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Build your own stereo jack, mini-jack, xlr and rca cables!
After the article on how to solder your mono jacks and patches, we will teach you here how to solder the stereo ones! And also other cables you may need!
The big advantage of making your cables yourself is that it will cost you less than buying prepared cables. Plus, you can customize them! It will allow you to have an elegant and perfectly wired board.
But beware, a badly made cable will be a real pain for your sound! You will therefore have to equip yourself seriously and follow our instructions.
Of course, there is not only one way to do it, at least what we present you is the one that we put into practice for the jacks that we sell already made.
Also, we will not be held responsible in case of error, mishandling, material or personal damage while following this tutorial.
presentation of the bench
We’ll start by listing the tools you’ll need. It’s the same as for the mono jacks. You will need a strong pair of wire cutters to cut your cable to the right length. Then to strip your cable, we suggest a multifunction stripper that will allow you to strip everything, and a scalpel. If you’re making pancake patches, you’ll also need a PH2 Phillips screwdriver.
Then we will have to solder! The minimum to have is a soldering iron and some tin. A 3rd hand will also be necessary to hold the cable and the connector while you solder! If you want to work in better conditions, we also offer a lot of soldering accessories. It will make things much more comfortable.
To encourage you to get into DIY, we propose you this pack, which contains all the tools above, plus a replacement iron tip and a lead free tip refresher wax for 99€. It’s an investment, but it will pay for itself if you have to wire your whole pedalboard! And the tools will still be useful, for many other things!
If you’ve never soldered before, you can take a look at this article as well, it will help you a lot:
After the tools, you will need cables and connectors! We will teach you how to make several types of cables in this article. So we will tell you in each part which cables and connectors are the most suitable according to what you want to do. We will make together a stereo pancake patch for pedals, a stereo patch for switcher, a 3.5mm mini jack cable, an XLR cable and an RCA cable.
And of course, you will be able to find all the material you need on our website!
stereo jack patch cables for pedalboards
Let’s start with the jacks! We propose you the same formats as for the mono jacks.
preparing the cables
For all the stereo jack patches, we will use Sommercable SC-Galileo cable. The process is more or less the same as for mono patches.
First we will cut the cable to the right length, simply with a pair of wire cutters. We advise you to cut the cable 1 or 2 cm longer than the desired length. Then we will strip the outer sheath on about 1cm with a the coaxial cable stripper of our stripping pliers.
The goal will be to tighten the cable inside (not too hard) and to turn it. It should only cut the outer sheath of the cable without cutting the ground braid, as shown in the picture. You will feel a slight cracking sensation when you reach the ground braid, that’s where you have to stop!
We advise you to adjust it and practice on another piece of cable. Then twist the ground braid on the side, and remove the white sheath with the scalpel.
After that, we will bend the 2 red and white wires at 90° to cut the white filaments inside the cable.
And we strip the 2 red and white wires with the wire stripper on the size 20 AWG or 0.8mm.
the pancake connector
Let’s start with the stereo pancake connector!
For the pancake connector, we will try to place the wires in the red-white-ground order from left to right, as in the picture. It will be easier for the next step. Then open the connector, hold it with one clip of the 3rd hand, and hold the cable with the other clip.
The red wire must be on the left, and the white wire must touch the middle tongue. No need to pass the wire through the hole of the tongue, it may touch the frame on the other side. And we solder, not staying too long so as not to melt the sheath of the wire.
Then push the cable so that the red wire comes in front of the left tongue. This time, we can pass it through the hole of the tongue because the frame is a bit deeper. But be careful that it does not touch!
Finally, we place the ground braid on the right side of the connector. First we heat the braid and the frame for a few seconds, otherwise the soldering will not work. When it’s hot, we put some tin, not too close to the sheath so that it doesn’t melt. Then we come to spread it with the iron from the center to the end of the braid.
The tin must be well spread out against the braid and the frame. If it makes little balls, it means that you did not heat it up long enough before putting the tin on. If it is not spread out enough and the tin overflows from the frame, you will not be able to close the connector again.
Once it’ s done, you have finished one side of your jack! Let it cool for 5-10min without touching it to avoid burning yourself, and don’t close it right away. We’ll do some tests before. If you have more jacks to do, you can start doing one side in the meantime, and do the second sides afterwards.
the straight connector for the switcher cables
Pancake connectors are good for pedals, but they are often too wide to be plugged into a switcher. That’s why we sell 2 other connector formats for patches, a straight and an angled one.
Start with the straight connector! We open it, then we must first pass the black frame of the connector and the transparent sheath, otherwise we will not be able to put them once the connector is soldered. Pay attention to the direction of the frame, the screw terminal must be pointing towards the end of the cable. Then we prepare the cable as we have seen, and we will bend the white wire and the ground at 90° as on the picture.
Then pass the cable through the connector, placing the red wire in the central tongue. If the connector is too tight, it can be spread a little. Hold it with the 3rd hand and solder!
Then insert the cable a little more into the connector, so that the white wire touches the top tongue. And solder again!
Finally, bend the ground braid to place it on the tongue on the side, and solder again!
We end up tightening the connector on the cable so that it doesn’t move anymore, then we slide the transparent sheath.
the angled connector for switcher cables
As for the straight connector, first pass the black frame of the connector and the transparent sheath, paying attention to the direction of the frame. Then we prepare the cable as we have seen, and this time we will shorten a little the ground braid.
Slide the cable into the connector, making the ground braid and connector frame touch. Caution, the braid must not touch the other tongues! The red and white wires can be bent a little if they interfere, then solder the ground braid.
Then we bend the white wire so that it touches the central tongue, and we solder it. And we do the same with the red wire and the outer tongue. Be careful that there is no contact between the tongues and that the soldering are not too close!
Finally, we tighten the connector so that the cable doesn’t move anymore, then we slide the transparent sheath!
the xlr cable
Let’s switch to the XLR cable! You can choose between a male and a female connector.
First we open the connector. Then we pass the end of the frame and the black cable clamp on the cable. The white cable clamp is not needed. For the cable, we also use the Sommercable SC Galileo, which we prepare as for the stereo patches above, trying to place the wires in the order ground-white-red as shown in the picture.
Then place the connector and the cable in the 3rd hand, and place each wire in the corresponding tongue. Be careful, the wiring is different on the 2 connectors! Take a look at the pictures.
And we solder! Be careful not to touch the plastic part of the connector and not to stay too long not to melt it.
Then slide the connector into the frame, putting the transparent plastic ring, being careful to put the notches in front of it.
Finally we slide the cable clamp, always paying attention to the notch. And we screw the end of the connector!
rca and mini jack cables
preparing the cable
For RCA and mini jack cables, we will use another cable, the Sommercable SC-Onyx 2008, which will be more adapted.
This time, we will split the cable in 2 on about 3 cm, then we strip the black sheaths on 1cm with the stripping pliers on the size 16 AWG or 1.3mm. Then we bend the ground braids, and strip the yellow and red sheaths over a few millimeters, with the stripping pliers on the size 20 AWG or 0.8mm.
the rca cable
Let’s start with the easiest, the RCA! We’re going to spread the 2 cables on a few centimeters more, and pass the frame of the connector and the black sheath on one of the cables. Be careful with the color of the connectors, not to invert the left and right connectors! Then we prepare the cable and twist the wires.
Then place the connector and cable in the 3rd hand, passing the ground braid through the hole of the frame and the core of the cable through the central tongue. And we solder!
We tighten the connector around the cable so that it holds, and close it. Now we just have to do the same thing on the second cable with the connector of the other color!
the 3.5mm mini jack
We end up with the mini jacks! These are the most complicated connectors to solder. But if you manage to make them correctly, you will have no problem to solder all the connectors you want!
We propose you 3 models, two straight and one angled. We will start with the simplest of the three, and finish with the most complicated!
the straight mini jack with screw
This is the one we advise you to use if you want a straight connector. It is the most compact and most of all the easiest to solder of the three! It also has a locking screw that allows it to be locked into some female connectors and devices, such as the Sennheiser EW series.
As for the RCA, we will use the Sommercable SC-Onyx 2008 cable. We open the connector, then pass the cable through the black frame and the transparent sheath. Then we prepare the cable as we saw with the RCA.
Then, we will twist the 2 ground braids together, taking care that when the braid is pointed down, the red wire is on the left and the yellow wire is on the right. As on the first picture. Then we twist the 2 cores of each wire and bend them at 90°.
Then place the connector and cable in the 3rd hand. And pass the ground braid through the hole of the jack frame, the red wire in the left tongue and the yellow wire in the right tongue.
Finally, we solder! Be careful not to melt the sheaths or the blue plastic part of the connector. It’s better to do it in several times if the soldering doesn’t work.
We tighten the connector, slide the transparent sheath, and close!
the angled mini jack
A little more complicated to do, the angled mini jack! As usual we open the connector, and slide the jack frame around the cable. Then we prepare it, but this time trying to cut the yellow wire slightly shorter than the red one.
Then put the connector and the cable in the 3rd hand. The ground braid is passed through the hole of the frame and the yellow wire must touch the first tongue of the connector. We advise you to avoid passing the yellow wire through the hole of the tongue so that it does not touch the frame behind. If the red wire is in the way, you can move it, and then solder the yellow wire.
Then we do the same with the red wire and the top tongue, always avoiding to pass the wire through the hole.
Finally, solder the ground braid, pushing it well against the frame. We wait for the connector to cool down, tighten the connector around the cable so that it holds, and we can close it!
the second straight mini jack, the most complicated!
This connector is a bit more robust than the first straight mini jack we saw, but you’ll have to hang on for soldering!
As usual, we open the connector and pass the black frame and the black sheath around the cable. Then we prepare it, this time cutting the red wire slightly shorter than the yellow one.
We twist the ground braids together and the cores of each thread. Then, put the connector and the cable in the 3rd hand. The ground braid must pass through the hole of the frame. Then we will bend each wire so that they touch the right tongues.
And we solder, first the 2 wires and then the ground braid. Avoiding to melt the sheaths and the black plastic ring between the 2 tongues.
And finally, we tighten the connector, wait for it to cool down, and close it!
testing the cables
Now that your connectors are soldered, let’s test the cable! We can test it with the ohm-meter to see if it conducts well where it should, but the safest is the cable tester!
The advantage of this kind of tester is that you plug your cable into it, then you can twist your cable in all directions to make sure it always stays conductive! As soon as a micro cut is detected, even extremely short, a led will light up on the tester. Something you won’t see with an ohm-meter!
We’re going to do a first test before closing your connectors, to make sure that the signal passes where it should. On the pancake, we’ll elevate the cable to make sure the signal doesn’t cut.
Then we close the connector and totrture the cable in all directions. If the leds that indicate a false contact do not light up, you have made a perfect cable!
There you go, now you can make your own cables and patches yourself!
don’t want do it yourself? we’re here!
And if you still don’t feel like getting started, we also sell a whole range of patches and jacks already made, hand assembled in our workshops. You’re sure to find the cable you’re looking for!