Patchbay confusion!!!

M

modfather125

New member
Hi all,

I've recently been trying to use the patch bay I bought a few years back...

I've got 4 compressors and a digital effects unit that I want to send to various channels on the mixer.

I've made an insert loom to go from 20 stereo to 10 mono jacks which go from the outboard into the patchbay. Then I've made a 16 x 16 stereo jack loom which goes from 1 to 16 on the patch bay to 1 to 16 on the inserts on the desk.

So I've got 8 channels of compression and an effects rack that I want to be able to send to any of the channels on the desk using the inserts. It's all wired accordingly and yet, nothing happens!

I've tested all the cables, they're all working. The insert loom works fine if I take the patchbay out of the equation...

So do I need to have a stereo patch bay to get the signal through? I've been using outboard for years on the inserts on various desks, just never through a patch bay. I've got a behringer PX2000 patch bay - if I'm honest I bought it cos it was £10 and I thought it might come in handy one day! So now I want to use it and I'm getting a bit confused with it!

Any help is gratefully received!!!

Thanks in advance!
 
I can't quite understand exactly what you're doing but, the insert cables coming from the desk will go top and bottom to the rear of a normalized patch. If it's not normalized the signal chain will be open without any cords plugged in the front...

Hope that gets you started on the right track...
 
Thanks I'll have a look at that.

It's mad, I've been using this gear for years now, I've just never used a patch bay! And it's confused the hell out of me!

I can switch on the patch bay between normal, half normal, open etc so I'll have a play with that.

Thanks again
 
I think you need to figure out what you want the signal path through the patchbay to be with nothing patched on the front. E.g. Do you want the inserts from the console to be simply closed as if the insert cables weren't there? Or do you want the compressors by default inserted on 8 channels of the console? Or do you want no signal with no patch cables on the front of the patchbay? The first two would use a normalled config and the last one non-normalled.

Typically the out's are fed (into the rear of the patchbay) to the top row and the in's to the bottom. So when normalled, the signal flows from the top to the bottom. The patch cables, obviously, alter this path. So if you had the inserts normalled straight through from send to return, you might have the compressor channels not normalled on another 8 ports so you could patch with patch cables from a channel's send to a compressor in and then from the compressor out to the channel's return.

Or if you wanted the compressors in by default, you could set up 8 ports, normalled, with console sends on the top, compressor in's on the bottom, and then the next 8 ports of the patchbay with compressor outs on the top and console returns on the bottom. This would route 8 console channels through the compressor by default with no patch cables. You would have to patch the sends to the returns if you wanted to bypass the compressors.

Or if you want no signal to flow without patching, connect them the first way, but with all ports set to non-normalled.

Regarding your description above, unless the outboard compressor has stereo in/out jacks vs. separate in and out jacks, the insert cables (stereo to mono) with go from the console to the patchbay and the 16 cable snake will be used for the in's and out's of the compressor. Then depending on your config, additional patch cables will be needed to reroute signal paths.
 
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