How can I route this to my patchbay?

[Roomfortwo]

I have a couple of audio routing questions involving gear I have. What I want to achieve is have all my two synths, my electronic drums, my signal from my guitar amp (going through pedals and is also mic’ed vía two 57’s), my bass which runs straight ITB, and another microphone (‘58) but have them all be able to record and then be patched into outboard gear and then brought back into my session to record through my Neutrik NYS patchbay.

I usually have all of this go into my Saffire Liquid 56 interface which then enters my DAW. My first question is this: I don’t have outboard mic pre-amps, but this interface as I understand it has 8 channels of mic pres? The first two are actually special channels which only work through XLR and then there are two channels (3&4) which have ‘INSTRUMENTS’ connections but also contain normal XLR and 1/4” balancef connections in the back. What I’d be doing then is using the line outputs of every channel and bring them into the bottom row of the back of the back patchbay right? Then I’d have all my keyboards, synths, microphones, and guitars hooked up on the top row on the back of the patchbay

THIS IS SETUP IN A HALF NORMALLED CONNECTION RIGHT? That way I just set my I/O’s in my DAW and just go to town?

For outboard gear I switched my PCB to what is it’s ‘THRU’ connection and it is here where I connect the outs of them into the bottom of the back and then from the input of the effect go to the top of the back right?

I have two problems on my that seem to be confusing me however though: my looper used in my guitar chain I want my synth or whatever I want to run through it so this calls for a thru connection at the patchbay right? Can I just plug in my output and input of my pedal into my patchbay how I do a rack unit?

[vurt]

Can I just plug in my output and input of my pedal into my patchbay how I do a rack unit?

yup.

[Roomfortwo]

I’m good as far as the rest goes right? Is there someone I can message for more help on this in case I have more questions?

[sin night]

Patchbay rules (try to stick with them - you can sometimes break them, but try to avoid it):

- Signal flows from top to bottom, so you usually have outputs on top row and inputs on bottom row (so keyboard outputs on top row, soundcard inputs on bottom row).
- When you want a connection active by default (for example a synth into the soundcard), configure that part of the patchbay as half normalled (with a Neutrik NYS patchbay, that means placing the key/white jack hole on the front bottom row, so the normalling breaks when you decide to connect something else to the input).
- Outboard/fx which is meant to be connected occasionally should be connected with a thru connection (key/white jack hole on the back of the patchbay), with inputs on bottom row and output on the top row (use the same position, avoid placing input on 8 and output on 9).
- Outboard/fx which is always (or 95% of the time) placed in a certain chain, could be half normalled as well (so, if you have a compressor dedicated to a certain synth, it could make sense to half normalling the synth into the outboard inputs and then the outboard outputs into the soundcard inputs, although this forces you - unless you have multiple rows of patchbay - to have the outboard I/O placed on different positions, say input on 9-10 and outputs on 7-8... discretion is advisable; on my setup, none of the outboard/fx is connected this way, I used some thru connections and patch cables even for my H9 and TimeFactor which I use always on my mixer sends).
- Insert/sidechain connetions (for example if you have a compressor which allows for processing the sidechain / use an external sidechain): always half normalled in my book [edit: I forgot this point when I first wrote the post]
- If you need to break the "top-output/bottom-input" rule (for example you need to group some individual outputs from a drum machine because you don't have much space left on the patchbay), always use a thru connection.
- If you bring some outputs to the patchbay but then you leave them unconnected (for example you have some individual outputs from a drum machine on the top row, but you have no inputs on the bottom row), never leave them half normalled, always use a thru or split configuration (this prevents that mixing two outputs directly if after some time you connect another other output on the back bottom row - mixing two outputs directly without a resistive network is bad for the electronics, this way you prevent you making this mistake, which can happen if you need to make some changes to the patchbay on the fly, without fully reconfiguring it).
- If you bring some inputs on the patchbay without anything normalled into them, then use a thru configuration (so there's no chance you could normal into those inputs something unintended if you make some changes on the fly, you're forced to open and reconfigure the patchbay).
- Try to place the connections so the I/O you'll most likely patch in a chain are close, so you can use shorted cables and avoid spaghetti (so, don't place a keyboard on 1-2 and the outboard you're likely to patch on 23-24).
- If a gear has multiple I/O (for example the multiple inputs of a soundcard), try to place them next to each other, so they are grouped and you don't need to search the whole patchbay when you need to patch something.
- As a personal choice, I avoid connecting pedals on the back of the patchbay, unless I'm absolutely sure I will never ever move them from their position for a long time; usually I patch them on the fly (so I connect them on the front with patch cables in between the default routes). If an instrument is not close to the patchbay and I often want to use pedals with it, then I make some short-medium extension cables, so I can easily break the connection at the close to the instrument output and add a pedal with just an additional patch cable.


So, to anwer your question (if I understood them correctly):
- connect the outputs of your synths to the top row of the patchbay and the corresponding inputs of your soundcard to the bottom row, configure them as half normalled
- connect the outputs of your outboard gears on the top row and the inputs on the bottom, configure as thru.


I hope I cleared your doubts.

[sin night]

Just to expand the previous post, these are my patchbays. I tried to follow the rules, but I had to break them at some point (because I don't have room for another patchbay in my rack), for example the soundcard outputs are grouped on the bottom patchbay (labeled ad "out3" up to "out 8"). Also, some things are patched directly on the front of the patchbay (some Drumbrute individual outputs going directly into the main mixer).

The photo doesn't show the normalling that well (you can see some white around some holes when zooming, but it's not very clear); anyway it can give the idea of how things can be organized in a setup with a decent amount of gear (keyboard/synths).


In my setup there are two mixer, the main one has 22 channels while the second one (the "sidecar") has 12 channels. The second mixer goes into the first mixer, then the first mixer goes into my soundcard. The aux channels of the main mixer feed some effects which returns directly into the soundcard (I have set up monitoring to listen to them). All my synths are connected to the mixers.
Then I have some compressors and preamps (patchbay configured as "thru"). Some of the compressors are used on some of the individual outs of the Drumbrute, which I connect directly into che compressor inputs on the patchbay (I didn't connect the Drumbrute individual cables on the back of the patchbay).
Also there are no insert points on the patchbay because my mixers lack this feature (there are only the sidechains of my dbx compressors, so I can control them with an external key).

patchbay.jpg

I hope this can give you an idea... It's not a perfect setup (I wish I could have a 40+ channel mixer with all my instruments and fx returns connected to it, while the soundcard would only record instead of being used also for fx returns... unfortunately I don't have enough room for that), but it works.
The patchbay arrangement, while not ideal, works fine enough for me. It's not the first iteration of the setup: beside adding gear over time, I realized that some things could have been done better. It won't last forever, either: while I hope I can use it for a long time without further rearrangements, there are things that could be improved (for example I may decide to move the mixer aux outputs over some of the soundcard inputs and normal them - so they can be used as submixes for recording - and then move the fx to the left of the bottom patchbay, shifting everything else on that patchbay to the right)...


Anyway, this is just an example of a possible setup...

[RichieWitch]

That's a nice setup, @sin night. It inspired me to share my own patchbay setup, which uses a lot of the same principles as you.

Some background--I have a 30U equipment rack with several rack synths, 12U of Eurorack, and a drum machine. The synths are routed through a summing mixer and the Eurorack is routed to a hardware compressor/limiter (both also in the rack). So I use a patchbay to get the routing of this equipment rack organized on the way to the desk mixer. I use a patchbay with 24 pairs of 1/4" TRS jacks (upper and lower). Unless otherwise noted, they are all configured as normalized.

Jacks 23/24 - upper (Bus 2 output of the summing mixer), lower (channels 11/12 of the desk mixer)
Jacks 21/22 - upper (Bus 1 output of the summing mixer), lower (channels 9/10 of the desk mixer)
Jacks 19/20 - upper (output of Eurorack limiter), lower (channels 7/8 of the desk mixer)
Jacks 17/18 - upper (output of the drum machine), lower (channels 5/6 of the desk mixer)

So with any of these, they connect through by default, or I can plug into the jacks to insert some outboard gear, plug the output of some other noise maker into the desk mixer, or reroute the summing mixer back into the rack for more processing.

Jacks 15/16 - upper (Alt 3/4 bus from the desk mixer), lower (channel 8 of the summing mixer).

Allows me to feed any muted channel from the desk mixer back over to the rack for processing. Especially handy for sending stuff from the DAW over to the hardware rack.

Jacks 13/14 - not connected

Jacks 11/12 - upper (not connected), lower (sidechain inputs for the Eurorack compressor)

Jacks 9/10 ("thru" config) - my bass synth has old CV/gate connections, which allow me to integrate this synth with the Eurorack. Upper (CV/gate output from the bass synth), lower (CV/gate input to the bass synth).

Jacks 7/8 - upper (not connected), lower (audio inputs on the drum machine for adding your own sounds to two of the drum pads).

Jacks 5/6 - upper (not connected), lower (audio inputs for the Eurorack, for processing external sounds).

Jack 4 - upper (bass synth mono output), lower (channel 3L of summing mixer).

This allows me to insert bass pedals into the output of the bass synth before it hits the summing mixer. Also allows me to add the bass synth oscillators to the Eurorack.

Jack 3 - (upper (not connected), lower (filter input for the bass synth).

Jack 1/2 - upper (not connected), lower (external audio/vocodor input for my lead synth)