Not educated enough for this sh... I mean patchbays, HELP?

[Adrian Lancer]

I'm gonna start off apologizing for my ADD, It's not allowing me to not squirrel out on all the threads so I can focus finding this info without asking..... took me 3 hours to type this. Imagine how long it takes me to do a song when I get squirreled out!

So, I have a Tascam dp24 with 8 mono inputs panned L/R --A-G , respectively. I have 2 sends, and each send takes 2 tracks (totaling 4 if you're bad at mathing) if I want a stereo return, which I do. Figures right(?), I want a bit of quality to my sound. Go ME! Also, I'm always having to unplug tracks 3 & 4 to change my drums to my keys and to my MP3 player, assuming I want to rock the heck out to my rock n roll mentors. So I want to get all of my FX (and any more I might add) running in stereo and running together, if I want them too, and have them all end up on 7/8, the channels I want to dedicate to FX signal return. I want my drums, keys, and MP3, and/or anything else I have permanently plugged in to the bay to be able to use 3/4/5/6 (or 1 & 2 for that matter) anytime they want independently or together. Is this possible to do? do I need more than 1 patchbay? am I just nuts? I'm sure this is possible, right?

Here's some poorly drawn lines and wiggles illustrating my crappiness at making block diagrams, just to show you what I'm doing now... I know I have my Tascam inputs marked on paper (accidentally) as 1-8 instead of A-G -sorry, and the individual tracks 1-24 are panned as needed. The reason I'm so dedicated to stereo returns, is it allows the first 12 tracks to monitor and master in stereo even though they're mono. I kind of like having 18 stereo tracks instead of 6. So glad I figured that out, it improved the quality of the recordings, to be sure. And to reclaim 5/6 as I find it a waste to have 4 FX returns! And I'd like to not use an external mixer, too much lost space. Thanks folk for any and all help. Remember, the best Jams pair well with Cannabis Sativa. Peace, my friends.

 

[rob aylestone]

Sorry but I gave up on the diagram. I can’t follow your process. The idea for using patchbays is to design them so that the most common connections are made internally through the normalling with no patch cables required. So redraw the diagram with the sources on the left, or the top, and the destinations on the right or bottom. The ‘main’ patch the way it will be connected most of the time. then, when you need to record one of the second string sources, you have its output on the top row somewhere, and you put a couple of cables into the bottom row destination as required. Try to redraw it so your sound sources come out of the top row and your destinations are on the bottom, and your plan follows this. I always use excel. Two rows mimicking the patch bay, and you slip and slide to get the simplest system. The aim is to pull all the cables out and have the internal normalling make your system work. Patching extras is then using a minimal number of cables. Remember sound always comes out the top row sockets, and sound goes into bottom row sockets. Normalling is crucial and must be part of the plan.