freakin' neutrik patchbays, what up wit dat?

sweetnubs

New member
I have this friend you see. Really it's a friend. . . . I have this consulting job for a friend you see and I actually have to deal with these neutrik patchbays and a mackie 32-8. Now the problem is unlike normal patchbays these things have cards. I got all the configurations except the stupid "split" configuration which is a terminology not used in the normal world, it must be a neutrikism. I'm guessing it is the same as "mult" or "multiple" if you must. Now you see folks, the wackie has these stupid ass TRS insert points and I'm trying to save this poor bastard some money so he doesn't have to buy a shitload of those stupid ass TRS y-cables that split the tip and such into their respective such and suches. Now I figured some of you around these parts have dealt with these stupid chinsy contraptions and the neutrik website is completely unhelpful and i don't have time to do massive research and of course this guy thinks I am now and idiot because he's using a peice of shit patchbay that has no correlation to the real world of patchbays and a stupid mixer that has no correlation to the real world of consoles. So as I look at this stupid diagram it looks like with the "white" part if placed on the rear bottom "splits" (jesus) the signal to the front top and front bottom of the patchbay. Now is this just a "mult" or does it actually split it into the tip and ring portion of the signal with hopefully tip on top and ring on bottom. See what I'm getting at, I'm trying to take his insert point and use one TRS cable only and have the send portion on the front top and the return portion on the front bottom of the patchbay. I followed the traces on the PCB while taking some PCP so i couldn't quite tell but it looked like it was a mult. If this is the case does neutrik sell PCP eeeer, PCB's that can be configured with TRS insert points? that'd be a lot cheaper that using y cabling. thanks and if any of you are any help i promise my next five posts well be dripping with the upmost sweetness.
 
I think the problem here is the console and not the patchbay itself. Not to disrespect, but I don't see anything different between the neutrik patchbay and any other profesional 1/4" balanced patchbay. They all work the same. Most of them have PCB cards too. DBX's patchbay comes to mind, and it is widely used.
The problem is that that Mackie, to cut costs down, uses an unbalanced insert point with just one plug, handling send/return with 2 pins just as you described, the third beign ground. I don't think there is a workaround here. Y insert cables are going to have to be purchased. But this is the norm with these kind of consoles dude. To setup the inserts, you will have to look at the "isolated" setup showing up in the link below

http://www.neutrik.com/images/ock/products/downloads/210_460038209.pdf

wich would be the ideal for EQ's compressors and such. I don't mean to offend, but neutrik patchbays are pretty popular and used world wide.
Bigger, modern consoles (SSL and such) use balanced inserts, so the y cable is not used. U need however, 2 TT cables to route both send/return from the inset point. The patchbays on these have 2 jacks per insert, corresponding to send/return respectively.
I hope this helps :)
 
What's he going to be putting on the inserts? If he's using other budget comps like the RNC then he can use a TRS cable into that also if the Tip/Ring matches up. Then you could make a few Y spletters to use on the patchbay end for gear that has seperate send/receives.

I was pissed to find out my Ghost reversed them from the usual so I have to make some TRS with tip/ring reversed to even do a straight TRS connection. I haven't come up with a good solution yet either.
 
naaw these freakin' neutrik patchbays are not the norm (these are the cheesy plastic PCB ones with plastic inputs) and consoles with trs insert points are not normal. Mackies are way more confusing then a neve board. SSL's are pretty complex though. . . .naw most boards just have a wire harness. Tex, that's what i'm hoping to avoid is having to tell the guy he's got to pay for 32 y cables to hook up all 32 inserts. The little diagram on the top of the neutrik shows if you put the white colored female on the bottom row on the back then the top front and bottom front are "connected" to this input and they call it a "split" arrangement which is a strange nomenclature. My guess is it simply mults the signal so you could for example have two ouputs show up on the patchbay. (guessing they are balanced) But it seems kind of strange to have this happen on the top and bottom so it got me to thinking that perhaps it splits the tip to top front and ring to bottom front. So then you could run a TRS insert point from the mackie to the "white" bottom rear (that gets me hot) and have the send show up on the top front row of the pathbay and the return show up on the bottom front of the patdh bay and the bottom front would be normalled to the top front. I don't have any of this shit in front of me and i can't find any information on the neutrik site and i really don't want to spend time figuring this out. That sucks with the ghost. If this is not the case I wonder if neutrik makes Pcb's designed specifically for TRS insert points so you can have the send appear on top front and return appear on bottom front with the bottom normalled to the top like a normal patchbay. yeah he's got a few RNC's, some beringher things (composer?) and a few valley people gain brain modules, some valley kepex stuff, and the valley maxi-q. I 'm going to put all the dynamics processing on the patchbay so he can just patch 'em all into the inserts. There is no way in hell i'm opening up the mackie . . .
 
If that is the case then I need a 24pt Neutrik like that. If you wire up the inserts straight to the TRS jacks then you only need to use a splitter when he uses the comps without TRS inputs. Or just use a Y cable on the comps and stick them onto a single TRS jack on the PB. That way you can patch the return and send with one TRS cable.

That would handle the inserts with the fewest amount of splitters. The only real hassle is you would need a splitter for the front of the PB if he wanted to use them inline with some gates or something and not on an insert.

I realize that's still not ideal but if you can keep them all wired up on one TRS you at least save on patch cables.
 
guess I'm just going to have to test the bugger. I gotta go back tomorrow and was hoping I'd dig the answer up before I got over there. the link mr. grooves posted is the same stuff I found and that's all I could find about the patchbay, no manual, schematics for the pcb, etc. It clearly shows if the white is bottom rear and a cable is inserted into the white input the signal "splits" (still not sure what split implies!) to top front and bottom front. If a jack is inserted into top rear with the pcb configuration remaing the same then the normal is broken and the patchbay becomes isolated or "open" as this old-timer calls it. So is the patchbay just multing the signal that appears at bottom rear if that is the only input on the back with a cable inserted? seems weird but i wouldn't be suprised or is it splitting the tip and ring to separte inputs on the front? If so which one goes to where? fuck this is driving me nuts. I should of looked at the traces on the pcb's longer but I was in a hurry to leave and the guy was kind of giving me shit because he had a lame ass patch bay. kids help the nubster 'cause if someone knows it will save you a bunch of money because you won't need y cables to hook up your mackie inserts to a patchbay.
 
sweetnubs said:
I have this friend you see. Really it's a friend. . . . I have this consulting job for a friend you see and I actually have to deal with these neutrik patchbays and a mackie 32-8. Now the problem is unlike normal patchbays these things have cards. I got all the configurations except the stupid "split" configuration which is a terminology not used in the normal world, it must be a neutrikism. I'm guessing it is the same as "mult" or "multiple" if you must. Now you see folks, the wackie has these stupid ass TRS insert points and I'm trying to save this poor bastard some money so he doesn't have to buy a shitload of those stupid ass TRS y-cables that split the tip and such into their respective such and suches. Now I figured some of you around these parts have dealt with these stupid chinsy contraptions and the neutrik website is completely unhelpful and i don't have time to do massive research and of course this guy thinks I am now and idiot because he's using a peice of shit patchbay that has no correlation to the real world of patchbays and a stupid mixer that has no correlation to the real world of consoles. So as I look at this stupid diagram it looks like with the "white" part if placed on the rear bottom "splits" (jesus) the signal to the front top and front bottom of the patchbay. Now is this just a "mult" or does it actually split it into the tip and ring portion of the signal with hopefully tip on top and ring on bottom. See what I'm getting at, I'm trying to take his insert point and use one TRS cable only and have the send portion on the front top and the return portion on the front bottom of the patchbay. I followed the traces on the PCB while taking some PCP so i couldn't quite tell but it looked like it was a mult. If this is the case does neutrik sell PCP eeeer, PCB's that can be configured with TRS insert points? that'd be a lot cheaper that using y cabling. thanks and if any of you are any help i promise my next five posts well be dripping with the upmost sweetness.

I had a battle with that patchbay myself. Every time I plugged in a TRS connector the signal would be there *or* not. This happenned on many channels. I brought it back for a new one and am crossing my fingers that it stays working.
 
I know this is an ancient thread, but I'll bring it life to add that neutrik apparently sells individual patch points / pcb slots as an accessory to this patchbay, that do exactly what the original poster was looking to do. The part is called nys-spcr1
 
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