Make your own MIDI Cables

For my recent pedal board, I designed the analog effect pedals to be controlled via an analog control switcher and the digital effect pedals (eventide stomp boxes) to be controlled by a midi foot controller. However, in order to do this I needed to use Switchcraft right angle MIDI connectors, and completely customize the lengths to fit on the board.

Switchcraft Right Angle MIDI Connector

Soldering MIDI Cable is actually fairly easy. The cable itself has 5 wires each a different color. It doesn’t matter what color you attach to the end, only that each end is the same for each connector.

Five Midi Wires, each a different color

The connector itself has five posts to solder the wires on to. The center post, or post 3 is ground. Posts 2 and 4, transmits MIDI information and posts 1 and 5 transmit MIDI clock information. You can see in the picture to the right that I have labeled the color of the wire on a piece of paper to the correct post so  I don’t get things confused.

With the switchcraft connectors, the internal posts are small “tube” like

Internal posts

receptacles so your tinned wires can easily stay in place. (As an aside, make sure you follow good soldering techniques just as you would with an audio cable.) Also, make sure your solder doesn’t bleed over or hit the other posts in anyway.

When your done, make sure you test your connections. I have a Whirlwind cable tester with MIDI in/out so that you can make sure each pole going out is the same going in (i.e., 1 lights up with 1, 2 with 2 and so on.)

All set!

2 thoughts on “Make your own MIDI Cables

  1. corrado says:

    ciao sono in cerca di uno spinotto midi ad angolo, come quello in foto , mi puoi aiutare? grazie!

    Reply

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