Using Patchbay & Hardware with 3200/4800

[noah330]

Anyone using a patchbay or more then one or two external pieces of gear out there?

If so, I was curious as to how you were wiring everything up.

 

[TascMan]

I have two patchbays, one on top of the other. They are both Behringer UltraPatch Pros, PX3000 balenced patchbays. I had to come up with a diagram for myself to reference whenever I needed to patch something so I have attched that file to this reply. The owners manual from the Behringer website is a good place to start for the basics of wiring up patchbays. The difference between "normaled", "half-normaled" and "through" are explained there. Hopefully my patchbay diagram semi explains how I have wired up mine. Obviously, on my diagram, TH means "through"; NORM means "normaled" and I don't think I have anything half-normaled, so there you go. enjoy,
s

 

[noah330]

Cool, I see you have the analog card installed, which is what I'm thinking about doing.

On your lower bay, are you using the inserts on channels?

 

[TascMan]

Yes, on the DM's channels 1-8. I don't usually use all of them but I wanted to make the insert points available. I also really love the flexability of having the Analog card and the patchbays. I do like to patch my kick and snare top through a dbx 166xl, for initial compression and some gating. I can do this by running a small patchcable from the insert point's send, lets say CH 1 from the DM (CH 9 OUT on the lower patchbay) to the dbx's in on it's left channel, (CH 19 IN on the upper patchbay), adjust as needed, then out of the dbx's ch1 (CH 19 OUT on upper) to the DM's CH1 return (CH 9 IN on lower patchbay).

The important part is that when using a patchbay this way, you have to keep the IN and OUT patchbay points NORMALED to mimik the closed loop that exists within the actual insert point on the mixer. The loop is only broken when you plug in a patch cable. Once the effect has been patched IN and OUT the loop is now reconnected, only now the comp (or effect) is effecting the signal. But you only want to do this when patching an effects loop or insert points from a mixer or preamp. You do NOT do this (select a normaled patch point) when you have the INs and OUTs of a device that is not normally returning it's signal back to itself like an effects loop would. For instance, when you hook up a preamp, or better yet a tape deck to your patchbay, you don't want to plug it's output into a normaled patchbay point that has the same CH input because you would then have a feedback loop that could damage your device. Look at lower patchbay CHs 1-8. These are my MOTU's analog INs and OUTs. I have these set to "through" which mimiks the actual INs and OUTs of the back of the device. You wouldn't want to plug a patch cable from the OUT straight back into the IN on the back of the unit, as this could damage the unit. That is why I don't have these points set to "Normaled"

However, if you typically want a couple of devices to always play together and then return that effected signal, normaling can be very handy. For example, on upper patchbay CHs 9-10, I have the DM's analog "Assign Send" outputs (usually a stereo signal from the left and right outs from my computer's DAW---NOT the DM's stereo Buss send for feedback reasons) patched to this point. Now, I COULD go out from those patchbay channels to anywhere else I want via a couple of patch cables. BUT, when I don't want to do that, I have them "normaled" to the inputs of an ART PRO VLAII. So, as long as I don't have any other use for the assign sends, they are constantly feeding the input of the VLAII, (upper patchbay 9-10 INs) which is always shown on the VLA's Meters. Now, I have the VLA's outs patched back into the upper patcbay's 11-12 OUT points. I could easily access these via a pair of patch cables and send them whereever I want OR, I could keep them "normaled" back to the DM via the Assign Returns. I then send the assign returns to a paired set of input channels back to the DM and out the DM's Stereo buss for monitoring. Piece of cake!! Hope that helps and doesn't confuse...S

 

[Jarno]

For meone of the advatages of DM-4800 is not needing a patch bay. While I have some outboard gear I can have them patched to my DM's assignable S/R's and analog card and do patching inside DM's router.

Now, fill your DM's expansion slots with 3 analog cards (1 still reserved for FW card), you can have 32 channels of outboard gear connected. Quite enough for everyone except big studios.

Only situation in which this doesn't work, is if you want to patch your outboard before A/D conversion. But try to avoid processing audio during tracking, anyway, so when I was shopping for a digital console, I decided I want to get rid of the patch bay for good ... which left me with one option under €10 000 price range: DM-4800.

 

[Arjan P]

I use three patch panels: 1 Neutrik NYS-SPP-Y (balanced 24 ch, half-normaled) connects my CD, MD and synth analog outputs to the 16 line ins on the board, plus has the ASN 1-4 and ASR 1-4 connected to two stereo effectors. Another Neutrik has all other DM analog ins and outs connected, plus analog compressor sidechains and headphone amp outs to studio positions. 1 Fostex 3013 (unbalanced 16 ch) connects as insert patcher for each channel, making the use of analog compressors during recording flexible. This one I changed to half-normaled so I can tap off any of the 16 channel inputs for other external use.

 

[Antony]

I have two patchbays, one on top of the other. They are both Behringer UltraPatch Pros, PX3000 balenced patchbays. I had to come up with a diagram for myself to reference whenever I needed to patch something so I have attched that file to this reply. The owners manual from the Behringer website is a good place to start for the basics of wiring up patchbays. The difference between "normaled", "half-normaled" and "through" are explained there. Hopefully my patchbay diagram semi explains how I have wired up mine. Obviously, on my diagram, TH means "through"; NORM means "normaled" and I don't think I have anything half-normaled, so there you go. enjoy,
s

Pretty much the same as mine. I know you can do it all in the dm patchbays just feel normal.

 

[Bottomend]

i use DM3200's adat IO and a converter for patching my outboard gear and assign with internal routing ...being able to insert hardware into a channel in PT or into stem returns or 2bus this routing config is extremly easy and no patchbay needed

 

[rmandelbaum]

I am looking at at the analog card, how do you connect your external preamps to the db25 connectors?

 

[Jarno]

how do you connect your external preamps to the db25 connectors?

http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/DTF803/
http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/DTP803/

 

[rmandelbaum]

Very cool, thank you

 

[mrtepayne]

I have a question. I have a M-Audio Delta 1010. Can you use just the breakout box and cable to connect to the TDIF port for expansion?

 

[TascMan]

Please dont hijack this thread. Ask your question in a new thread started by you.
For a quick answer, no. Your Delta 1010 breakout box has analog signals going through the D25 cable. The A to D conversion happens in the PCI card in your computer. TDIF is an 8 channel digital connection, similar to ADAT or AES/EBU. Any signal going to or from a TDIF interface is already in digital form.

 

[mrtepayne]

Thanks for answering my question. I thought my question was a hardware question as was the question by rmandelbaum about connecting a preamp.
.

Please dont hijack this thread. Ask your question in a new thread started by you.
For a quick answer, no. Your Delta 1010 breakout box has analog signals going through the D25 cable. The A to D conversion happens in the PCI card in your computer. TDIF is an 8 channel digital connection, similar to ADAT or AES/EBU. Any signal going to or from a TDIF interface is already in digital form.