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Use Patchbay or not?

Forum Audio : Pro Audio - Use Patchbay or not?

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Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

We have a 20 year old patch bay wired to our console and wanted to know
if it would impact maintaining optimum signal quality? The patch bay
has not been used much. Everything is working fine. The console's
inputs and inserts are wired to the patch bay using Belden 8450, 22
gauge, solid core instrument cable. Maximum signal travel, instruments
to console, is 50 feet. Was wondering what's best? Going from each
instrument directly into the board or using the patch bay? We have lots
of keyboards and drum machine modules to connect. Burnishers can only
clean the patch bay's phone plug contact surfaces, and not the insert
point contacts. Is this anything to be concerned about? Thanks everyone!

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Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

In article <1106026952.883842.306980@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> donnie7@bellatlantic.net writes:

> We have a 20 year old patch bay wired to our console and wanted to know
> if it would impact maintaining optimum signal quality?

If it's a long frame patchbay, I'd give it a dose of contact cleaner
and continue to use it. If it's a cheap prewired one that's 20 years
old (that's about when they started making them that way) it's
probably been ready for the dumpster long ago.

> Was wondering what's best? Going from each
> instrument directly into the board or using the patch bay?

Every contact is a potential point of failure, and contacts can fail
in a way that they become (pretty poor) diodes and cause distortion as
well as crackles. But that's easily fixed. Most people feel that the
convenience of a patchbay far offsets the minimal amount of
maintenance that it requires. Your choice, though.

> Burnishers can only
> clean the patch bay's phone plug contact surfaces, and not the insert
> point contacts. Is this anything to be concerned about?

Burnishers can also burnish the plating off the contacts and in
general they're not recommended as routine maintenance. There's a tool
that looks like a plug with a hole where the cable would come out that
you squirt contact cleaner into. It's supposed to get the liquid
closer to where it does some good on the normalling contacts, but I
don't know how effective this really is.

--
I'm really Mike Rivers (mrivers@d-and-d.com)
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me here: double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

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Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

donsonic <donnie7@bellatlantic.net> wrote:
>We have a 20 year old patch bay wired to our console and wanted to know
>if it would impact maintaining optimum signal quality? The patch bay
>has not been used much. Everything is working fine. The console's
>inputs and inserts are wired to the patch bay using Belden 8450, 22
>gauge, solid core instrument cable. Maximum signal travel, instruments
>to console, is 50 feet. Was wondering what's best? Going from each
>instrument directly into the board or using the patch bay? We have lots
>of keyboards and drum machine modules to connect. Burnishers can only
>clean the patch bay's phone plug contact surfaces, and not the insert
>point contacts. Is this anything to be concerned about? Thanks everyone!

So, clean the contacts with Cramolin or DeOxit, and some Q-tips. It's
some work but it's worth it, and I think the burnishing tools do more
harm than good.

If the cable starts to get brittle, replace it. But if the cable is
still flexible and the contacts are clean, you should be fine.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

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