say, stressing the low impedence shielded parts. Gold connecters is up to you, it's not a selling point for me, but the cables I generaly like come with them. It does wear off the contact points in fairly short order like Niki said. I will go a bit than he does and say that even an average-midrange cable is sucking signal like a vampire. Length of a cable can make a difference too; the farther your signal has to go from the pickups to the speaker the more work it has to do to get there.

I like Monster cables right now. I've had three in the kit for more than five years and they've been trouble free and I can hear the difference between them and other cables.

Plant Waves has cables in several price ranges that are well built and sound very good.

Monster has a bad rep in the Hi-Fi world for building overpriced, overhyped cables. I wouldn't waste money on them.

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Bill

The planet Waves cable is the only one I've bought in years that I've been happy with. Low impedance, good shielding and well made. The connection between cable and plug is great too, solderless. All you need to do if the cable develops a break is take a single screw out the jack plug. Pull the plug off the cable, trim the cable. Put the plug back on and put the screw back in.
You can do it on a dark stage in well under a minute, I have.

Other than that, I just make my own up. If you care for a lead it will last you indefinitely. Wrap it loose, make sure it doesn't get twisted. Don't trap them under things to keep em down. If you need your cables kept down, gaffa tape em down. A half decent cable will last you a lifetime.

The negative effect of long cable is a loss of high end. The capacitance of a cable acts just like a tone control. If you have a good cable with low capacitance. Say a remarkable 90pf per meter, but the thing is 100 meters long. You're going to get 9000pf capacitance hampering the high end of your guitars sound.
(silly extreme measurements used in that example just to emphasise the problem).

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+1 Planet Waves

Mine are all Monster Cables, mostly the Rock model ones. They feel like undestructible.

I've had good luck with the monster cables. Same price as Planet Waves (also a great cable BTW, I just haven't bought one) One other thing to throw in here, since we're kinda on the subject, is how many connections are in your signal path. Each connection (through a stomp box or whatever else is between the pickup and the speaker) sucks a bit from the signal... I just have a tuner between my guitar and the amp. But then I dig the sound of my guitars and amp. Srat, tele, or gretch 6150 into a late 40s' Oahu Tonemaster with the original field coil speaker.

Nkininja will jump in here and give you the exact numbers for the signal loss per connection Which is much appreciated by myself, I've never known exactly what is happening with cable length, I just could hear that my 24' cable sounded a bit muddier than the 12' one. That was before I was using monster cables (18')

Indeed.

Insertion loss is a factor that should never be ignored. It only takes 3dB of attenuation to audibly diminish the available signal strength going to the amp.

Arjay

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"Here's why reliability is job one: A great sounding amp that breaks down goes from being a favorite piece of gear to a useless piece of crap in less time than it takes to read this sentence." -- BRUCE ZINKY

Not me mate. Quite new to all this electronic stuff. I'm quite the opposite of you with my rig. I don't worry about true bypass, the only pedals I'm sure are true bypass are the ones I made myself. I have eleven pedals and a wireless receiver on my board. Even a buffer to allow the wah to go infront of the fuzz. I will only use a 10ft cable to the amp. And don't pay much attention to my patch cables either. I never use an effects loop.
Quite barbaric I know.

What I do use is a Boss EQ20 with a memory for notable settings right at the end of my pedal chain. It is set just to add a little of the high end back into the signal and is constantly on. Of course it colours the sound of the guitar and amp, but adds just enough push to make sure I don't suffer too much signal loss. If you are running a lot of pedals a little push at the end of the chain can help a lot. Even if you just use a slight volume boost it helps negate the loss from miles of cable.

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I use only Canare cables. You have to buy a length of cable and solder your own connections, but I feel like I've gotten the best of both worlds by using their cables. They are very dependable, (I've been using the first cabvle I bought from them for over 15 years) and the signal strength seems pretty good.

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