I have a guitar related question. In my home studio I am currently debating purchasing a patchbay.. MAINLY to hook up various preamps to my power amp and cabinets. Is this a worthwhile investment? I really dont have tons of "outboard" gear for the recording end of it.. I will be using mostly plug-ins. My preamps are a Tubefex, a Rockmaster.. and I would also hook up a Line6 POD.. and the idea was to then just plug into my choice of the moment and switch it on and have it go thru my power amp/speakers. I will be micing my cab's with an SM57 running thru a small mixer.. then to my computer DAW.
Hmm...a sticky wicket indeed. I've never seen anyone use a batch bay with their guitar setup before. I guess there's nothing wrong with it. I used one for years with my old reel to reel studio and it sure was a time saver. I never noticed any degradation in the sound either but then again I wasn't using it in the way you intend to. Anytime I've ever used an "in-line" effect, that is, pluging into an effect before running into the preamp, I always noticed a loss in the sound. This is why I always try to use line-level effects and run them through the preamp's send/return path. There's usually little, if any, degradation of the sound there.
"If" you plan on pluging straight into the preamp and then your preamp goes through a patch bay before the power amp, I'm doubting you'll have much signal loss. Dunno know for sure though. I can oinly recommend that you get a 1/4" bay as opposed to RCA, just to try and keep as much signal as possible.
Hope it works. As far as whether or not it's worth it...how much food does a person really need to stay alive?
