Patchbay questions

[shigginpit]

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.

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.

[g3o2]

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.

[babooncube]

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?

[Lizard-of-Oz]

@babooncube

All that being said I feel like I’m missing something very obvious.

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.

[babooncube]

@Lizard-of-Oz

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.

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

[Lizard-of-Oz]

@babooncube

ADA8200

Ah, I missed the bit about the splitting.

@babooncube

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

Do you use normal or angled plugs into the ADA8200?

[pmags]

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

Your setups [ 10k Archive]

In response to a couple of queries, here’s a more detailed description of my patchbay setup. I’ve got two patchbays (one Behringer, one Samson) paired with two line mixers (Samson SM10). I acquired the Behringer first, but the Samson patchbay is the more convenient of the two, as it allows you to change the normaling from the front of the unit. Here’s a photo of the setup: [image] The following schematic illustrates the basic signal flow. In this setup all the instrument outputs flow unal…

[babooncube]

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)

[babooncube]

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

[Lizard-of-Oz]

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

SIS™ DIY Solderless Patch Kit

[Lizard-of-Oz]

@Lizard-of-Oz

I have a question about how to route mono synths to stereo effects on a patchbay.

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):

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.

[Junkmanukuk]

Hi People advice needed please

Ive jus got a Qu-32 Desk and I’m going to use it as my main interface and run line inputs in and use USB to Ableton

The problem is Ive got 3 patchbays and got numerous Synths Drum Machines Elektron Boxes Effects with mono stereo multi outputs and Im struggling to find the best routing option

I was thinking having one patchbay just dedicated to synths one for the Qu32 and one for effects and then patch a synth or drum machine etc in to the Qu32 when I want

I could even get everything into ableton and use a couple of old Motu interfaces and use them just for the effects units

With having about 15 synths 5 drum machines and 8 effects units and a Sampler I’m a bit confused

Any advice would be great

Thanks

[SoundRider]

@Junkmanukuk

I was thinking having one patchbay just dedicated to synths one for the Qu32 and one for effects and then patch a synth or drum machine etc in to the Qu32 when I want

This seems to make much sense. You could make a routing plan to better see and help to remember, what you have routed to all the inputs and outputs …

Think about:

• how many channels do you want to use for each instrument in general?
• how to connect multi-channel drum-machines (some of mine have 8) ? As an example, you can route the machine to one stereo channel or each available drum-channel to its own channel.
• reserve some mixer send/returns for routing to a patchbay … this allows to insert fx-units in a signal path quickly.

I use “half-normalized” patchbay units in the studio. Most instruments are connected to inputs of patchbays, which are dedicated for instruments, and their outputs are directly routed to the inputs of the patchbay, which is connected to the mixer inputs. That’s my “standard” set-up.

This allows to either use the standard set-up or to hook up other gear quickly, overwriting the existing routings. This works for me, because I don’t need all my gear all the time.

To remind myself of what I did, I documented the standard set-up as a simple routing diagram.

[Junkmanukuk]

Thanks for the reply

[RadekPilich]

It takes time and some re-work has to be expected.

It will take hours and hours of sitting and thinking. And a couple of half days of reconnecting and labeling. Although if you are really going to use only the QU and no other mixers and interfaces, it will be much easier. In any case, spreadsheet is your friend here.

You might connect some instruments through HN, some HN via additional sub-mixer, some FX units might be patched in THRU mode and some HN to auxes etc. There is no straightforward way to do this with dozens of gear units.

[Stone262]

I’m no expert but I recently did a similar setup so I’m going to avoid all my current problems in life and think and write about this question instead. Warning, a lot of waffle ahead, if it’s useful for you great, if it isn’t all good.

32 inputs on a mixer is a slightly nuisance number for linking together with patchbays, assuming they’re standard 48 point bays you’re working with.

My approach with a 24 input mixer was this. All synth and effects outputs routed to the top row of the patchbay, normalled to the bottom row. Bottom row of the patchbay is connected to the mixer inputs.

All these connections are at the back of the patchbay. Most used synths etc are therefore routed to particular mixer channels by default.

If I want to plug something different into the mixer I can do it from the front of the patchbay. If I want to run a synth to a field recorder or something like the Blackbox, I can do that from the front of the patchbay.

I think this is basically a slightly simpler version of SoundRiders setup. But I found that to not get lost in all the options I basically needed to have the patchbay as a literal 1 to 1 breakout box of synth outputs and mixer inputs.

It does get really hard when you’ve got drum machines that sometimes you might want to use individual outputs but other times just use the main outs. Likewise with effects. The amount of options (and cables) can get overwhelming.

So I suppose the question might be, do you want total flexibility? Or do you want efficiency (with options)?

I would suggest using 1 and a third patchbays for the mixer inputs. Think about what you want to use most often of your drum machines, synths and fx and normal the connections to the mixer as your default instrument set. Avoid doubling up anything here that you wouldn’t usually use at the same time. If you want to use a different drum machine it gets patched in to replace the first one, same with fx, pick just one delay unit to have normalled to the mixer.

Then the remaining 1 and two thirds patchbays are basically the breakout box for all your other synth outputs. This is also where you would take any mixer outputs for external fx and sampler sends and normal those to your fx inputs - in this case your fx units that are normalled to mixer inputs.

In this way your mixer layout should pretty much stay consistent in terms of what type of instrument is on each channel because your replacing like for like things at the patchbay.

If you want, you can still go nuts with patch cables and make a track using say 24 individual outs from 3 different drum machines at the same time, but frankly, if that’s what you’re into, I support you, but you’re on your own.

Definitely get it down on paper or something, as Radek suggests. But also, if you’re someone who has trouble sleeping, I personally found mentally setting up patchbay routings far more effective than counting sheep.

[RadekPilich]

Hahaha, lol, that explains the otherwise suspicious lack of trouble falling asleep recently Patchbay routings is what I had on my mind falling asleep these days.

[Boboulus]

I went thru this dilemma when I was planning how to set everything up in my small home studio and this made me decide to get a BiG SiX mixer, it is made for use with paychbays and I could not be happier

I have a spreadsheet I’m very happy with made in excel and if you need one let me know.

[Junkmanukuk]

that would be great thanks

[RadekPilich]

Here is mine

• cbl = cable length, this is completely unnecessary unless you need to get some new cables
• I/O red(ish) text = patchpoint connected as stereo
• I/O black / white / blue text = patchpoint connected as mono
• I/O text aligned to top left corner = output
• I/O text aligned to bottom right corner = input
• I/O cell background color = cue color of given device / device group / patchpoint function
• conx background color = status of cable connection, i.e. connected & tested, connect next, get new cable…