Do they make smaller, cheaper patchbays?

[DinosaurSR]

I'd really like to get a patchbay, but I just don't have that much stuff going on in my setup. I have just enough equipment that I'm switching around just enough for it to be a pain in the ass that a patchbay would solve, but I surely don't have enough to necessitate one of these full 1U patchbays like you see from Neutrik and Behringer.

Is there a "halfie" out there?

[Rodgre]

Oh, it's you again!

Seems like I'm always answering your questions! I should give you my hotline number.


Small Hosa patchbay at Sam Ash

Something like this is a simple solution, though sometimes it's easier to just buy a 1-space rack, and not use all the points at first. Eventually, you'll either fill more of them up, or else find that you don't need it at all.

Behringer makes extremely inexpensive patchbays that I've used for years without a problem.

Roger

[DinosaurSR]

And I appreciate it! That's what I'm looking for...although for that price, I might as well get the full one. Are patchbays like VCA and multiples in modular synths in the sense that you always need about twice what you think you'd need?

[Rodgre]

At your service, my friend.

I would say that Patchbays are whatever you need them to be to make your life easier.

When you have more than five or six pieces of gear that you are constantly reconfiguring, or else you have gear with inconveniently placed inputs/outputs, patchbays make it easier and more streamlined for you.

Many home recordists don't need patchbays, as they leave most of their gear defaulted to a certain setup. You only have one great mic and one great preamp, so you leave that plugged in all the time. You only have one reverb unit, so you leave that plugged in all the time, etc.

As your outboard setup grows, you'll probably find that you hit a wall when you're frustrated at this rat's nest of cabling and you can't figure out what goes where, etc. That's when the patchbay is a godsend.



This is how I set things up. I have three (four really, as one is way in back...) racks wired up with various effects, preamps, compressors, EQs, etc. Each rack is wired to it's own patchbay. You could unplug the AC power cord and wheel it around anywhere you want it to be, and everything within it stays wired up.

Also in each rack, there are some "tie lines" in the patchbay. These are uncommitted patchpoints that terminate at a master patchbay near the recorder/mixer. So what this lets me do is take whatever gear I need for a given session, and route it through those tie lines to show up at the master patchbay and go to the right track/input I want it to.

It's sort of modular in a way, as those tie lines could be configured any way I want. What it does for me is keeps the rat's nest to a minimum, where all of my routing is done within a couple of patchbays, and not with a hundred long cables strewn about to trip over. I don't think I'd ever need to patch EVERYTHING in at once, so it's convenient to have, say 16 TRS tie lines that end up at the master patchbay. That let's me directly patch 16 mics through 16 preamps straight to 16 tracks of the recorder. I may use more than that for a larger session, but not much more, so there may be a few long cables running from a piece of gear to the main patchbay, but the clutter is kept to a minimum.

The downside is that you are running through a lot of cable anyway, considering the tie lines are 15' or 20' between the racks and the master patchbay. If you're concerned about excess length, this might not be a system for you or your studio. There comes a point, though when convenience of setup and easy troubleshooting outweighs the oscilloscope reading, especially when there is a room full of five rock musicians ready for you to press "record." All of my wiring is balanced, so that goes a long way toward keeping the effects of long snake runs to a minimum. It's a trade off. Your mic goes through a 20' cable to the snake box, which is another 50' of cable to your mic patch panel, through another 3' of cable to the patchpoint of whatever preamp you want, through another 3' to the preamp, through another 3' to another patchpoint, through another 1.5' to the tie line patchpoint, through 20' of tie line to the master patchbay, through another 1.5' of patch cable to the input of the recorder on the main patchbay, through 6' of cable to the recorder's input. That's over 100' feet of wire between each mic and it's tape input. If you think about it, it's total overkill, but I've been doing this for years, and I know many studios who have much longer runs to get from mic to recorder, and it has never stopped the rock from flowing! The convenience of this wiring scheme totally outweighs the fidelity I might be losing through all the cable runs. (This is where you can invest thousands and thousands of dollars in the highest quality cable to tie everything together. It WILL make a difference, but if the expense of premium wiring is keeping you from recording, then it's not worth it, until you can afford it, and afford to pass the expense on to your clients. A client might not mind paying $20 extra an hour because you have that fancy German microphone that they can sing into, but it's hard to get them excited by telling them that you've got fifty thousand feet of solid gold conductor cabling that was blessed by the Pope connecting your $100 SM57 to your $300 M-box.)

In today's DAW-based recording setups, massive patchbays and racks full of gear seem to be less and less necessary. Many people who have started engineering in the last five years are way more accustomed to working completely in the box and wouldn't even begin to figure out how to use all of this outboard gear. I find that the more I work with a medium like Pro Tools, the less I'm using all of my cool and vibey outboard gear. As a matter of fact, I'm typing this on my "home" rig, which consists of a G5 tower and one 6-space rack with a 002R and a couple of preamps. I'm mixing a project from home done completely in Pro Tools and Reason with only vocals cut with a "real" instrument.) If you work alone, and you have a small rig, it might be total overkill to use a patchbay. When the moment comes that you are frustrated that your routing scheme is a mess, though, then it's time.

Roger

[mikeyc]

Patch bays saved my life when I was running ProTools and ADATS and a full rack of outboard gear. I've spent the last couple years paring my gear down to the essentials, so my need for them has waned, but I still like them just the same.

DinosaurSR, if you're interested in a 48 point patchbay, I've got a spare sitting in my studio I'd let go cheap.

[joelmoore]

If that patchbay is balanced and still available I'd be curious to know what you want for it. I have an unbalanced bay that somebody gave to me that I don't want to use because I just spent 200 bucks on balanced cables.

If it's unavailable then could you tell me if you have any thoughts on the Behringer PX3000?

Thanks

[mikeyc]

If that patchbay is balanced and still available I'd be curious to know what you want for it. I have an unbalanced bay that somebody gave to me that I don't want to use because I just spent 200 bucks on balanced cables.
Thanks

It's a balanced 48 point TRS bay. I think the brand is ACE products. Each pair of jacks is in its own module that you can flip around to change the normalling-- it's got a wiring diagram on the chassis. Pretty nifty setup. It's yours for $30 shipped.

[madtho]

The small Hosa 'bays are available through BSW (that's where I first saw them), so there's the handy 10% discount!

I'm going to pick one of those up just to keep my stuff tiny.

-mad

[joelmoore]

Hey Mikeyc,

Check your pm's. I replied about the ACE bay.

Thanks,
Joel Moore

[trask]

Are patchbays like VCA and multiples in modular synths in the sense that you always need about twice what you think you'd need?

I think of all gear like this... maybe that's why I'm broke.

[mysteriousmammal]

I've got three 1/4 inch bays that I might be willing to sell cheap, although it might not be worth it to ship. email me if interested, I'm in LA.

matt@mysteriousmammal.com

[joelmoore]

Hey Mikeyc,

I just sent you a PM about Paypal. Hope you can ship today. Let me know.

Thanks,
Joel Moore

[Ethan Holdtrue]

I'd really like to get a patchbay, but I just don't have that much stuff going on in my setup. I have just enough equipment that I'm switching around just enough for it to be a pain in the ass that a patchbay would solve, but I surely don't have enough to necessitate one of these full 1U patchbays like you see from Neutrik and Behringer.

Is there a "halfie" out there?

I'm not sure if anyone brought this up cause I just skimmed through, but there are different types of patch bays that do different things when you plug into them (normalized, isolated, etc...). Some can be a pain in the ass to figure out and set up if they are made cheaply too.