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Has anybody here wired patch panels?


ccsnd

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I have to wire 4 of them this week. Could use some ideas/tips. The way the board used to be had every single i/o wired to a patch panel. I thought that was way overkill.

I have wired these before, but not quite to that extent. What are the most important things to wire to the bays? What are the most often scenarios you guys use them for?

Most of my work is digital, with very little outboard gear. I love getting into old analog stuff.

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Is this strictly for yourself or is it going to be a working room with producer / engineer clients? If it is a professional room, then it is going to need to be wired within the expected standards of a pro room. You are right, pretty much every connector needs to be wired to the patches. Group outputs, for example, would be half normalled to tape machine (or DAW) inputs, so in the absence of any patching, groups flow through to the recorder. Or in the presence of a patch cable, it breaks the normalled connection and one could insert a signal via a manual patch. Setting up panels like this using a logical and relatively standard arrangement, will allow the engineer to work efficiently, quickly, and not bound by any rudimentary wiring limitations. A visiting engineer should be able to work out of the room with a very cursory introduction to the patch panel by the resident, without having to rely on a patchbayboy for the entire session.

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Unless the room's configuration is never going to be changed (no new machines, processors, nothing...), do not solder the cables from equipment directly to the jacks. Go to punchblocks or terminal strips instead, located very near but someplace where it'll be relatively easy to make changes.

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I wired a radio station for stereo AM a long time ago. Normalized patch fields are "normal". No patch cords have to be put in for things to work. Top patch field is wired to your sources, bottom patch field is wired to your inputs. Both patch fields are interconnected, they disconnect to where they link when you plug in. This way any output and input can be accessed . If a channel dies you can patch around it. You can use another patch field for processors, limiters, and plug them as you need them. Horrible boring repetitive job.

http://www.stretta.com/~matthew/resources/rackwire/patchbay.html

Just do a search normalized patch bay or patch field.

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I understand all about patch bays, and how to wire them and such. I'm just not getting paid a whole lot for this job and if I solder everything thats at least a couple thousand solder points...

today I wired all aux sends and some of the stereo groups. Tomorrow I'll finish stereo groups and start on direct outs.....

I should also mention it's an old trident 24 series console.

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Thank god somebody mentioned that! Outputs on top.

I would also add, if you have any video involved, keep them separate and away from the audio, and watch out for ground loops. And keep power on a separate strip.

Cable management in a complex rack is a nightmare. I've seen cable racks in facilities that made the movie Brazil look pristine.

artistic-mess-cormacphelan.jpg

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