Eurorack patch cables

Colour-coded or not?

The first choice comes in the form of colours. Should you go for colour-coded cables or not?

That’s mainly down to personal taste, but there are a few things to consider. Colour-coding your patch cables will help you keep track of what signal goes where, since you can easily follow the colour of a particular cable even in a dense spaghetti mess.

On the other hand, it might be that you prefer the cleaner and neater look of monochrome cables, or perhaps just a few distinct colours, like one for audio signals and another for gate and CV signals.

Material

Another choice is one of material. Do you prefer stiffer PVC cables or softer and more flexible TPE/silicone-like cables? Or perhaps braided cables?

Even though we have all three kinds in our own studio, we mostly end up using the softer TPE cables since they are very easy to handle, have a nice grip and droop nicely around each other.

Braided cables do have a nice texture, but they are quite thick which makes cable spaghetti more cumbersome to handle, so again, we tend to reach for our TPE cables.

Signal path

Of course, the most important part of any cable is to get your signal from one place to another, so it’s important to get cables that have a good signal/noise ratio and durable materials so that they stand up to being handled frequently.

Our Heinakroon cables are all made with 28 gauge oxygen-free copper wire for an excellent signal flow. The wire is then covered by a efficient plastic insulator, and then surrounded by a highly flexible spiral shield that offers 90-95% coverage.

Finally, the cable is sleeved in silicone-like TPE plastic to keep it soft and flexible. This ensures it won’t break when bending it around tight corners and gives the cable a long lifespan.

Connector-barrels

A third thing to consider is the shape and size of the connector-barrels. There are many different sizes, with diameters from a chunky 12mm (1/2″) to a slender 6mm (1/4″). They all have their pros and cons, but if you have busy patchbays or narrow Eurorack modules, slimline connector-barrels is the way to go. Just make sure they are made from grip-friendly material, so they are easy to handle. Soft TPE-plastic offers a nice grip.

Another option is angled connectors, for low-profile patch cables. This allows you to keep your patch intact even with a dust protector or travel lid over your setup. This is very convenient if you often need to move your Eurorack around or if you travel with it.

LED cables

Nowadays there’s also the option of having LED-light in the cable connectors. This gives you a nice visual feedback on your signal flow, and can be very helpful during patch diagnostics or in education. It also looks cool on stage, which doesn’t hurt. 🙂

We have 2 different types of LED cables: transparent and slimline. The transparent LED cables are brighter, since the whole connector lights up, but they are a bit on the chunky side, with a barrel diameter of 11mm. The slimline LED cable barrels are only 8mm wide, but are still very sturdy since they are milled from aluminium. The downside is that the LED-light is only visible at the end of the barrels.

What lengths?

There are a huge range of cable lengths for Eurorack cables, but the most commonly used are 30 and 60 cm (approx 12″ and 24″). These are the lengths we currently carry for all our cables, but other lengths might be added in the future.

30 cm cables are good for patching within a patchbay, or between neighbouring modules, while 60 cm extends the reach to synths or modules further away. Occasionally, you might need very long ‘trunk’ cables for connecting separate modular systems from across the room, but remember that signals can degrade slightly over long distances.