Help! Soldering a long frame 1/4 patch bay

[tasker]

Hi,
I'm getting ready to wire this patchbay and the more I think I figure it out, the more I feel confused. Hopefully one of you all won't mind shedding some light on it for me. All help is greatly appreciated!

I'm trying to wire everything half-normaled, so I'll have the 3 pin on the top row and the 5 pin on the bottom row. What I can't quite figure out is what the pins correspond to. Instead of me trying to write out what I think is going on (thus making this thread more confusing), could someone please let me know which pins I need to use and how they should be wired to each other and jumpered (ex. Pin ___ = Hot [tip], jump pin___ to pin___).

Also, I have a bunch of 4 pin mounts in one of the bays I got and can't find any info on them. Anyone know what they're good for?

Thanks in advance for the help. It's invaluable when you start feeling very very dumb...

-tasker

[rockstudio]

Check this out bigtime: http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/Feb03/a ... on0203.asp
You have got unbalanced [ts] jacks at the top and balanced [trs] on the bottom, so you are going to have lots of open pins.
You should double check all of this stuff with a meter before you hook it up . Make sure that the connections break correctly and all that jazz.

[tasker]

that's what i was scared of. part of me being confused. less this thing came out of the studio that recorded COC's first few records. looks like the sends to the master 1/2" must have been through unbalanced cable. weird. got any suggestions of where to buy replacements for the 3-pin unbalanced connectors?
thanks!
-tasker

[trodden]

ahahahahahhah this is my nightmare... i have a pile of random long frames sitting in the corner.. some are 3 pin, some 4, some 5.....Mine look exactly like the photo's you posted.

[rockstudio]

I don't know ehre you can buy just the individual jacks, although I believe I have seen them in the switchcraft catalog, I am not sure. I would keep an eye peeled on ebay, you are bound to come across a bay or two (UK folk call patch bays jack fields). I am using a pair of ADC TT bays now and I love them. remember to get jacks with 5 pins for all of your balanced and normalled needs!

[tasker]

Nightmare is right. I hear ya'. After looking at this thing enough to become confident, then confused, then angry, I think I'm back somewhere towards understanding. As far as I can tell, here's the scoop:

3-pin = unbalanced connectors with no normals
4-pin = unbalanced connectors capable of normaling
5-pin = balanced connectors capable of normaling (what you want to have on your bay)

Could anyone confirm/deny this? It'd probably take a lot of the mystery of this for us folks sitting on older bays.

Thanks!

[rockstudio]

5 pin jacks are the full featured buggers. You want those in your bay. The jacks are for [2] hot, [3] neg., and [1] ground, then [4] hot shunt and [5] neg. shunt. ground doesn't have a shunt because one would usually (normally!) wire a ground buss wire onto the jacks that need to be normalled. for instance, if you half normal your pre amps to your panel jacks in your tracking room, you need to place a ground buss wire between the ground pins from the pres to the ground pins from the panel jacks. Or else your condenser mics won't work when you hit the phantom power switch. Hope this helps!