What patchbay do you use and why?
For those that know, any reason to choose a boredbrains over the Samson and even the dark and evil B?
I’ve got a Samson. Idk if I have a dud unit or bad luck or what, but 3 of the inputs have stopped working over the two years I’ve had it and some other inputs introduce noise. I got it used, but it worked flawlessly when I first got it - I tested every input when it arrived.
I mostly use it as a way to move my interface inputs somewhere else, and occasionally actually patch something either to my FX pedals or to my MPC for sampling. Honestly in my situation, it’s more trouble than it’s worth. If you’ve got a ton of gear or change up your hardware setup a lot it’s a very useful tool.
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No real reason. Have two Samsons and a Behringer. All fine.
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Have heard the same thing from multiple recording studio guys. Funnily enough the Behringer one seems to be more reliable.
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Oh word. That might just seal the deal but I kinda like that boredbrains footprint and layout.
Years ago I found a B PX 3000 in the giveaway bin at a rehearsal space. It worked perfectly fine even though the front plate was weirdly bent and it obviously had not been treated too well. Convinced me to just stick with those when I needed additional units.
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dbx pb48
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I have two Samson Patchbays and I’m so far very happy with them. At first I got a ART patchbay with switch button on the back wich was a bit annoying but not a dealbreaker, however you can set it to thru-mode so I sent it back.
A bit worrying reading that Samson seems to fail after some usage. But I can’t find many alternatives that you can set to three modes.
I’m about to get a third one but hesitant to get Samson… don’t want the Behringer one for maybe silly reasons. So any advice? 
3 x Samson S-Patch Plus all fine so far, I treat 'em like shit (as one can see) and change things quite often - they never let me down
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Dang it does look like they are tough hehe 
And all these cables… why isn’t there an gigantic thread about cables on this forum?
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No big worries, if you have more than one Samson and some modules fail over time, you can easily switch then around for other unused module / a module from donor patchbay. This holds true for most if not all patchbays.
Mine didn’t fail yet, I took it apart because I am considering saw splitting one unit into two 24 patch point boxes.
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I’m on four now. Just wiring them all up after moving desk/studio. Will take some time.
The Sampsons are pretty robust. The first pair I had were desktop and switched in and out daily. Only one pot failed in those years.
The others in this new config a year or so in but no challenges so far despite a couple of rewrites.
Here’s my last config
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I use a Samson S-Patch plus. I like that there’s switches on the front to choose the normaled settings but IIRC the price of that convenience is adding new points of failure. Mine is still going strong 2 years later but I also try not to flick those switches unless extremely necessary, and when I do I’m really delicate with them.
the pb-48 has normalled, half-normalled and de-normalled options. to change the setting, you have to take the module out and flip it.
My patchbay setup is pretty intricate at this point. It used to be super simple (didn’t everything?).
Here’s how it used to look when it was pretty simple. Very helpful for overdubbing, outboard processing, etc.:
(“Swing” means “temporary;” usually the output of the compressors goes there, or a second stereo source like an Analog Rytm or 404. FX returns typically go to ch1 or ch2, and work upwards from there.)
Edit: I just realized all the outboard “Ins” and “Outs” are swapped above.
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It was quite frustrating for me to do any changes to the patchbays wiring having them next to each other like you do.
Right now, I keep 1U free space between the units which makes any reconnecting from the back side much easier.
Pulling it out to the front might do the trick, although it would likely bother me as well for the first half dozen of incremental redesigns and total overhauls on the patchbay journey (especially taking into account the immaturity of the cable organization at that point).
Do you pull aux sends through channels for EQ before effects? And then through SUB OUT to FX? Where is the FX return? Anyways, just wanted to ask if you were to decide where to put mixer EQ in the aux FX chain, would you rather have it before FX or after FX.
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That’s a really good shout. Wish I’d done that this weekend.
Forgot to wire something lower down and it was so crowded I think I’ve permanently damaged my back trying to get into it.
Normally it’s ok but I’ve been a little braver this time, all of my send/returns for the desk and its inserts are now on the patch bay.
Almost there. Although my custom snakes were 20cm too short so I’ve had to order some more.
Still looks like a total mess behind the desk though, despite my best efforts.
I’ll respond when I’m in front of a keyboard because it’s annoying to type it out on my phone.
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If you use more than 2 patchbays, I would highly recommend investing a few bucks in software like this: https://www.patchcad.com/
You can keep an overview over many things and select almost any patchbay available on the market as a template.
Of course, with a little patience you can also do this in Excel, but you have to invest time and brains, PatchCAD turns patchbay labeling from a spreadsheet slog into a quick type-and-print job: you get true-to-scale templates, batch edits, on-strip notes for extra context, perfect first-try printouts, and a one-click wiring-schedule export that keeps the whole install documented and consistent.
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