Signal flow with patchbay and interface

[CheddarBae]

I’m trying to wrap my head around how to configure my signal flow, and for some reason I am just so confused about how to incorporate a patchbay into this configuration of gear.



Here is everything I'm trying to set up:

8ch XLR snake

Behringer Uphoria UMC1820

iMac

(Monitors are controlled via Behringer Monitor2USB)



Outboard:

Golden Age Project Pre-73

DBX 363x 2ch Dual Gate

Peavey 2ch Comp/Expander/Limiter

DBX 286s

Pioneer Spring Reverb (RCA in/out)



Okay. So I’m trying to incorporate a Behringer Ultrapatch (48-point) patchbay in order to use the outboard gear. I’ve drawn diagrams and watched a bunch of videos, and I’m just getting more and more confused about what to do. My main source of confusion is this. My snake inputs/outputs are obviously XLR (and several of my mics require phantom). How do I get those signals into a standard TRS patchbay, so that I can route them into the outboard gear? This seems like it should be so much easier for me to wrap my head around, but for some reason it just confuses the absolute hell out of me to try to understand what I’m doing here. How would you personally set all of this up, if it were you?



Thanks for any help/advice.

(Side note: I also have a Tascam Model 12 that I could incorporate into this if it would somehow help this situation.)

 

[rob aylestone]

remember most of that gear needs line level inputs and don't connect directly to mics? You feed the mics to the normal mic inputs and then use line outputs. The preamp you have has a line level out, so you have a bit of a mis-mach of things. Personally I'd NOT run it through the patch as that would require XLR to jacks and jacks to XLRs and always mean you can shove line level into a mic level input? The biggest snag is the interface - it has mic and line on one socket, so pretty inconvenient if there's a patch panel - I guess it depends on what your normal way of working is? You have outputs from it to the patch and then you could run say, 6 inputs from the patchbay outboard 3 x stereo? Leaving 2 xlr/2line on front panel - but this reduces the versatility of a patchbay. It could be simpler to just draw out your normal signal path and scrap the patch idea - because you will still be unplugging things at the back to attach more mics?

 

[CheddarBae]

Thanks for the feedback. I will consider nixing the patchbay and finding another solution.

 

[Ujn Hunter]

I have the same Behringer Uphoria UMC1820 Interface, but I use Samson S-Patch Plus 48-point Balanced Patchbays. Just remember that Signal Flow goes like a Waterfall Through the Patchbay... Sound Flows out the Top and into the Bottom. My Samson S-Patch Plus has selectors on the front for Normal/HalfNormal/Thru which is SUPER convenient. The only thing that I don't run Through the Patchbays are Mics.