Patchbay questions

The Lounge Other Gear
81

Sorry if I missed this but does your patchbay have TRS stereo inputs? I use a cheap hosa CMP103 cable to record or monitor out of mono sources, it applies a mono signal equally to both sides of a mini stereo phone output. Basically, mono 6.35mm to dual mono on the TRS end.

If I’m not overly reducing the issue, it would give you a L/R signal from your mono synths using only a single TRS jack into the patchbay.

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Amazon.com: Hosa CMP-103 1/4" TS to 3.5 mm TRS Mono Interconnect Cable, 3 Feet,Black : Electronics

Maybe I’m misunderstanding what you’re trying to do though.

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82

I’m also in Europe, try Amazon or other cable specialised shops. Moreover, I am not connecting this adapter to the patch bay but to the mono pedal’s output. So, a double TS cable goes into the patch bay. Basically, every cable on my patch bay is TS, not TRS.

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83

This thread is very helpful. Hoping I can hop in with a general patchbay question of my own as I’m new to this.

I’ve purchased a Behringer ADA8200 to add eight ADAT inputs to my Apollo Twin X interface.

With that I also wanted a patchbay to easily add external FX, record dry & wet tracks separately, route sounds to an external mixer, etc., since unfortunately the Twin X’s ADAT is not bidirectional (please go easy on the UA hate : )

Every patchbay tutorial I’ve found says that outputs should always come in through the back top, and return to interface inputs from the back bottom, with any patching mostly occurring in front of the patchbay.

But in these examples they always have interfaces with inputs on the back of the unit. The ADA8200 has its inputs on the front.

So, do I:
A) follow the norm and route the signal out the back bottom of the patchbay, to the front of the ADA8200, by leaving a physical space between the two units in the rack, so cables can run through the space and reach the front facing inputs?
or
B) make my first patchbay extra confusing by routing in Full Normal, output into back top, then front top to the ADA8200 input? And if wanting to patch, doing so out of the back bottom (switching to Half Normal)? I’m guessing then the whole patchbay would have to be “backwards” to be consistent…

Some fyi:

  • if B), I have access to the back of the rack so not a huge annoyance
  • I understand phantom power and patchbays are a dangerous combo, and am mostly planning on using the ADA8200’s TRS inputs only, and using the Apollo’s main inputs for phantom mics if needed.

All that being said I feel like I’m missing something very obvious. Or are these both plausible solutions?

84

What’s keeping you from simply using the front of the ADA8200 as its own patchbay? Just patch the signals directly from the front of your patchbay to the inputs of the ADA8200.

There is no benefit in wasting a row inputs on your patchbay for routing something that is accessible from the front of your rack anyway, at least if you don’t need to split the signals.

85

that would be an obvious answer! though like I said, whole point is wanting to split most of these signals to other gear. if not needing to split off then yes, just been going straight into the front preamps.

I ended up just routing the cables behind as normal, then running them through an opening to the front, and it’s no big deal and looks fine since I racked the preamp on top where there’s a space anyway – not sure why I was having an existential crisis before it all arrived :slight_smile:

86

Ah, I missed the bit about the splitting.

Do you use normal or angled plugs into the ADA8200?

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87

I’m gonna re: post my patchbay post from 2014 (!), which I think is helpful for thinking about how to setup patchbays:

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88

Thanks! I watched about 20 different YT videos about it before they arrived and it definitely ended up not being as confusing as I thought. That Shure Expander is rad. I plan on just racking a Mackie 1604 to do the same (if I can ever find rack ears for it)

89

I use normal plugs since angled ones, no matter which direction they face, end up blocking something. Which stinks because you lose a bit of cable distance

90

Evidence audio has angled plugs that are extremely small, that might work. Solderless, too. :

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91

Just to follow up on this, I thought about it some more and found two ideas that might be helpful for some people, and a really elegant solution for my problem, too.

My first ideas only work with Behringer Patchbays, because these also have what Behringer calls parallel mode (in addition to normalled, half-normalled and through):

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In parallel mode, whatever is plugged into one of the back sockets is available at both sockets in front, so the patchbay can split a signal to two socked on the front.

The good thing: you can use signal as mono, or as stereo. The bad thing: there’s no possibility for a default routing, because the connection on the back is not broken when something is plugged in the fron, that is the whole point of the idea.

With parellel mode, you can also an independent “multiple”, that splits any signal patched in from the front: simply set two adjacent modules to “parallel” and connect them on the back. Now you can plug a signal into one of the four sockets in front, and it’s split on the remaining three. A simple mono to stereo split would require 8 inputs on the patchbay (4 front, 4 back), rather wasteful, but there might be situations where that is still helpful.

However, that did not get me any closer to a solution, but I considering this helped me get clear what I wanted:

  • I want to mix mono synths, mono pedals, and stereo pedals without any arbitrary constraints, to get the most out of my devices
  • I want a default routing that works without any cables patched into the front of my patchbay, so that I can simply rip out all all patch cords and have a standard setup
  • I want to use only one kind of cable for patching (TS mono), because I hate searching for the right cable.
  • I want this to work with any kind of patchbay, not just with an Ultrapatch

The solution to all this is rather simple: I use a Y-cable on the back of the patchbay to split stereo to mono.

That setup basically treats the Y-cable as a simple mono-to-stereo device that can be patched in anywhere.

All channels in the patchbay are normalled, so I can have default routings.

Example:

1 2 3 4 5
Top TD-3
Out		 TC Fangs
Out		 Split Cable
Out 1		 Split Cable
Out		 Boss BF-1
In
Bottom TC Fangs
In		 Split Cable
In		 Boss DD-500
In L		 Boss DD-500
In R		 Boss BF-1
Out

Default routing is TD-3 Synth → TC Fangs → Boss DD-500

So as explained above, I can break that connection anywhere, and basically patch the split cable on the back into any point of my chain, so I can:

  • add any number of mono pedal into that chain
  • skip the mono pedal entirely and directly go into the stereo pedal
  • add another stereo pedal, before or after the current one
  • use the stereo pedal with one of my stereo synths
  • use a pedal that has mono in and stereo out

That way it’s fully compatible with the stereo part of my setup, the “cost” is 3 patch points plus a Y-cable for each mono-to-stereo conversion. It’s simple to DIY the split cables for ~€5, or buy them from Hosa for a bit more.

I’m happy with DIY cables because they’re on the back of the patchbay, so there’s zero strain on the plugs and on the split point, and I can build them in the exact length I need. I used this tutorial for an insert cable, and substituted the TRS plug for a TS plug, both wires are then soldered to the tip.

After a bit of testing with one synth I found this solution to be robust and noise free, and I’ll upgrade my entire setup accordingly when I find some spare time in the summer.

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