How I Wired My Patchbay

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[@outernationalstudios]

Man- I have been struggling with installing a bunch of patch bays in my studio for the first time ever in 20 years, and I've been having a really tough time. I watch this channel a lot and I love it. So I come across this video first thing this morning and I'm like- finally! I can finally get some knowledge about how patch bays really work cause Barry always breaks it down. And I get my pen and notepad out and as soon as I start to put pen to paper- video edit- Barry says "i mean the opposite of what I'm saying about normal and not normal." I try and continue and watch, my head explodes immediately and I'm just thinking. This has been such a struggle for me, and I can't be the only person to ever struggle to understand patchbays- it would have been so much more awesome if this video got re- done and I didn't have to try and re- interpret every time he says normal and not normal. So my confusion will last a while longer cause I just cant- love ya Barry- and love your channel- and I'll continue watching your awesome content but please- re do this video where it's not opposite day!

[@michaelrice6620]

Thank you for all the valuable info you share on here there arent many people that share the type of full descriptive info like you do! Most creators cater to beginner level engineers but very very few cater to engineers in the intermediate range trying to upgrade and expand their studio. Ive learned some good stuff from your channel thank you!

[@BarryJohns]

Thanks Michael, glad I could help!

[@PeterUrbanPhoto]

Super helpful, Thank You!

[@kenmadewell6202]

From my previous comment on carbon I/O Great video. Never crossed my mind to patch example eq into compressor fo instance.for inserts. I’ve always had enough I/O for each hardware piece. But If I go with carbon that was a concern. Thanks I’m with you I’m 67 years old and this is a major passion.

[@TheStudio49]

Great video as always but would love to see behind the racks !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[@tonymascarenhas5754]

Very interesting Barry. Pls mention the patchbay make demonstrated in this video

[@brendanlamarca7764]

Switchcraft

[@JimCaputoMusic]

Barry, who makes those gear racks? They're nicer than what I usually see people using.

[@shapeshiftersmediagroup]

Amazing video! I just got a patchbay and I think you may have answered the question I was asking myself....whether or not I could get a condensor mic plugged into the patchbay without getting an XLR patchbay. I see you have the XLR cable of your mic going into phantom power and straight into the patchbay. Would this work with me hooking the XLR of my mic into a preamp, then using an XLR to TRS cable that goes into the patchbay?

[@ISLANDVISUALS309]

show uss the full set up not just the front hookups ive been looking for days and cannot find a single right video about how to fully connect a patchbay

[@gitarman666]

He is showing you, by virtue of showing the front of the labeled PB Imagine it without the trs patch cables and just look at the labeled bay Let’s call the far left holes channel 1 He explained the top of the bay are the outs and the bottom are the ins So the first bottom hole to the far left, is labeled Mic GR and it’s a bottom so it’s an input The letters GR stand for his Great River Pre amp So when he plugs his trs mic cable into that hole on the front, his Great River preamp is plugged into the back of the same hole If you could see the back you would see a trs patch cable coming from the out of the Great River and plugging into the same hole Just on the other side So channel one connects his mic input to his GR input using the patch Bay The top, (still channel one) but this time it’s an out because the top holes are outputs On the other side it’s connected to the output of his preamp From that output he connects another trs cable to the input of the interface so back to the bottom the ins If you could see the back you would see a cable going from that hole to his interface So just imagine there were no patchbay he would be plugging his mic into the input of the preamp with the mic cable Next he would plug from his output of the same preamp and that cable is going to his interface (he chose channel three but it could have been any available channel) The mic routes through the preamps in and out and to the interface so it can get into the computer DAW like ProTools, logic, Ableton, studio one,,any DAW That’s it, it’s that simple just apply that though process to everything you see routed in a normal PB situation, of course he’s explaining a few different advanced things he likes to do and that’s his option But for starters just keep it simple Your next step learning Full normalled, Half Normalled and or Non-Normalled (thru) and that can get tricky but it’s not hard it applies to each channel (one top output over one bottom input is a channel) Good luck

[@payneparis]

Hello! Great video! I would like to hear your thoughts on flock audio patch. Give insights of what the pros and cons are to it. Thank you

[@teashea1]

The RE20 sounds good.

[@Billsoundmaster]

Good video. Patching and patch bays are in my opinion are so overlooked when people build home studios. But once someone realizes how convenient it is to use a patch bay rather than poking around behind racks to change how things are hooked up. One word of caution in putting microphone signals on patchs, phantom power should be turned off before any patch cord is inserted or removed from a Jack going to a mic. Pre.. There is a possibility of shorting the phantom power, I have heard stories of preamps being damaged. Also keep microphone patches clean, a little DeoxIT on a noisy Jack does wonders

[@BarryJohns]

Good advice!

[@Mtaalas]

I can hear a glitch in the audio when you touch that patch cable... contacts are wonky, patch cord is wonky or combination of those two :)

[@johnc.4625]

Thanks!

[@BarryJohns]

🙏

[@johnc.4625]

Enjoy your videos. Can you tell me why the BACK of the switch craft db25 says ins on top. Are they really outs, where for instance I would plug my interface outs to?

[@BarryJohns]

Yes your device outputs go on the top. You would look at the patchbay’ stop row the exact same way you would look at any devices outputs.

[@CP-mt1st]

Yo Barry. Preamp inputs shouldn’t be on trs/bantam patch bay due to phantom power shorting during insert. To be safe its recommended to use separate xlr patch bay for preamp inputs and plug mics into that.

[@BarryJohns]

That’s only the case when you have phantom power always on. It’s not really about the physical connection but rather the power source. As long as Phantom Power is turned off until after you make the connection….no issues.

[@CP-mt1st]

@@BarryJohns haha 😂 classic! Yeah I got the studio patch xlr matching unit for the preamp ins. Thanks for all your videos man! I’ve been watching the “Barry channel” all week

[@ezrashanti]

@@CP-mt1st Using xlr patchbays for all mic level inputs is over the top for most people. Leave phantom off until patching is complete.

[@CP-mt1st]

@@ezrashanti Interesting. Must be a lot of crawling behind a rack if you want to try out different preamps?

[@JedWunderli]

How do you like your Warm Audio rack-mount gear? I'm thinking of getting a few pieces and would like an honest opinion from someone who owns them. Thanks.

[@BarryJohns]

Jed, Joe summed it up nicely, WA is sonically better than KT, I would recommend spending the extra $$$. KT stuff is good for the money, but you get what you pay for. Capi, Black Lion Audio, Hairball, all are great options. I can see the justification of spending the $$$ on original UA/API, when these clones get very close, not as close, but close enough to me. It was obvious to me that the WA beat all the plugins…..well, in my example. I’ll be doing another one with LA2A clones/plugins soon.

[@lancetownsend6226]

I wasn't very impressed with the WA-76 I had. It was extremely harsh/shrill and had a high noisefloor. I can't speak to their other units like the WA-2A. I'm sure the tube helps. But the wa-76 shook my personal confidence in warm audio

[@ezrashanti]

@@lancetownsend6226 Warm is cheap you get what you pay for.

[@lancetownsend6226]

@@ezrashanti agreed. The results I got after testing it against a genuine modern 76-LN, vintage bluestripe, and BF-76 plugin, warm audio was pretty pathetic in comparison. The free pro tools plugin much closer resembled the genuine unit than the 600 dollar warm audio unit. When I bought it, I was hoping for it to hold up to people's reviews, but it absolutely didn't unfortunately (I recorded a quick guitar take and multed it in the DAW to channels 1-3 on an SSL 4000 E, ran the compressors on the inserts. Tried different channels, different patch cables, and I even went to the projects office at my school to borrow a wa-76 they had laying in the back. Both WA units sounded equally bad unfortunately. The higher the ratio, the harsher it got. Anything above a 4:1 and it no question, the output sounded far worse than the input signal. Way higher noisefloor and it has this awful high frequency resonance through the WA unit

[@ernieg]

I got more time than money.