New Console - Wiring Logistics

  • Thread starter Thread starter Phyl
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Phyl

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I'll be building a desk to house my new mixer and DAW (Midas Venice, 24 channel, HD192) and need to start laying out plans for patch bays, snakes, etc.

I've got some general questions:

1 - Some people use solderable patch bays rather than the plug/jack variety. Is the reason for this simply economy? Fewer plugs to buy?

2 - Getting mic lines to/from the recording room. Any advantages/disadvantages to using a snake & breakout box versus a bunch of individual cable runs going to a wall panel? Any issues with signal degradation using a snake? Any thing else to consider here?
 
As far as patchbays go, the solder-type bays will probably be more reliable (and more expensive) than the non-solder types. With the non-solder types the cables on the back have a tendency to come loose and are difficult to verify sometimes (depending on your setup and ease of getting to things). I have some of both and the solder type have never given me any problems whilst I've had loose connections develop on the other type. If you like to buy pre-manufactured cables and not do a lot of soldering yourself, then the non-solder type will be for you, but just be aware of the pitfalls. They are definitely easier to re-configure than the solder type are.

As far as the snake goes, yeah, it will work just fine. The primary advantage of wall plates is that you can do a better job of sealing both sides of the wall with wall plates that are staggered in location so they don't go directly through the wall which creates a nice sneak path for audio leaks to/from control room/live room. As long as the snake is a decent quality unit that hasn't been beaten up with too much road abuse it should be fine for signal quality (but be sure to check it out if there is any question in your mind).

Sounds like your setup is going to be sweet. Have fun,
Darryl.....
 
Thanks for the insights Darryl.

I'm no stranger to soldering, I spent 7 years in the military fixing ground based radars. I've done a little more research on the soldered patch bays and came to the same conclusion, it's definitely not the cheaper way to go.

Your point about getting the cables from the control room to the live room is interesting. I've been struggling with how to do it without compromising whatever sound treatment I put up.
 
Phyl said:
1 - Some people use solderable patch bays rather than the plug/jack variety. Is the reason for this simply economy? Fewer plugs to buy?
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Yes, economy is part of it, and not appreciating the true quality of switchcraft, ADC and Gentner class patch bays is the other. Not everyone wants to spend $400 list on a 144 jack bantam patch bay, and spend 6 hours soldering it up. But on the flip side, I have some patch bays here that are easily 30 years old - and they work like new, regardless how they look. Buy once, buy for life.

Phyl said:
2 - Getting mic lines to/from the recording room. Any advantages/disadvantages to using a snake & breakout box versus a bunch of individual cable runs going to a wall panel? Any issues with signal degradation using a snake? Any thing else to consider here?
Click to expand...

I see no issues with snakes. I just ran twenty 24-ch snake cables in the floor. If the cable is quality (Mogomi, Canare, etc) then I wouldn't worry about it. If it's radio shack microphone cable bought by the spool, well, it's really not good stuff.

While either would work, I wanted the jackplate flush mounted into the wall. Just made sense to me. I even made the box.

IM000852.JPG
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Nice job!
They look like they keep things very organized
 
SillySillyStacy said:
Nice job!
They look like they keep things very organized
Click to expand...

frederic is the proverbial Shizzlenit when it comes to quality DIY studio building! HE HE :D
 
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