Questions on Patchbays....

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mofat

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1) Anything wrong with using TS instead of TRS cables when connecting OUT to IN on the front panel?
2) For connecting a pre-amp to the back of the patchbay...do you use the Line out or Mic out on the pre-amp?
3) For connecting an interface to the patchbay, do you use Line Out or Mic Out?
 
1) With most modern gear it won't hurt anything, as long as you're cool with giving up the benefit of balanced connections. Unless your room is really noisy or the runs are really long, it's probably not a problem. There are some types of balanced outputs which can be damaged by shorting the ring to the sleeve, but I'd be kinda surprised if you had any.

2 and 3) What preamp or interface has mic outs? What's the point of a mic out from a preamp? Is it a parallel split of the input? Anyway, the right answer is that you connect the ones that you want to use. Probably the 1/4" line outs, but...
 
mofat said:
1) Anything wrong with using TS instead of TRS cables when connecting OUT to IN on the front panel?
Click to expand...

If the cable connected to the back of the patch bay is unbalanced (like the usual insert cable) then there's no advantage to using balanced patch cables on the front. If the connections to the back are balanced but you don't get hum/buzz or other problems when using unbalanced patch cables then there's no advantage to switching to balanced, but it would technically be preferable to maintain balanced signal all the way through.
 
Thanks for the quick reply. I have a nice LA610 preamp that I want to use with all my different interfaces. It's hard to let go of your gears ya know! I've seen a guy on youtube connecting his dynamic mic to a 1/4 adapter and plug that to the back of his patchbay...does that degrade the signal when you go from xlr to 1/4 like that??
 
mofat said:
I've seen a guy on youtube connecting his dynamic mic to a 1/4 adapter and plug that to the back of his patchbay...does that degrade the signal when you go from xlr to 1/4 like that??
Click to expand...

TRS and XLR are electrically interchangeable. But TRS shorts when you connect it and it doesn't lock. XLR locks and doesn't short, but the panel connectors generally don't have switching to normal one to another.
 
With a dynamic mic, it isn't a big deal. With a condenser, phantom power can be a problem with a trs patchbay. This is because for the brief time you are plugging it in, you are shorting things together and/or sending power to parts of the mic that should not get it. This is why mic connections on a 1/4 inch patch bay is generally a bad idea.

You also seem to be confused about the inputs and outputs on your gear.

If you have both a 1/4 and XLR output on your preamp, they are both line level outputs. They just installed the two different connections for convienience. Do not confuse the type of connector with the type of signal it carries. As you saw in the video, both can carry a mic signal, both can carry a line signal.

The place you plug the mic into is the mic INPUT. The only reason I point that out is because some people call all the connections 'outputs' and it confuses anyone trying to help. Since you were talking about a mic output on a mic preamp, (mic preamps don't have mic outputs) you were either calling the mic input an output, or calling the XLR line output a 'mic output'. I jusy wanted to cover both bases.
 
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