Patchbays Explained: Integration into the Home Studio

Peeking back at the home studio that we put together in an earlier series, we may begin to notice that it is growing. A little piece of outboard here and there – maybe a used guitar pedal or two – finds its way in. Maybe we’ve outgrown the Scarlett 2i2 we started with, and we’ve upgraded to an 18i8 or a MOTU UltraLite. In any case, the situation we are faced with calls for quite a lot of plugging, unplugging, and digging around behind the workstation. And that gets old quickly.

The solution? A patchbay.

What is a Patchbay?

A patchbay is a signal flow management device. You can think of it as Grand Central Station for your growing studio setup. What a patchbay allows us to do is route all the inputs and outputs for all of our gear to a single area where we could, if we so choose, reconfigure signal flows with a couple quick moves.

Patchbays are convenient. And they virtually eliminate wear and tear on your actual devices because you would only plug them once – into the rear of the patchbay. All changes to the signal flow from then on can be made on the front panel.

Usually, patchbays are found in much larger studios with much more gear than you may have in your home setup. Larger mixing console desks are often built to accommodate several patchbay units in one area, allowing recording or mix engineers to reconfigure the studio at will. But this doesn’t mean such devices are reserved for mammoth studios boasting the most gear – you can easily acquire a single used unit for around $60. And for a small home studio, a single unit is all you need.

Patchbay Basics

There are a variety of patchbays made to accommodate all sorts of connections, but they all serve the same function; get the signal from one place to another. The most common type – and the one you will get the most use out of in your home studio – is a simple 48-point TRS patchbay.

The Ins and Outs

This device has 48 input jacks on the front panel as well as 48 input jacks on the rear panel, for a total of 24 (3 sets of 8) pairs arranged in two rows. Traditionally, the TOP row sends OUT and the BOTTOM row takes IN.

This means you would connect your gear on the rear panel (since they will remain plugged there indefinitely) accordingly.

A simple example: You have a single channel guitar pedal (like my Tube Screamer guitar overdrive pedal).

1. Choose a slot (two sets of inputs – top and bottom) for your device and set it to “Thru” mode. (More on modes in a moment)
2. Run a cable from the input of the pedal to the bottom rear jack of the slot.
3. Run another cable from the output of the pedal to the top rear jack of the slot.

These connections allow you to plug anything – be it a synth, guitar, or mic (with the appropriate hybrid cable) into your guitar pedal without touching the jacks on your pedal. Pretty cool, but it gets a whole lot cooler when you jack your sound modules (instruments) and audio interface into the patchbay as well.

Modes of Operation

A patchbay has three modes of operation: normal, half-normal, and thru. It’s important to understand these modes in order to properly configure a patchbay for your setup. These terms relate to signal routing inside the bay itself.

Normal

Normal mode means the signal will flow from the rear top patch point to the rear bottom patch point below inside the bay – no patching required. Think of it as your “default” patch. This default patch is interrupted if a connection is made on the front panel – either the incoming signal is intercepted and sent elsewhere (by plugging into the top patch point), or the outgoing signal is overridden by another signal (by plugging into the bottom patch point).

Half-Normal

Half-normal is similar to normal, but with one important exception: plugging into the top patch point will not sever the normalled connection. The signal will flow to the patch point of your choice in addition to flowing to the normalled connection below. This effectively duplicates the signal the same way a Y-cable does. (For more on Y-cables and other audio cable types, read this article)

Thru

The simplest mode to conceptualize, thru mode does precisely what it sounds like it would. Signal flows straight through the bay – top front to top rear, bottom front to bottom rear. This is the mode we used in our earlier example with the guitar pedal.

Correctly Configuring Your Patchbay

Before we go plugging stuff in willy-nilly on the back panel, let’s take a moment to consider the gear we are connecting and our “default” patches. Make a list of all the I/O you want available via the patchbay. Your list will differ from mine, but this is what I will be connecting:

Audio Interface: MOTU 828X

• 8 Outputs
• 8 Inputs
• 2 Preamp Sends

Signal Sources:

• Roland TR-8
  • 4 Outputs
  • 2 Inputs
• Korg Electribe 2
  • 2 Outputs
• Novation Bass Station 2
  • 1 Output
  • 1 Input
• Traktor Kontrol S4
  • 2 Outputs
  • 2 Inputs

Signal Processors:

• DBX Compressor
  • 2 Outputs
  • 2 Inputs
• Ibanez Tube Screamer (Easily swapped or daisy-chained with other pedals)
  • 1 Output
  • 1 Input
• Line 6 Delay
  • 2 Outputs
  • 2 Inputs
• Vox AC-10 Amplifier (For Re-Amping)
  • 1 Input

Decide Your Defaults

The next step is to decide your default signal routing. In my case, I have 8 inputs on my audio interface. I want to have the outputs for each signal source wired to these inputs. So I run an 8 channel TRS snake (rather than 8 individual cables) from the rear-bottom points on slots 1 – 8 to inputs 1 – 8 on my interface.

Next, I assign each signal source to an input, and I plug each source output to the rear-top point of the appropriate slot. I’m going with this configuration:

1. Roland TR-8 L
2. Roland TR-8 R
3. Roland TR-8 A
4. Roland TR-8 B
5. Korg Electribe L
6. Korg Electribe R
7. Novation Bass Station
8. (No Input)

In order for this to work properly, I need to set each of those slots to normal or half-normal mode. I’m going full normal because I don’t plan on splitting off signals in my workflow, but either mode works.

Also note that I purposefully left out the S4. This is because I don’t need it available to me at all times, so I can jack it in to any pair of inputs via the front panel to use it.

Add In the Variables

Now that we have our default patches configured, it is time to add the rest of our options. The rest of our connections will work in thru mode, since none of them will normally feed any inputs.

To keep our sanity, we will keep the I/O for each device together in the same slots. We don’t need to worry about them feeding into themselves because the top and bottom rows are isolated in thru mode. I’m going with this configuration:

9. Traktor Kontrol S4 L (bottom only – sending to Deck D)
10. Traktor Kontrol S4 R (bottom only – sending to Deck D)
11. Roland TR-8 Ext In L (bottom only)
12. Roland TR-8 Ext In R (bottom only)
13. MOTU Preamp 1 Send (top only – return must be routed to an input)
14. MOTU Preamp 2 Send (top only – return must be routed to an input)
15. DBX 166 Compressor 1
16. DBX 166 Compressor 2
17. Line 6 DL4 L
18. Line 6 DL4 R
19. Ibanez Tube Screamer
20. Vox AC-10 Amplifier (bottom only – return via microphone)
21. MOTU Output 1 (top only)
22. MOTU Output 2 (top only)
23. MOTU Output 3 (top only)
24. MOTU Output 4 (top only)

And just like that, I have filled out my patchbay. I still have MOTU outputs 5 – 8 that are not connected, but I don’t have any situations where I would need to route more than 4 signals out of my DAW at a time. I’m comfortable with four.

Okay, That’s Neat – But Is All This Really Necessary?

Nope. It’s not. With high-quality digital technology becoming more and more capable and affordable, relics such as the patchbay are getting ditched by audio professionals in favor of digital solutions. Really, this is all possible and much more in your DAW of choice. An audio engineer friend of mine chuckled when I mentioned I was writing an article on patchbays, saying they were “obsolete.”

Perhaps, but $60 for a patchbay to link up your sound-toy collection is much more affordable than a state-of-the-art multi-effects processor — though those processors really are something else.

There is also something to be said about the tactile experience of running cables and manipulating hardware devices. If anything, this is at least an interesting project that will get you thinking in terms of signal flow. The possibilities beg for experimentation — and experimentation is a channel for inspiration.

I hope this article helps you further improve your home studio. It was a bit longer than usual, but patching is a convoluted topic.

Until next week,
Audiomunk