How Detrimental is THIS signal path?

[RecordingMaster]

I currently have the attached signal path, except for the blue splitter cable you see in the diagram as well as the XLR to XLR Patchbay. So currently the a few channel from my snake plug straight into the back of a few different external pre-amps I have.

The problem is (and hence the reason I am considering the attached diagram), that when I want to track something up in the control room, I need to lean over and behind my rack, in the dark abyss, try and fish out the cable patched in the back of a given pre-amp, then plug in a mic cable directly into it (a standalone cable not attached to the snake). It's very time consuming, inconvenient and I'd rather not have to do it each time.

So I was thinking I'd have a splitter connected to each of the XLR inputs on each preamp. So the snake feed's into one side of the splitter, and a feed leading to an XLR to XLR mini patch bay would occupy the other. That way, when no mics are plugged into that snake's channel downstairs and I want to track something upstairs, I just plug straight into the XLR-XLR patchbay.

My questions:
1) Is adding this splitter cable into the chain, and THEN a patch bay going to degrade my signal that much more, or will it even be noticeable?

2) Does adding this cable cut the power coming from each connection in half? So even if I had nothing plugged into the snake downstairs, would the power be cut in half for the mic signal I'm plugging in upstairs and vice versa?


Note: I NEVER plan on trying to combine two mic signals into one single input! I'm no electrician, but I'm not dumb!

Your help is greatly appreciated. Thanks!

 

[Steenamaroo]

OK, so the problem is that some of your XLR cables are plugged in round the back and difficult to access?

So, the simplest solution is to undo that, right?

Use a patchbay as a permanent front end for all your mic preamps, then have all your incoming looms out front.
That way all of your swapping is done at the patchbay.

Maybe there's a reason you can't do this?

 

[RecordingMaster]

OK, so the problem is that some of your XLR cables are plugged in round the back and difficult to access?

So, the simplest solution is to undo that, right?

Use a patchbay as a permanent front end for all your mic preamps, then have all your incoming looms out front.
That way all of your swapping is done at the patchbay.

Maybe there's a reason you can't do this?

I guess that's exactly what I should DO then, thanks! I only have 3 or so external pre's that I care to interchange all at one time, so I guess I'll get one of THESE ART XPatch | Sweetwater.com for now, and the shortest, cleanest XLR cables I can find. I'll plug the cables between the pre's and the XLR patchbay, bring the snake looms up front, plug em into the front of patchbay, and when I'm recording anything in control room, unplug snake cables from patchbay and plug mic cable straight into it. Sometimes the simplest things come the hardest!

Thanks for the input!

 

[aaronmcoleman]

You can actually run XLR pretty far without degrading the signal...as long as they're good quality cables. Keeping it short as possible is best, but you can get away with pretty long runs...probably 3x as long as instrument cables.