I need some info if u guys dont mind...

Im setting up my patchbay, Im going from my desk to my bays b/c i have 4 iso booths with all xlr wall mounts in the booths to XLR connectors in the control room. Then Running into a 48 point 1/4" TRS bay to the desk.

my question...

From Booth(wall mounted XLR)> to XLR bay> to (XLR)PRE(with phantom power on)>(XLR)Compressor> out of XLR bay> to 1/4" TRS balanced patchbay >XLR on Desk

I could go TRS out of compressor> to the TRS bay> to the XLR on the desk. But Im not sure if that would make a difference either.

Can I still blow anything either way?? The connection is made to the pahntom power 1st .So Im assuming the pre's will take the brunt of any short. I just dont want it blowing anything on the board if one were to occur.

I know it's taboo to run phantom power thru ur bay but as long as phantom power is off you wont blow a thing... but good luck at that your going forget at some point. Im speaking from experience here :

So what say you?

I never use mic channels on patchbays, avoid them all the time. Technically you should be fine, but personally I'm a fan of hardwired microphone into the desk with the least amount of connections as possible, let alone a patchbay in there.
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Recording Studio Suntans

thx for the response ,

I totally agree with the hardwired XLR to the desk best bet no doubt.
My problem is I have 4 rooms with 16 channels in the big room and drum booths and 8 channels per in the vocal and bass booths.

What would you think of a custom bay for the rooms meaning...

BASS,DRUM,VOCAL,BIG RROM> 4x IN patchbay>1x OUT to Desk.

Basically having all rooms daisychained to a patchbay in the control room to the desk. Obviously ill only be able to use one room at a time but 99% of the time we track here anyways. Live recordings are few and far between.

thx again

The way I have done this is to have a wall box in each room with tails the other end which can be plugged into the main XLR box hard wired to the console next door.

So for four rooms you'd have tails, snakes which you can plug into any hardwired channel.

Make sense?
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Recording Studio Suntans

ya i think so..

in other words, pick a wall box as my main in for the desk then run a snake to the other rooms as needed... alot less to hook up for sure.

Its just i got all these wall boxes to nowhere then, + everything is double doored so getting the snake into the other room would be impossible b/c of the pressure sweeps on the doors.

guess ima try the daisy chain i think thats my best bet. should clean up the bay and make it more efficient anywyas.

thx for the input tho man. somtimes just talking about it helps u decide what to do.

peace

I didn't explain it that well.

Yes one main wall box for the desk inputs, but the remote rooms also have permanent wall boxes too, with the cables going through the wall, permanently, and then the end of those snakes have the tails, which come out near the main XRL box..

So in room 4 you plug mics in as normal to the wall box, then just plug that tail channel in to which ever XRL on the main box to desk.

But sure talking is goo


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Recording Studio Suntans

All good man,

but i got it now .

All the wall boxes were originally set to 24 XLR hardwired to the bantam bay. But since im going with a Digidesign Control24 this time around, I decided to kill off 4 channels in each wall box because the board is only 16ch. So in each bay i still have 4 open channels for phantom power, of which I'll only ever need 2 if that. So i have 2 left if anything else goes wrong for back up.

Ayways heres the plan...

XLR (Roomsx4) > 1/4" TRS(stereo) (Control Room) > 2x 1/4" TRS 16 Input bays. (Normaled).

The beauty of this is the cable pulls thru the walls. 3x 32pr cables, cable 1 = ch 1-12 split between the big room and drum booth(wall mounts on either side of the wall). Cable 2 = split big rooms and drum booth ch 13-24. And cable 3 = 1-12 vocal booth split to 13-24 bass booth. This way my normal in the bay will stay true to their perspective channels in the bays & rooms. The other 8 channels on each cable are used for headphones or line ins.
No phantom power will go thru this part of the bay. But any non-phantom powered mics can run thru here ie.. Sure SM57-58 etc....
Then....

XLR Rooms (6x wall boxes) 2 ch per wall box > XLR Control room > Hosa 12ch XLR bay (Control room) > 2x Hosa XLR bays ch 1-16 (DESK).

Not being able to punch in a cable to the desk just wasnt an option for me, as I will be adding more gear in the near futre...most likley a 2 inch machine. So my main patchbay to the Desk will be the 2x Hosa XLR bays Ch 1-16. I will ofcourse need to make 2 types of patch cables XLR-XLR and 1/4" TRS> XLR but thatll take all of 3 hrs.

Btw http://www.amabilidade2002.com/plugsjacks27.htm great prices on jacks, mounts and whatnot.

It also gives me access to 8 more open channels to hook up the ins and outs of my tube compressor & pre's in the XLR bay. While still leaving 12 dead channels total (wall mount 2x each room) for back up... or if I ever go back to 24 trk??
At any rate Im glad I got to write this down to get it the hell out of my head. And gratefull for the input as well. 1st there is the thoery. Then getting it on paper. Which is where i am now. Next is application... Wish me luck fellas I'm goin in.

Peace and thx again man for ur help its been invaluable.