Who uses a XLR patchbay at home?

vvv · Post by **vvv** » Fri Jan 13, 2012 2:06 pm

Any pros or cons for it?

I'm thinking about leaving some mic's up all the time (just bag-covered on stands), and leaving a cuppla recording chains set for repeated use and so I'm thinking a XLR p.b. could be good, and save me from messing with the rear-mount connectors or from having connected 15'+ cables hanging around.

wren · Post by **wren** » Fri Jan 13, 2012 4:05 pm

They take up a lot more space per patch point than a conventional patchbay. That's really the only drawback.

That and you'll probably have to make it yourself unless you get lucky on ebay, but they're super-easy to put together: take a plastic rack blank or a strip of plywood, some XLR terminals, a drill, and an afternoon and voila!

Gregg Juke · Post by **Gregg Juke** » Fri Jan 13, 2012 4:33 pm

We use an XLR patchbay of sorts... Two of the ART rackmounted splitters. They take the input from the recording room snakes, and send to two different recorders (DAW and Korg D3200). We can also go to several different preamps. Pretty cool; not too expensive.

GJ

vvv · Post by **vvv** » Fri Jan 13, 2012 4:48 pm

I was thinking sompin' like

<--- click

farview · Post by **farview** » Fri Jan 13, 2012 4:50 pm

An alternative would be to just buy a stage snake. Hook the mixer side to your signal chains, preamps, etc... have the stage box out by the microphones. Essentially, that's what I do.

vvv · Post by **vvv** » Fri Jan 13, 2012 5:25 pm

Good idear. Won't work for me tho', in that I want the mic's in various places, from 2' from my rack to about 10' - this is in my bedio.

But, good idear.

On the other hand, a cuppla short ones ...

farview · Post by **farview** » Sat Jan 14, 2012 8:48 am

That's what the mic cables are for. It wouldn't be any different with a patch bay. That's what a stage snake is, an XLR patchbay that sits on the floor.

If you only ever need to be 10 feet away from your stuff, it might be just as easy to have a bunch of mic cables permanently hooked up to the different signal chains. Then you just mark the mic end of it, so you know which one is which.

Jitters · Post by **Jitters** » Sat Jan 14, 2012 9:05 am

I think anything you can do to reduce the number of times you say' 'F it, I'll do it later" because you don't feel like setting up and breaking down a chain is money well spent. Stuff like fumbling around behind your rack with a flashlight definitely fall in that category. Get that stuff where it's power up and go if you can. How that plays out in your room I couldn't say.

vvv · Post by **vvv** » Sat Jan 14, 2012 9:59 am

Thanks guys!

And I'm likin' that snake idear more and more ...

And now, off to jam!

wren · Post by **wren** » Sat Jan 14, 2012 2:58 pm

vvv wrote:I was thinking sompin' like <--- click

Hah, I didn't even know those existed, although I guess it was stupid to assume that they didn't. I've only ever seen diy ones, and I've seen a whole ton of them, so I assumed that you just had to do it that way.

ott0bot · Post by **ott0bot** » Sat Jan 14, 2012 10:02 pm

farview wrote:An alternative would be to just buy a stage snake. Hook the mixer side to your signal chains, preamps, etc... have the stage box out by the microphones. Essentially, that's what I do.

yup. Me too. Then you can just move your snake where you need to track. You could leave the mics up and just use some velcro ties to keep the cable hooked to the mic and stand.

another nice thing about a snake is the TRS returns. I have my headphone amp hooked to two of the TRS returns and the other 2 TRS returns are for Reamps (radial x-amp).

digitaldrummer · Post by **digitaldrummer** » Mon Jan 16, 2012 1:37 pm

I have that exact ART XLR patchbay. it works great for my needs - which is to prevent the need for crawling behind the rack to repatch stuff. I have a TRS patch bay too. I have short snakes that connect my interface (digi 002r and RME ADI) to the XLR patch panel and then I can easily change mics around as needed.

I originally had the Hosa but it only had 12 patch points. the ART has 16. The Hosa has locking XLRs (locking tabs) and the ART does not so there are tradeoffs. I've also soldered my own - when I ran out of XLRs on the Hosa. I'm sure I can put together a better unit than the ART or Hosa using high-quality parts, but honestly I have not heard an audible difference. It's all pretty short length runs so either the Hosa or ART work fine for me.

Mike

jgimbel · Post by **jgimbel** » Mon Jan 16, 2012 1:43 pm

I just made one with an 8 XLR panel with each wired to an XLR connector, which are then connected to each of my preamps, precisely so I don't have to crawl behind my rack when setting up tracks while clients are here. Works nicely!

EDIT: When I can I'm going to just get an 8 channel snake to keep things connected, to make things equally simple while stopping the need for a million mic cords stretching across the floor when recording drums, which is often.

vvv · Post by **vvv** » Mon Jan 16, 2012 4:41 pm

Aiighty, I'm gonna check for a snake & box (hey, baby, wanna come to me bedio and check out my ...) at the local used music store this week.

If none, then I'll do the rackmount thing.

Azza aside, how pitiful izzit that I bought a rack two weeks ago, and it's full?

I have no room for another, tho', in my bedio ...

rocksure · Post by **rocksure** » Wed Jan 18, 2012 1:34 pm

A stage box/snake is a handy idea. You can move it round where you need it if necessary. They also usually have at least four returns on them as well, which can be handy for running mixes back to the studio room monitors, headphone mixers etc, without the need for so much cable spaghetti.

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Who uses a XLR patchbay at home?

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