How do you organize your rack...?

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johnnypraze

johnnypraze

Hip Hop Head
I was just curious how you guys arrange your equipment in your racks...?

From top to bottom and why...

Also, I have a TrippLite Isobar for powering my equipment. Is it okay to have it right below or right above my Pre-amp or anything else where intereference/hum may come into play, if even possible...?

-JP
 
This is a really good question and a great topic for a discussion. There are so many ways to organize racks that there isn't any one way that is best for all situations. I'm looking forward to reading how others set up their racks.

What I do is like this:

I like to put similar types of gear together as much as possible. So compressors are racked together in the same rack, eq's are generally together as well. FX are also racked together. Synths and samplers are racked together. I find this helps the work flow and makes it easy to get in habits of reaching for the right places when I need something.

Items that I use a lot are in positions that are easier to reach and see than items I use less. Gear that has LCD displays is generally also at an easier level to see and reach than gear that has just a knob interface. This is because twiddling knobs can be done more by feel than by eyeballing menus on a small LCD.

I put power supplies low in the rack, on the bottom. I try to keep the power cords to the gear as short as necessary, and buy special power cords that are 1-3 feet long. This keep things a lot cleaner in the back of the rack and generally allows neater bundling of audio and power cables away from each other.

As far as a preamp I would keep that as far away from a power strip or any possible source of interference as possible.

Hope some of this helps.
 
You can usually arrange a rack in any way you see fit. most components are well shielded and you shouldn't have any grounding problems. the big problem is more logistical: you should organize your rack so that it is as neat a possible. there should be a "flow" of sound from one end to the other. I usually like to put things like tuners and input devices on the top, with other things like preamps, compressors, graphic EQs, active crossovers, effects processors in the middle, arranged such that sound flows down towards the bottom, which you would usually want your power amps in, as they are usually the heaviest thing in the amp, and you really don't want a top heavy rack, no matter how stable a rack case it is.

the power conditioner I usually like at the top, though you can put it in the middle, which might make more sense and then you can use the pop out LED lights that a lot of them have more effectively.
 
Man-this is such a tough question seeing that I have two devices in a 4U rackmount box. :D

The "tube" 1U pre sits halfway into the top slot. So there is a 1/2 U space above it in the case. Then there is a half of a rack mount space below the unit.
Then my 2U CD recorder occupies the lower portion of the 4U box.

I've taken the rig to places where the dirt just blows into the case and both pieces have lived to record another day. Recorder 1999/pre 2000.

I generally use the converters in the pre to feed the recorder via AES/EBU line.
 
I'm definitely small time but I put things in the same order as my signal chain would be. In one rack I have:

pre-amp
compressor
reverb
eq
delay

in the other rack I have:
power distributer
patchbay
patchbay
power distributer
delta 1010
 
you really don't want a top heavy rack, no matter how stable a rack case it is.

Amen to that! I have a rack on wheels, one of the fuzzy ones? It's got room for 18 single spaces on the bottom, and the lid opens up with another rack you can pull out of the top and use. I don't know off the top of my head how many spaces the top rack has...I've got stuff sitting on it.

When I first started filling it, I put in the Furman (?) power strip with pull out lights to shine down on the other units first, then proceeded to fill in the spaces under it.While I was doing this, it was shaking toward me!! :eek: I mean the thing is on wheels which helps in one way,but can be downright dangerous in another.

I ended up starting from the bottom.I have my mic pre (Focusrite TT) on the bottom with a space open above and below it.I know it probably doesn't need that much air around it to cool,but if you have the extra spaces, why not? I've heard most mic pre's run a little warm anyway.Then I worked my way up weight-wise, from heaviest to lightest.

I don't have any specific order as I never have more than two things running at once. Most of what I do can be done with short 1/4" cables, or midi cables.


J.P.
 
Group together all the things that you will be programming or tweaking the most often, like fx units, and put that group at eye level so you can program them easily while sitting at your mixer.

I have my rack mount synthesizers at eye level behind my keyboard so I can tweak sounds while I tap on the keys.
 
Yes, heat is a consideration, that's a good point. I also like to leave a little extra space around hot running units, and avoid putting two hot units above one another if at all possible.
 
My desk is all about "REACH" - I keep the most "unimportant" things (power, controllers, clocks, etc.) towards the tops and the stuff that I'm always using near the bottom. Some pieces (the Crane Song stuff) is where it is simply because I need to be able to clearly see exactly what the settings are easily when filling out recall sheets (which means seeing completely over the knobs). I'd have them on the very bottom, but the chassis are so deep that they had to be put up one space.

http://www.massivemastering.com/html/massive_photographs_0.html

It's not even quite the same as that photo anymore, but that's the general idea...
 
I like the answers so far.

Signal flow
Accessability/Frequency of use
Racked by weight
Grouped by type

All perfectly reasonable, in their own context. :D

Mine is set up pretty much like Albert's, except power at the top in two racks, because I have those pull out light dealies in those. The rest have power strips mounted in the back, so I don't waste a rack space on a power strip. I spent way too much time obsessing over which racks to put the lights in, so they would be useful if I stacked all my stuff up, or split it into two piles.

The problem I run into now is patching. My stuff is for live use, and now that I have a few nice EQs and pres, I get these visiting engineers that ask "Hey, can you patch this pre with that eq, and insert this compressor?" And of course they are all in different racks. *Sigh*. Time for some modded patchbays, I guess.
 
You need to either put a patchbay in each rack and use long patch cables, or have centrally located patchbays in your studio and use snakes to wire your gear in.

If your racks are in and out a lot because they are used for live work, it could make most sense to put a patchbay in each rack, wire the gear to that, and then use patch cables as long as you need to in order to be able to access all your gear.

In my studio I have all my gear wired into centrally located patchbays, which are all in one rack. However, there is one rack where I just didn't want all those cables running across the floor, so I put a patchbay in that rack for that gear and use patch cables that are anywhere between 3-5 feet long. It doesn't look pretty while in use, but it works fine and gives equal access to all the gear in that rack.
 
I am about to go through a complete restructuring to split my rack into two rigs for portability one rig for tracking and the other rig will stay at home for mixing.

The tracking rig will house my adat, my solitary channel strip and one or two dbx 163's ( I love them on b'drum, bass and especially electric guitar) and a patch bay.

The mix rig will house the RNC, whatever dbx163's I don't use, my eq and my effects boxes.
 
i just sold my only rack case.

and now i want another one. all i have right now though, is a power conditioner and my delta 1010. soon i will be getting a studio projects sp828. i imagine it will be set up like - power conditioner - sp828 - delta... but i have no idea. any recommendations?
 
I put the gear I tweak most at the top for better access, and the gear that I touch less ends towards the bottom; therefore, I put the power distribution at the bottom of my racks. I try to put gear that connects together as close to each other as posible. I find it is easier to debug problems that way.
 
I like my racks to be organized by gear type and usage.

The studio that I work in has it like this-

Far top left has the digital reverbs and effects units (at eye level so you're not layong on the floor looking at patch screens).

On the bottom left are the clocks and power supplies, with a space between the clock and power supply.

Middle rows are all of the compressors/limiters. Far right are the Preamps, EQ's, and gates on the bottom.
 
I rack them up by type, EQ's-Comps-preamps-sound modules-FX etc, and also I always put the EQ's on top, so when I adjust them, I'll still be within the sweetspot of my monitors, a thing that's not as important when adjusting sound modules and such.

Then, some things are very deep in the rack and have to be in certain positions cause I have angled racks, or they wont fit. Also, class A stuff tends to get a bit warm, so there's another consideration to make when putting some stuff close together.
 
For my 16 space FOH rack, I like to keep most used stuff at eye level. I put my rack on top of the snake case.

Furman AR15
Furman RR15
BBE 882i (for low volume gigs)
TC Electronics M-One XL (vocal efx)
Lexicon MPX-1 (Vocal efx)
Lexicon MPX-1 (drum efx)
Presonus ACP88 (8 channels comps and gates)
DBX 166xl (2 channels comps and gates)
DBX 166xl (2 channels comps and gates)
Klark Teknik DN360 (Mains EQ)
Gemini CDX 601 (CD player)
2 space drawer
 
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