Apeshit
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This should be informative enough for a beginner, but it's a relatively tricky mod. Use the proper tools, and be patient. I've seen many people struggle with this mod.

It mainly applies to the 1/4" pro sound kits we will soon be carrying, but is the same general idea for other 1/4" jacks, if you don't want to buy the kit.

http://www.asmelectronics.org/2011/11/1 … orial.html

To those reading this thread months/years from now: Broken link? Try going directly to asmelectronics.org and going to the "tutorials" section. If my website URL has for some reason changed since then, go to my profile to find the new one.

Cheers!

herr_prof
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Ive always been confused about this.. isn't it easier to just make a appropriate cable versus forcing a huge honking jack in a cheap plastic chassis?

feel the same way about rca while we are at it.

Apeshit
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Of course it's easier. In the same way not modding your gameboy at all is easier.

A lot of recording gear, PA systems, and other professional audio gear only operate with 1/4", RCA and XLR. 3.5mm jacks are for conserving space and aren't very durable. It fits in the DMG more than comfortably and the plastic can handle it just fine.

To compare:

VS the mod:

I don't know about you, but if I was playing a gig, I certainly wouldn't dare using an adapter if I was using 1/4" cables.

Last edited by Apeshit (Nov 13, 2011 1:03 am)

Victory Road
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Gosford, Australia
herr_prof wrote:

Ive always been confused about this.. isn't it easier to just make a appropriate cable versus forcing a huge honking jack in a cheap plastic chassis?

feel the same way about rca while we are at it.

As in cutting the ends off of each cable and then soldering the 1/8" tip to the 1/4" cable? Might be just as difficult to put something like that together and not have it look like a frankencable abomination! tongue

I've tried using frankencables and adapters live (non-chip) with mixed results; there's something about adapting regular TRS cables to/from RCA that lends to this massive zipper noise that doesn't go away (seriously what is that? because I've nfi!). And stuff does like to come unplugged a bit. I still haven't gotten around to prosounding any of my GBs though.

Last edited by Victory Road (Nov 13, 2011 1:10 am)

herr_prof
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I dont use adapters i buy or make my own cables.

for example

http://www.fullcompass.com/product/349154.html
http://www.guitarcenter.com/Live-Wire-1 … D=37136368

Its just to me, 1/4 and rca jacks are aesthetically pretty ugly... Plus I'd rather the cable just fall out of the jack rather than make a big lever against the chassis, just seems really impractical to me.

Thanks for the tutorial, didnt mean to start a thing.

Apeshit
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herr_prof wrote:

Its just to me, 1/4 and rca jacks are aesthetically pretty ugly... Plus I'd rather the cable just fall out of the jack rather than make a big lever against the chassis, just seems really impractical to me.

Thanks for the tutorial, didnt mean to start a thing.

I encourage people to share alternatives to these kind of mods. Criticism can be a good thing.

It's really just comes down to personal preference. Some people like the huge eyesore if not just for conversation starting purposes. May be gimmicky, but that's okay- it's for chiptune.

KeFF
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Turku, FIN

I commisioned Kineticturtle to make me a mod with two 1/4 jacks.
I like to use bigger cables since those are better quality and all my gear eat them so i don't have to use adapters. RCA cables are awful!
It is working really nice and i love to play with it.

Check more about the mod from here http://kineticturtle.blogspot.com/

nitro2k01
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Sweeeeeeden

Is three-pole 1/4" ever used for stereo in other than for headphones? (I mean things like mixer or sound card inputs.) I was under the impression that each cable only ever carries a mono signal, and that three-pole is used only for carrying balanced signals.

Victory Road
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Gosford, Australia

That's pretty much the case, nitro. When I've played keyboards live (mainly with churches lol) I've pretty much always done stereo as a split, running 2 mono cables into 2 DI's and then via XLR to a multicore. Actually I don't think I've ever seen a mixer with a stereo 1/4" input.

kineticturtle
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Matthew Joseph Payne
nitro2k01 wrote:

Is three-pole 1/4" ever used for stereo in other than for headphones?

I've never seen it, nope. They are used for inserts of course, but that's not very useful here. So on the gameboy, once the traditional 1/4" mod is done, the stereo cable still needs to be split into two mono cables to be of any use. Ironically, it's pretty tough to make a decent looking cable that splits stereo 1/4" to two separate monos, so you usually wind up buying an insert cable.

That was the purpose of the 2x 1/4" mod I did for KeFF of course - he can use normal mono cables to plug into his other gear. I also have a few gameboys in the Glowing Stars fleet that have the 1/4" mod - I did them in stereo only for completeness, we only use them in mono with guitar cables. smile

LoFi Future
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England

Nice and clean mod. I hate using 3.5mm jacks, they break easily, come out the plug easily and are harder to find if you lose the end of a long cable. I consider 3.5mm jacks as a personal music connection, wouldnt really like to use it on anything else other than my ipod. Even when using my headphones in the studio i prefer a 1/4" jack. It's all about the durability.

Definitly going to be using this jack placment on my next gameboy mod.

Apeshit
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Three conductor 1/4" jacks are indeed used in plenty of gear, USB recording interfaces/soundcards come to mind. I'd say dual two conductor 1/4" jacks are more common, but it's not unheard of to have three conductor 1/4" jacks.

In the very least, this can serve as information to do a 1/4" headphone mod.  But this tutorial is soon to be completely useless when Kitsch comes out with his new shells, because a 1/4" jack can be mounted on the right side now.

LoFi Future
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England
Apeshit wrote:

In the very least, this can serve as information to do a 1/4" headphone mod.  But this tutorial is soon to be completely useless when Kitsch comes out with his new shells, because a 1/4" jack can be mounted on the right side now.

Just checked this out on the site. You got me all excited now. Im deffinatly getting a purple shell when there ready!

EDIT:
Oh i see, we vote on what we want. I recomend everyone do so!

Last edited by LoFi Future (Dec 22, 2011 8:39 pm)