Patchbay configuration

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Trem2
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Patchbay configuration

Post by Trem2 » Fri Dec 30, 2005 9:01 am

I finally got a patchbay. Yay. I have a pretty limited setup but just got so sick of mucking around behind my rack.

Having never used one before I am a little confused as to the best way to set it up.

So I'm looking for some ideas/suggestions for cool signal routing possibilities. I am sure there are all sorts of neato things I can do with this thing that aren't occuring to me right now.

Or is this just something I need to learn by experience ?

my main gear:

tascam 238 cassette 8 track
digi 001
teac 2 track reel to reel

sytek pre
gates unimote pre
joe meek VC1
art proVLA

thanks- John

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JohnDavisNYC
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Post by JohnDavisNYC » Fri Dec 30, 2005 7:41 pm

what is your typical workflow? track to the 238, then dump to PT? how many patch points do you have?

that info would help alot with figuring out a good setup.

anyway, i used to have a 238... it fucking ROCKED.

i love those things.

john
i like to make music with music and stuff and things.

http://www.thebunkerstudio.com/

biasvoltage
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Post by biasvoltage » Fri Dec 30, 2005 9:21 pm

If you're usually tracking to the 238 and then dumping to the 001, something you might want to consider would be to set up the normalling of your patchbay (assuming the PB you have can do this) so that the outputs of the 238 are connected to the inputs of the 001 without having to have a patch cable in place, but you can interrupt that flow by patching in, say, the Joe Meek or whatever while digitizing.

Having a patchbay rules. You are going to wind up wanting every connection on every piece of equipment you own coming up on the patchbay. I want to patch my cable box through the API to the coffeemaker! Now!

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MikeCzech
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Post by MikeCzech » Sat Dec 31, 2005 2:02 am

I have two pathch bays, this is pretty much the foundation I use:

A/D Conv. -------- Preamps
oooooooooooooooooooooo
oooooooooooooooooooooo
D/A Conv. -------- Preamps

----- FX /Compressors -----
oooooooooooooooooooooo IN (Top)
oooooooooooooooooooooo OUT (Bottom)

On the top bay I run pre's on the right and converters on the left
On the bottom bay I leave the ends empty (sometimes I use them to split signals) but I run FX left center and comps right center.

This way all my patches go from Right to left, it keeps thing pretty neat. Most my patches form a 'V' shape, and are simple to trace.

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trodden
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Post by trodden » Sat Dec 31, 2005 2:09 am

SoftSupply wrote:If you're usually tracking to the 238 and then dumping to the 001, something you might want to consider would be to set up the normalling of your patchbay (assuming the PB you have can do this) so that the outputs of the 238 are connected to the inputs of the 001 without having to have a patch cable in place, but you can interrupt that flow by patching in, say, the Joe Meek or whatever while digitizing.

Having a patchbay rules. You are going to wind up wanting every connection on every piece of equipment you own coming up on the patchbay. I want to patch my cable box through the API to the coffeemaker! Now!
fuckin soft supply has itgoing on. half normal that shit for mults or fuck i don' know i'm fucked up. but yeah, normalling in place of using up patch cables tends to make the patch bay thin g more fun.. which i'm still tryin to figure out the patch pay thing... need more mults. need more muls.. neeed to stop drinking evan and smokin before i solder.. damnint.

somone one will come along and tell me to shut but yeah,the "what you normally need to do with signal" things, you need to use the patch bat to make that part better.. instead of my technique of loooking for a flashlight and suckng my gut in.l make that a criteria.

i'm still hopscotching around latency and in/outboard mind fuck right now to commit, but thats how it seems at times.

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nacho459
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Post by nacho459 » Sat Dec 31, 2005 3:05 pm

Just so everyone knows the top row of the patchbay should be your outputs / sends, the second row returns / inputs. This is the old WECo standard, and the way it is in 99% of studios.

outputs / sends / from gear
oooooooooooooooooooooooo
oooooooooooooooooooooooo
inputs / returns / to gear

This way when you work in a pro facility you won't wonder why all their patchbays are backwards.

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MikeCzech
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Post by MikeCzech » Sun Jan 01, 2006 1:16 am

nacho459 wrote:Just so everyone knows the top row of the patchbay should be your outputs.
Hmmm, I'd like to think the top row of my patch bay should be whatever seems most sensible to me. What is it that separates a pro studio from the rest of our studios?

Sorry, there was certainly valuable information in your post, and I don't mean to attack by any means - but I'm proud of the Mike Czech patchbay method.

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JohnDavisNYC
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Post by JohnDavisNYC » Sun Jan 01, 2006 4:50 pm

out over in makes alot more sense for a number of reasone... you can have inserts on the bay and when nothing is patched, the normal will keep the circuit complete.. also it's easier to have things like tie lines normal down into your console pre inputs, so no patching is necessary unless you want to use an external pre...

my rig is like this (2 96pt TT bays)

outboard out tie lines
oooooooooooooooooooooooo oooooooooooooooooooooooo
outboard in console pre in
oooooooooooooooooooooooo oooooooooooooooooooooooo

console pre out multitrack out
oooooooooooooooooooooooo oooooooooooooooooooooooo
multitrack in console tape return
oooooooooooooooooooooooo oooooooooooooooooooooooo

it's a great setup, where i can setup a mic and automaticall have it see the corresponding console pre, then get sent to the corresponding multitrack input, and then out to the right console channel.... all without using a single patch cable.

cheers,
john
i like to make music with music and stuff and things.

http://www.thebunkerstudio.com/

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Mark Alan Miller
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Post by Mark Alan Miller » Sun Jan 01, 2006 6:12 pm

Out over in is the standard precisely for the reason toaster mentioned. It's all about the normalling. When a patchbay is configured half-normal, with outputs over inputs, you can plug a cable into the top (output) and effectively mult the signal without breaking the normal. When you plug into the bottom (input) you break the normal from the top which, aside from being a good idea in an electrical sense (not generally a good idea to patch two outputs to one input) it's also generally the goal of patching into something - to change what's going into it.

Sure, you could wire a half-normal so the normal breaks on the top row (or use other kinds of normalling schemes) but the convention of outputs over inputs is so commonly used I don't see any reason not to do it.

Now, if you're going to put up outboard gear on a patchbay that's not normalled to anything, you'll want an open (non-normalled) patch point for this. That way, when you have your compressor's output on the top row and its input on the bottom, you don't create a feedback loop by normalling the unit's output to its input. I'll give you an overview of how my patchbay is configured below, and I think it will make sense. They're all 48 point TRS bays.

1st bay: Top: MTR outputs; Bottom: Console tape ins
2nd bay: Top: Console direct outs; Bottom: MTR ins
3rd bay: Top: HDR outs; Bottom: Console line ins
4th bay: Top: Console insert sends; Bottom: Console insert returns
5th thru 8th bays: Top: Outboard gear outs; Bottom: Ouboard Gear ins
9th bay: Top: Console aux sends; Bottom: FX unit ins (among other miscellany)
10th bay Top: FX unit outs; Bottom: Console aux returns (and more miscellany, like console subgroups insert points)
11th bay: Stereo-buss related stuff (L/R outs, 2track IO, etc) all Top: out; Bottom: In
12th bay: more miscellany
...and on it goes. Basically every input and output (even a lot of sidechain inserts and key inputs) in the studio. Except mic connections - my console has this funny thing with phantom power and having a patchbay on the mic inputs made for some smoked cards. Not good. (And if anyone asks, yes, even if we powered off phantom before patching - as is policy to do - it seems the phantom supply caps held charge dangerous enough for long enough that we'd still smoke cards at random.)

As I'm rebuilding the studio, this is all about to get more complicated, too.
I've gone to 48 tracks of HDR, 96+ inputs on my console, there will be another 24 track analog deck, etc, etc. I'm suspecting somewhere around 16 bays. We'll see. (Yikes!)

Anyhow, there's some thoughts.
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Trem2
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Post by Trem2 » Mon Jan 02, 2006 8:54 am

Sweet !
Thanks for all the replies.
This is really helping me get my head around all the possibilities that are now open to me.

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