Setting Up a Patch Bay

[boogle]

I do not have a lot of experience setting up a patch bay. I am building a studio for a school right now and want to know if it would be better to have the end of the snake that will connect the tracking room to the control room be TRS, which would then be plugged in to a patch bay. Or would it be better to have a custom built patch bay where the incoming snake is simply soldered on to the patch bay, instead of using connectors.

The studio is relatively small, we will have 14 XLR connectors a few balanced and unbalanced 1/4" and some XLR cue sends running through the snake. In the control room we will have the Mackie 1200F with 12 XLR ins, 2 line ins and 8 TRS outs. We will also have an Avalon 2022 pre which is xlr and a few other outboard pieces. 24 to 36 points at most for the bay.

Thanks for the help.

 

[Mindset]

I do not have a lot of experience setting up a patch bay. I am building a studio for a school right now and want to know if it would be better to have the end of the snake that will connect the tracking room to the control room be TRS, which would then be plugged in to a patch bay. Or would it be better to have a custom built patch bay where the incoming snake is simply soldered on to the patch bay, instead of using connectors.

The studio is relatively small, we will have 14 XLR connectors a few balanced and unbalanced 1/4" and some XLR cue sends running through the snake. In the control room we will have the Mackie 1200F with 12 XLR ins, 2 line ins and 8 TRS outs. We will also have an Avalon 2022 pre which is xlr and a few other outboard pieces. 24 to 36 points at most for the bay.

Thanks for the help.

It would be better soldered onto the patch bay, but sometimes gear changes constantly and that's not logical.

 

[boogle]

Is it better soldered just because of sound quality or are their other reasons?

 

[Mindset]

I would say yes, it's better to have a hard wired connection than to plug something in. Gives better quality supposedly.

 

[boogle]

Thanks, I am curious, due to the convenience of having TRS snake ends plugged into a patch bay, how many people can honestly say they have heard the difference of a soldered connection vs. a jack into a connector?

 

[MOFO Pro]

Thanks, I am curious, due to the convenience of having TRS snake ends plugged into a patch bay, how many people can honestly say they have heard the difference of a soldered connection vs. a jack into a connector?

You're not really going to notice a difference in sound quality during regular use... but the soldered connection is more reliable, more dependable; oxidation won't effect it, and you can't inadvertantly pull connections out a notch or two... but it's not as conveinient if you're going to be doing a lot component swapping

So it's really just a question of convenience vs. reliabilty...

 

[brendandwyer]

I would say yes, it's better to have a hard wired connection than to plug something in. Gives better quality supposedly.

a well planned setup would benefit from soldered connections.

But to compromise, soldering recorder ins/outs, console tape ins, console inserts, aux busses, groups, stereo busses would be safe, those are not likely to change. Soldering in preamps and your effects rack might become tedious as those items may change.

Although, like i said, if your ENTIRE setup is planned and a schematic is prepared, you shouldn't worry about soldering your connections.

 

[MadAudio]

If you're planning to use these connections for mics (especially phantom powered ones) then don't. You run the risk of shorting out the connection (and potentially killing any condensors) if you "hot patch." You should determine which are going to be dedicated mic patches and run those terminus ends directly to the console and/or mic preamps. Use the patchbays for line level signals.

 

[MadMax]

If you're planning to use these connections for mics (especially phantom powered ones) then don't. You run the risk of shorting out the connection (and potentially killing any condensors) if you "hot patch." You should determine which are going to be dedicated mic patches and run those terminus ends directly to the console and/or mic preamps. Use the patchbays for line level signals.

This is probably the most important post in this thread. DO NOT PATCH MICS!