Making your own audio cables provides you with complete customization when it comes to cable length and connector types. The best part about making your own audio cables is that it’s cheaper than buying them pre-assembled, and if your cables ever break, you have the tools to fix them.
If you’re unfamiliar with how audio cables work, start by reading “The Beginner’s Guide to Audio Cables” for an in-depth look at analog vs. digital cables, types of analog cables, levels of analog audio signals, and more.
Required Tools and Supplies
Check out our DIY Instrument and Microphone Cable Kit to instantly add every item you need to make audio cables to your Amazon cart. If you already have some of the items you need, you can separately purchase the tools and supplies you’re missing from the following list:
- Utility Knife
- Wire Stripper and Cutter
- Pliers
- Soldering Iron Kit
- Rosin Core Solder
- Helping Hand
- Anti-Static Soldering Mat
- Guitar & Instrument Cable (50 ft)
- 1/4” TS Phone Plugs (20 Pack)
- Microphone Cable (500 ft)
- Male XLR Connectors (20 Pack)
- Female XLR Connectors (20 Pack)
As a disclaimer, you're only going to save money if you buy supplies in bulk. The more cable you buy, the more you save. For this reason, if you only need one or two audio cables, you're better off buying them pre-assembled from Amazon. However, if you need lots of audio cables, or customized audio cables that you can't find online, it's worth making the cables yourself.
How to Solder
Knowing how to solder is an incredibly useful skill that extends beyond making your own audio cables. You can often repair small broken electronic devices with solder, which comes in handy much more often than you might think.
For example, I recently dropped my MacBook charger, which caused the charger’s metallic prongs to detach from its casing. I was able to open the charger and solder the prongs back into place, which saved me having to buy a new one.
The following video by oneTesla does an excellent job of explaining how to solder in 5 steps.
Let's recap the 5 steps mentioned in the video:
- Heat up your iron
- Make your connection stable with Helping Hands
- Clean your iron
- Apply heat and solder
- Inspect the joint
It’s evident from oneTesla's video that you’re going to need some specialty tools to be able to solder. The good news is that you can get a soldering iron kit, rosin core solder, and a Helping Hand for just under $30. I also highly recommend getting an anti-static soldering mat to keep yourself organized and protect the surface you’re working on.
How to Make Guitar and Instrument Cables
Guitar and instrument cables are unbalanced, meaning they contain a ground wire, and a positive polarity (“hot”) wire. You’ll be soldering the ends of these wires to a 1/4” TS phone plug connector on one end of the instrument cable, and another 1/4” TS phone plug connector on the other end of the cable.
To make a guitar/instrument cable, you’re going to need a piece of instrument cable cut to length, and two 1/4” TS phone plugs. I recommend buying cables and connectors in bulk; you save substantially more money this way. The guitar/instrument cable I use is the Mogami 2524 Guitar & Instrument Cable (50 ft) and the connectors I use are the GLS Audio 1/4” TS Phone Plugs (20 Pack).
Cut a piece of instrument cable to the length you require with your utility knife.
Unscrew the base of a 1/4” TS phone plug and slide it onto the cable, along with the inner protective cover. Your connector may or may not have come with a protective cover, so don’t worry if you don’t have one.
It’s important that you slide the base of the connector and the inner protective cover onto the cable before continuing because once you solder the head of the connector to the cable’s inner wires, you won’t be able to slide the base or protective cover onto the cable.
Make an incision about 1/4” back from the end of the cable, and slowly roll the cable beneath your utility knife using light pressure. You’ll be able to feel when you make contact with the wires inside the cable; leave them intact. Remove the rubber exterior.
Fan apart the ground wire to reveal the inner “hot” wire.
Use your fingers to twist together the ground wire.
Cut away the casing around the “hot” wire using your wire strippers. If you don’t have wire strippers, you can use your utility knife to carefully remove the wire casing.
Clamp a 1/4” TS phone plug to the black rubber sleeve using a pair of slip joint pliers. Align the ground wire with the lower part of the 1/4” TS phone plug, and the “hot” wire with the raised segment.
Solder each wire into place, and ensure that there’s a strong connection between each wire and the contact point of the 1/4” TS phone plug. The phone plug’s clamping mechanism will prevent strain on the points of contact, but there must still be a strong connection for the cable to pass signal effectively.
All that’s left to do now is put together the phone plug.
Push the base of the connector towards the head, along with the inner protective cover (if there is one), and screw the assembly together.
How to Make Microphone Cables
Microphone cables are balanced, meaning they contain a ground wire, a positive polarity (“hot”) wire, and a negative polarity (“cold”) wire. You’ll be soldering the ends of these wires to a male XLR connector on one end of the microphone cable, and a female XLR connector on the other end of the cable. Once you know how to create male to female XLR cables, you can also create male to male XLR cables, or female to female XLR cables.
Balanced cables use phase cancellation to remove noise, which means you can run microphone cables significant distances without introducing noise, unlike guitar and instrument cables. If you want to run a guitar cable a great length, you should first convert the instrument level signal to a mic level signal using a DI Box, and then run the distance using a balanced cable.
To make a microphone cable, you’re going to need a piece of microphone cable cut to length, as well as a male XLR connector and a female XLR connector. The cable I use is the Seismic Audio - SA-MIC500 (500 ft), the male XLR plugs I use are the GLS Audio XLR Male Plugs (20 Pack), and the female XLR connectors I use are the GLS Audio XLR Female Plugs.
Cut a piece of microphone cable to the length you require with your utility knife.
Unscrew the base of an XLR connector and slide it onto the cable, along with the inner protective cover. Your connector may or may not have come with a protective cover, so don’t worry if you don’t have one. It’s important that you don’t miss this step because once you solder the head of the connector to the cable’s inner wires, you won’t be able to get the connector’s base onto the cable.
Make an incision about 1/4” back from the end of the cable, and slowly roll the cable beneath your utility knife using light pressure. You’ll be able to feel when you make contact with the wires inside the cable; leave them intact. Remove the rubber exterior.
Pull back the cable shield (ground wire) to reveal a bundle of string. This string is used to provide tensile strength to the cable to prevent it from stretching over time.
Cut back the string to reveal the “hot” and “cold” wires.
Use your fingers to twist together the ground wire.
Cut away the casing around the “hot” wire and “cold” wire using your wire strippers.
There are three different wires within this cable, and three pins a part of both your male and female XLR connectors. There’s a standard called EIA Standard RS-297-A that dictates pin 1 is the chassis ground, pin 2 is the positivity polarity “hot” terminal, and pin 3 is the negative polarity “cold” terminal.
As you can see in the image below, male XLR connectors have their pins labeled 1, 2, and 3.
Female XLR connectors have their ports labeled 1, 2, and 3 as well. As you can see, these ports are arranged in a way that will allow a male XLR connector’s pin 1 to enter port 1, pin 2 to enter port 2, and pin 3 to enter port 3.
Align the ground wire with pin 1, the “hot” red wire with pin 2, and the “cold” white wire with pin 3. Use your Helping Hand to assist you with this process. You need your hands free to solder the wires to their respective pins.
I recommend configuring your Helping Hand in a way that allows you to solder the wires from above the pins. This will allow you to melt the rosin core solder midway up the wires and have it drip down onto the pins.
With all three cables connector to their respective pins, you’re now ready to put the assembly together.
Push the base of the connector towards the head, along with the inner protective cover (if there is one), and screw the assembly together.
To attach a female XLR connector to the other side of your microphone cable, you’re going to follow the same steps that you did for connecting a male XLR connector, making sure to solder the ground wire to port 1, the “hot” wire to port 2, and the “cold” wire to port 3. Remember, these ports are labeled.
Once you've finished making an audio cable, it's important that you wrap it correctly; this will prevent the internal wires from warping and wearing away over time. Watch the following 1-minute tutorial to learn how to wrap your cables the right way.
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