Patchbay Setup

J

Jayson Wonder

New member
Hi All,

I am fumbling my way through the setup of my new patchbays. I picked up 2 x ART P48. They seem like good units although I am confused about the ability to disconnect the rear connection between pairs. I wil ltry to explain in more details. The pactchbay says it support Fully Normaled & Half Normaled, I understand the differnce but figure that if I hook gear up vertically by ajacent I will have a feedback loop permanately regardless of the mode I am in. Essentially the outs of the COMP will feed the ins unless no matter what. There must be away to disconnect or have a no normalization mode so this does not happen. I know that if I plug in patchcables on the front I will break the connection and that is fine but when I have nothing plugged in then this is a problem.
For example:

---1------2---
OUTS COMP EQ

INS COMP EQ

This would not be a problem if I have differnt gear in the pairs such as:

---1------2---
OUTS COMP EQ

INS EQ COMP

I am just afraid of damaging equuipment and I do not want to have to try and patch outs to in for all gear or else I am limited the flexibility of the patchbay.

Perhaps I am missing the concept here, I am a bit confused and after reading and watching a few vids I still struggle to come up with optimal organization of my patchbays. I have about 7 peieces of outboard effects / processing gear and a mixing console with 16 ins, audio interface with 8 ins / outs and 6 different synth / sampler workstations and a Big Knob for monitor control and monitoring. It is all gettign a bit overwhelming.

Any suggestion or approaches to organizing and plannign will be greatly appreciated.

Regards,
 
thuds said:
whenever my head starts to hurt with patchbay routing, I revisit the tweakheadz simplified summary and it helps me reconfigure my brain for patchbay routing rules.

Setting up a Patchbay in your Home Studio by TweakHeadz lab
Click to expand...

Thanks I will go check this out... After reading this I think the issue is making my patchay not normalized or through. It is a sealed patchay so I can not solder or change anything and I only have a single button for full & half normalled. The manual says it can do thru but I don't see how. Does anyone have this patchbay? I can't seem to link the manual but if anyone checks out the manual you can see what I mean.
 
Last edited:
Looking at the unit, it seems the switching is for full or half normal.
It has reversable rack ears, so if you flipped it around, you would then set it up as just through. The down side is all jacks would be through.
Other bays have the ability to just reverse individual modules.
 
Jayson Wonder said:
Perhaps I am missing the concept here.
Click to expand...


Top rows are signal OUT...bottom are signal IN.

That's the concept.

You only normal where it calls for it.
Ex.
Console outputs to tape recorder inputs. The console output go on the top row, the tape recorder inputs go on the bottom.
If you want to feed something else to the tape recorder, you plug it into the front tape recorder input and break the normal.

I personally don't bother with full or half normal because there is nothing in my bays that is always in any "normal" connection with another device. I connect all my gear with patch cords in the front...and not the bay's "normal" options.
Yes, it requires more bays because you have to account for all I/Os of every piece...and you need to do more patching...but it's the cleanest, simplest way.
NOTHING is connected until I use a patch cord to make the connection...and in doing so, I'm always clear in my head of my signal path.
I have a bunch of 96 point TT bays...and I'm constantly going from console to tape recorder, from tape recorder to DAW, from outboard gear to console and from outboard gear to tape recorder...so "normalling" just didn't make sense since I would always be breaking the normals anyway, and seeing only a small benefit from them.
I like the clean, "patch it as needed" approach. :)
 
Miro, you have everything hardwired to the back of the TT bays? Never owned one of those.
In my case with the tascam m520, I have a furman pb40 (20 out 20 in) set up always half normaled for the inserts.
If not normaled, I actually lose that channel on the board seeing how it uses an in and out rather than a TRS jack.
Inserting an effect to an individual channel from a bay sure beats the hell out of going to the back of the console.
Now I just have to always remember where the insert jumpers for the console are. Don't want to lose those. Haha.
 
Yes the issues is that is I use your example all multitrack outs to all multi track ins there will be a signal permanently connected. I am not sure that that would be wise to have a constant loop being fed to the recorder. That is the problem I am facing. I think the issue is that the patchbay cant do through mode normally. Perhaps flipping the ears around might work as mentioned by RFR.
 
If you wanted something like that normalised, it would go like this.

lets use an 8 track for ease of explanation.

Upper row..... 8 outputs from the mixer
Lower row...... 8 inputs into the multitrack

You have now used 16 jacks on the bay and have the outputs of the mixer "Normalled" into the multitrack.

Moving from left to right on the patchbay, now jacks 9 thru 16 are used as a return function.

Upper row 9 to 16........Tape outs from multitrack
Lower row 9 to 16........Inputs to the mixer for monitoring or mixing thoses tracks

Those are always "normalled" to where they would normally go, but can be patched into at any time to route things elsewhere.

There is no looping or feeding an output into its own input like this. It is plugged into where it would "normally" go if you had it all wired up without a bay.
 
RFR said:
Miro, you have everything hardwired to the back of the TT bays?
Click to expand...

Yes...all cabling in the back is soldered to the PB points.
I spent a few weeks wiring up the whole studio and soldering all the points on the bays...but I'm anal about cabling. When you stand in the studio, you would have a hard time seeing any of it, as it is all run neatly and discreetly in back.


Jayson Wonder said:
Yes the issues is that is I use your example all multitrack outs to all multitrack ins there will be a signal permanently connected.
Click to expand...

Only if you set the PB as normalled.
I've not heard of a PB that can't do non-normalled...usually there is a way to change that as normalled and half-normalled is a special case. Lots of gear would not be normalled...so I can't see a PB made not to do that...???

Here...RTFM. :D

http://artproaudio.com/downloads/owners_manuals/om_p48.pdf

You want option "D" for through signals.
 
RFR said:
If you wanted something like that normalised, it would go like this.

lets use an 8 track for ease of explanation.

Upper row..... 8 outputs from the mixer
Lower row...... 8 inputs into the multitrack

You have now used 16 jacks on the bay and have the outputs of the mixer "Normalled" into the multitrack.

Moving from left to right on the patchbay, now jacks 9 thru 16 are used as a return function.

Upper row 9 to 16........Tape outs from multitrack
Lower row 9 to 16........Inputs to the mixer for monitoring or mixing thoses tracks

Those are always "normalled" to where they would normally go, but can be patched into at any time to route things elsewhere.

There is no looping or feeding an output into its own input like this. It is plugged into where it would "normally" go if you had it all wired up without a bay.
Click to expand...

Yes exactly what I am trying to achieve. I get that part of it now. So that is the easy part. What now do I do with processors and effects so for instance a compressor, eq and reverb, delay units? Typically the first two are usually used as inserts effects and the reverb & delays are sends. I cant see how to work these out logically unless I stagger the IO...


OUTS- COMP EQ VERB DELAY

INS- EQ COMP DELAY VERB

If this makes sense. I'm trying here. Correct me if I am out to lunch.
 
Pick the sends that you want to use for your reverb and put them above the verb input. Pick the returns and put them below the verb outputs. For comps and EQs you could just decide on a couple channels on the board that will normally have them applied and wire it as such, then use cables to override that as necessary. If you only want them on playback/mixdown you could have it so that the outputs from the recorder go to the comps which then feed the mixer, otherwise you'd use the mixer inserts.

It shouldn't really hurt any of your gear to feed their outputs to their own inputs, but I'd try to avoid it if possible. Maybe use one of the patchbay normalled, and then reverse the rack ears on the other as mentioned above for the stuff you want straight through?
 
ashcat_lt said:
Pick the sends that you want to use for your reverb and put them above the verb input. Pick the returns and put them below the verb outputs. For comps and EQs you could just decide on a couple channels on the board that will normally have them applied and wire it as such, then use cables to override that as necessary. If you only want them on playback/mixdown you could have it so that the outputs from the recorder go to the comps which then feed the mixer, otherwise you'd use the mixer inserts.

It shouldn't really hurt any of your gear to feed their outputs to their own inputs, but I'd try to avoid it if possible. Maybe use one of the patchbay normalled, and then reverse the rack ears on the other as mentioned above for the stuff you want straight through?
Click to expand...
Yes!!! Sounds perfect and makes sense. thanks so much I am off to start testing now.
 
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