I'm a patchbay idiot

[wrduke]

I ahve a MOTU 896 that I mounted in a four bay box. I want to use a patchbay to act as a breakout box to better access the inputs on back of the MOTU. I purchased a Neutrik NYS-SPP-L
48 1/4" patchbay. Is it as simple as input plug ( like mike ) in A 1 the from back take a 1/4 " TRS to the MOTU.

I must have done something wrong, as I blew out a TubePre that I was using. I pluged the mike into the patch using XLR to 1/4 TRS converter, using the same row and port location on the back side of the patch I came off with a 1/4" TRS to XLR plugged into my TubePre, from my tuble pre output XLR to 1/4" TRS to the MOTU. It worked for a minute or two then it whent up in smoke!

My main objective is to have fron access to the inputs, am I going down the right road with the patch?

Any help would be appreciated......

Bill

[TexRoadkill]

You can use a jack panel that has XLR inputs and wire that to the preamp inputs.

Regular patchbays can cause problems with phantom power.
As a general rule only use patchbays for line level signals. They are okay for preamp outputs but not inputs.

[sweetnubs]

zzzzt-poof!

<beavis and butthead voice> huh, huh . . phantom power's cool

[Blue Bear Sound]

I use XLR patchbays to wire the studio's control panels back to the control room's pres/console... which works fine because those XLR bays are typically mic/pre connections.... (well ok - headphone feeds as well, but that hasn't caused an issue!)

But as the boys have said, you don't want to be mixing 1/4" bays with phantom power.........

[jhira001]

don't ever plug a mic into a patchbay. if you follow that rule then you would quickly find out that you have to plug the mic into the preamp then from the pre to the patchbay to the motu. that way you can use the phantom power for the mic and not the patchbay. i wonder if you fried your A1 input of the patchbay too???

[wrduke]

I appreciate all the feed back from the pro's!!!!

I removed the 1/4 inch patchbay.... now I am back to square 1. Presonus issued a replacement for my fried PreTube.

How about this solution ( remember I am an idiot ), someone recommended a XLR pachbay with XLR in's and outs to my MOTU 896, or use a SM PRO PR-8 to act as a patch, I could use the preamps in leiu of the MOTU preamps ( which I really do not know which is best, they both probably are weak ). This unit has inputs on the front which handles my previous concern.

Any feedback would be appreciated as before, I bow to the pro wisdom!