Yeah, I was hoping to have an option that uses less of my ports (24 channel mixer, I also have some additional buses and aux that would be great to also be able to get into the 48 point patchbay, but sigh…)
No shame in 2 or more patch bays!
Might be time for a spreadsheet to assess not only your needs, but frequency of use for scenarios.
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Ha! I have just finished recabling after adding a patchbay. A spreadsheet was very handy to work out what should plug into where 
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I keep a PDF on my desktop for quick access. Some of my less-used patch points get forgotten about pretty quickly 
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I label every machine with which patchbay spots it’s plugged into. Have the spreadsheet too, but this way I don’t need it unless I’m changing stuff.
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Yeah spreadsheets are super handy for planning patchbays and for reference, I use them for mixer input and midi channel planning too.
Then I use a Brother label printer with 6mm tape, I save the file so that if I change it I don’t have to redo the whole label design again:
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That is nice!
I don’t think my sampson has enough space for a label, but nows I’ll do some better measuring.
This is so simple I’d never have thought to do it! hahaha. You just put a little sticker on a synth or pre with a number?
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Also handy to put labels on gear to denote midi channel, and I label PSUs and cables as well, seems excessive but saves a lot of head scratching and the label machines are pretty cheap, plugging 1 wrong PSU can be expensive 
Edit: this is the one I use, can be used standalone or with PC if wanting to do more detailed label designs, you can find them at wildly different prices if you shop around, a tape is about £5 for 8m if you use the compatible copies.
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I use a silver sharpie. You guuuuuys I’m way lo-tech on this front!
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Yup. I’ve got a dymo label maker, and they get labeled with the row (A-D across two patchbays, one for outputs from synths/mixer and sends, the other for returns and mixer inputs) and jack number. Cables get labeled the same way, on both ends (get the industrial vinyl labels so they stick). I’ve got a USB patchbay as well, with everything run to it and then to the hubs on my Bome Box, which is labeled with names (there’s a bit more room) — makes it easy to unplug something from the Bome and plug it into my laptop for updates, etc.
Yeah USB labelling is useful too, saves ending up with tons of duplicates if you plug something into a different port. I labelled my 7 port USB hub as I often plug different things into it and not using the same port as before causes windows to install another driver, the labels save all that hassle.
Ah, that’s much neater than mine! One long strip would be easier to do than loads of tiny ones that you have to cut to size
I don’t think I could program the Dymo I have to output such a long label.
Totally agree with darenager !
An older machine I had could not do long labels, so I just did 4 ports per label, a bit easier than doing individually.
Two 48-Neutriks here as well.
One for Synths: labelled SA xx and SB xx (xx = number)
One for Effects: labelled FA xx and FB xx
I’m building a small studio in my garage, so I will reorganize my cabling again and will definetly add an extra patch bay for sure. It took me also hours of thinking before I set it up for the first time and it is a hassle setting up. But very rewarding afterwards indeed.
And I used multicore cables (most cost effective), but I will probably switch gradually to individual cables, since once in a while a cable is defect, so I have to cut it loose from the bundle and replace it anyway. My main point being: do not forget to label your cables too.
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pretty OCD!
I have one on each side of my room, 8 of the ports on each are linked so that I can plug stuff from one PB to the other, comes in handy and saves having cables trailing across the room.
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That’s a good tip, when I inevitably need to rearrange stuff I’ll try that. It’s actually much neater down the other end as I got more of the hang of cutting them out and putting them on straight!
Damn. I need to get a label maker and join the fancy guy club. It’s hard to write small enough for the cut up strips of postal stickers I use.
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Same here 