Moral of the story - balanced or unbalanced will suffice, especially under 3m length.
So use what you have, or have the easiest access to.
I use these Mogami 37 series balanced patch cables. Not because they’re amazing, but because it’s what I used for my high end preamps 13 years ago, in a previous studio, so I still have a box full of 'em.
They do just as good as the Hosa cables that are 1/3rd the price.
The mogamies are very good cables, bending a thousand times will show differences 
But as you say: if it works, it works.
I usually use Adam Hall cables with Neutrik connectors, however I’m going to build DIY custom length patch cables pretty soon for my pedal effects.
let’s say you are using balanced cables between two elektron devices … Now, if your soundcard is unbalanced ( like mine : apogee duet first generation … ) then, balanced or unbalanced cables won’t make a difference.
the best in this situation is to use short cables, at least, that’s what many sound guys told me over the years
There’s a thread for everything! So I run everything through my UAD 8p Console, all my synths go in there and then I use the outs into my OT.
It’s an easy way to get multiple sources into the OT without having to re-patch things
Should my output cables from my UAD to the input of the OT be TRS? I want to get a bunch of Hosa cables cause I have massive guitar cables all over my desk. Also the output from the OT into the channels on the UAD can be TS I assume?
Try out TRS to XLR cable from OT into the Apollo 8p, since OT has balanced outs. It sounds amazing to actually use those preamps on your Apollo, clean or using Unison. No need for DI boxes or anything else other than TRS to XLR cables for each of your 4 outputs of your OT.
You know, its funny I asked the UAD forum about that on facebook and the UAD tech guy said I couldn’t do that for my synths ( or shouldn’t) maybe because they are un balanced outs?
This is great news, cause the plug ins are awesome and its great to not have to open a DAW and be able to make music with UAD.
What about from the outs of the UAD to the in of the OT for sampling?
IIRC everything in the OT i/o is impedance balanced sans the headphone out. So you can use TS or TRS, differences will be neglible unless you have need for improved resistance to interference.
UA rep musta just guessed the OT wouldn’t be impedance balanced, as most other synths arent. Their facts were off
I have other synths (i.e., Moog Minitaur) with unbalanced outs and for those I use passive DI Boxes to convert the unbalanced TS Out to a balanced XLR Out so that I use the microphone preamps on the Apollo 8p. Elektron MK2 devices are balanced out, so I don’t need preamps for those since they can accept TRS to XLR cables directly into the Apollo’s mic inputs. It does not clip or overload any inputs nor distort. Levels will be slightly “punchier and dynamic” than using Line In, so you may need to back-off of your individual track levels on the OT.
In fact, try comparing the difference for yourself. YMMV
Radials with Jensens?
I’m using a couple Mackie DI Boxes, until I can get permission to purchase the Radial Rack with Jensens.
That rack is tasty
For the inputs of OT, you can use either the unbalanced TS or balanced TRS cables. Honestly, I don’t hear any difference between the two when I sample with the AR MK2, which has a pair of balanced inputs for sampling from Apollo’s outs.
This is what I use. Multipair makes is way more easier 
Necroing cause I have a bit of a dumb question wrt to instrument cables.
On my Mackie 802VLZ4, Channel 3 is either a XLR or Stereo 1/4 input. Only the XLR input uses the Onyx preamp which I want to use for a signal from a pedal.
So what kind of cable do I use? A TR to XLR? I have a TRS to XLR but read one should never use a balanced cable with an unbalanced signal.
The elektron boxes don’t have fully balanced outputs but they are impedance balanced and basically work well with both ts and trs cables.
Did you mean to reply to me? I’m going from a pedal which is instrument level.
A TR to XLR should be OK. It happens that I’ve used such cable for a microphone quite often ^^.
Theory-wise, the balanced second signal is set to the mass, so the transformation to remove noise from the balanced mono signal would be your only signal, should work OK.
[s = signal, n = noise, all maths is how I understand balanced signal theory]
Balanced signal:
( (s+n) - (-s+n) ) / 2 = 2 x s
TR to XLR : inverted signal is null:
( (s+n) - ( 0 ) ) / 2 = (s + n) / 2
⇒ you get what you put in, more or less (maybe a bit lower, unless there is some further check in your console)
Part of the reason for people thinking better cables are all snake oil is because they don’t have monitoring gear that can relay the difference. Sure, you might not be able to observe the difference on a £129 Focusrite and a pair of £300 monitors, but it doesn’t mean it’s not there.
Wow. Way beyond the one word answer I was expecting. Thank you.
And should I avoid TRS to XLR for a pedal or is it fine?