Monday morning (elementary) tech question

[Uke]

As I am primarily an acoustic player I have a amp/pedal question: Can a cord made for an amp-speaker cabinet connection be used to connect a pedal to an amp?

 

[The Guilds of Grot]

You need a "shielded" cable for guitar to amp. (pedal or not). Shielded means the ground wire is wrapped around the lead wire.

Most Speaker cords are just two wires side-by-side so since they aren't shielded they can pick up interference from other sources as well as hum.

 

[Uke]

You need a "shielded" cable for guitar to amp. (pedal or not). Shielded means the ground wire is wrapped around the lead wired.

Most Speaker cords are just two wires side-by-side so since they aren't shielded they can pick up interference from other sources as well as hum.

Thanks Grot!

 

[Rocky]

Don't do it the other way around either. Shielded cable doesn't have the capability of handling the power between amp and speaker.

Theoretically, the capacitance in a shielded cable could also cause issues in that application, but that would be the least of your problems.

 

[GAD]

All of the answers above are correct.

If you just want to test the pedal to see if it works then using the speaker cable will work. It might just be noisy and that noise gets worse with volume.

Don’t ever use a guitar cable for a speaker cable, though.

 

[Uke]

All good -- thanks you guys!