I just bought a $50 Behringer patch bay. Has 48 patch points (24 banks of 2). Each bank can be set to Open Norm HalfNorm or Parallel. All points are 1/4 inch input, no soldering.
This is my first patch bay ever, and I cannot believe that I could have ever lived without one. I have always rewired my equipment for each song/project as needed.
But I have the same nagging question about signal noise. Figuring you are adding two non-soldered connections per line there must be some accumulation of ambient noise etc.....
I dont notice any difference in sound with my equipment now all routed through this bay, but then again the difference should only be minor, and I have no way to comp between the setups...
Hmmm, but now that i think of it I suppose I could use my VF-16 to record some mixes with and without the patch bay, and then comp the two recordings?? I hadn't thought of trying that.
Thanks, you guys are full of great ideas!! lol...
(Seriously, has anyone tried this before?)