MOTM

Well, here're my 2-cents, for what they're worth:
 
 
Many people have had perfectly good experiences using cables of all one
color (usually black, I would guess).
 
Because there is now a wide range of colors to choose from, the desire is
there to "do" something with this available dimension, to put the colors
into some kind of useful scheme.
 
At first, it's an attractive idea to make them color-coded by function. But
in reality, I don't think this is fruitful at all. It's just one more thing
that an anal retentive person (like myself) will "worry about" when
selecting cables for a patch, an aspect that adds nothing to the final
sound, but slows down the 'process.' Think about it---MOTM modules use a
uniform plug/jack type for audio, control voltages, triggers, and gates. So
why try to mess UP that flexibility by limiting your red cords "only" to
gates, for instance? MAYBE in a classroom situation, this could be useful,
but it seems to me that you'd need a LOT more cables to have varying lengths
in every color.
 
So the other alternative is to color-code by length. Now, this may offer
only a 'minor' aid in selecting and organizing your cables, but since it's a
"free" option, and every little bit helps, it seems like a logical way to
go. I mean, ultimately, the whole thing is arbitrary, but as long as you
have a choice of colors, why NOT make it easier to untangle them when they
are in a big ball on the floor? I hate to admit it, but as careful as I am,
when I'm in a patching frenzy, cables are everywhere, and if I'm crazily
thinking, "Where's a 2-foot cable?? Where's a 2-footer??" and I know my
2-footers are green, then it just helps me that little bit. You know? That's
just 8 brain cells that I do not need to switch from right-brain to
left-brain activity.
 
So bottom line, my opinion is that it doesn't matter a whole lot, but as
long as the option is there, why not put it to use, and it seems to me that
with few specific exceptions, color-coding by function doesn't help at all
(may even hinder), and color-coding by length at least helps a "little." So
why not go that way?
 
Now, as to which-colors-are-what, that *IS* extremely arbitrary and up to
personal taste. The "rainbow/wavelength" idea seems a logical as anything to
me. I hadn't thought about that idea, but it's interesting. I may adopt that
myself, and I'm glad folks on this list mentioned it.
 
KT

-----Original Message-----
From: Brousseau, Paul E (Paul) [mailto:noise@...] 
Sent: Tuesday, 18 February, 2003 4:08 PM
To: motm@yahoogroups.com
Subject: RE: [motm] Cable color scheme advice?
 
I'm a little unclear regarding the advantage of this.  I can see it making a
difference when you're patching in a new cable out of the jumbled mess on
the floor... but when you're already patched in... it seems to me that it
would just tell you how far away the next module is.  Am I missing
something?
 
--PBr
-----Original Message-----
From: jwbarlow@... [mailto:jwbarlow@...]
Sent: Tuesday, February 18, 2003 11:57 AM
To: motm@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [motm] Cable color scheme advice?
In a message dated 2/18/2003 5:21:27 AM Pacific Standard Time,
synth1@... writes:



I color-code to *length*, not by function.


Me too!

I must say I was really surprised to read that Paul and 
Shemp color code to length and not to function. But after 
reading Kens message I'm getting more and more convinced 
that coding to length is the way to go for me. 

Thanks!
Robert

The acronym for wavelength color order is ROYGBIV - red, orange, 
yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet

So if you were going to map that to Larry's colors, magenta would be 
the 6' length and purple would be the 1' length. But you would have 
to leave out a color.

Hey Larry, how about offering a 5' length so's we can complete our 
rainbow correctly (forget indigo)?

Moe

> "and I chose these colors because red is the shortest wavelength 
> and blue is the longest." To which he said, "No! It's the 
> reverse." 
> 
> But I have too many cables to change now.
> JB

At the moment I have a hodge-podge of black cables stolen from 
various other applications around the studio, and I find I can't size 
a patch up quickly because of the forest of black all over the shop. 
This might be a sign of my modular newbieness, but being able to 
trace different kinds of signals around even my modest rig would be a 
godsend.

At the moment I really can not think of a reason to colour-code for 
length, though.

Larry's cables just look so damn sexy I think I will just have to get 
a load of every colour and think up some logical encoding scheme for 
each one :-)

Now to finally get off my arse and order some......

In the two sets of Serge banana cables I've seen, gray is the shortest
at 4 inches, green is next at 8 inches and red is the longest for the
"short" set, up to about 21 inches.  Then blue, purple and maybe green
again for the long set.  One of these sets was from the late 1970s or
early 1980s and one was from very early STS, 1994.  So it appears that
Serge may have had different color schemes along the years according to
your account.
 
IMHO patching by color is more useful than color by length.  It doesn't
matter what colors are used as long as you have some consistency.  For
instance, all pitch control voltage cables may be one color, gate
voltages another color.  Then I might color code everything in an audio
chain the same color, for instance, VCO1 to VCF1 to VCA1 is white, then
VCO2 to VCF2 to VCA2 is blue.  You don't have to follow this
religiously, and you'll always have one-offs where the color doesn't
matter.  It most definitely helps when you have a patch going with a 100
patch cords.
 
I have relegated nearly all of my black cables to use on the back of my
patchbay.  Patching black cables on top of black MOTM panels would be a
challenge.
 
This, of course, is all a personal decision to make.
John Loffink
jloffink@... 
In all honesty (ah hemn) I have to admit that my cable color scheme is
actually the opposite of what I claimed. I got the idea of (5) rainbow
color cables with red being the shortest and blue being the longest
directly from Serge T.. I have no idea why he chose those colors/lengths
(this might be the standard way banana cables come from Pomona) but many
years later I was showing them to a friend (as well as the 75 other
cables I'd made) stating, "and I chose these colors because red is the
shortest wavelength and blue is the longest." To which he said, "No!
It's the reverse."