This cabinet holds the tube mic preamps, headphone DA's, Mic ADAT, MOTU896, Delta1010, and the patchbays
A patchbay is a group of connectors usually mounted in a rack from one to two rack heights. The connectors are usually 1/4 inch 2-circuit or 3-circuit jacks. 2-circuit are usually unbalanced and 3-circuit are usually balanced. For the sake of discussion we will be concerned about typical audio patchbays. There are other types used for other applications such as old time phone banks and video bussing. Patchbays have been replaced in many studios with digital routers so all the patching is done virtually. However, the good old wired type is still in constant use today. Just about all patchbays have two rows of connectors usually spanning across the rack space making up 24 unique "channels". Some patchbays have jack on the front and back for the convenience of bussing and routing. Some have solder terminals on the back for permanent wiring. Typically the upper row is assigned as equipment audio out and the lower row as equipment audio in. Patchbays come in different configurations depending on your use. There are "normalled" "half-normalled" "open" and "parallel" configurations. Some are switchable so you can have different configurations for each channel. See configuration below for a definition.
This cabinet holds the tube mic preamps, headphone DA's, Mic ADAT, MOTU896,
Delta1010, and the patchbays
Caution: Not all patch bays are the same. Some are 4-circuit. Some aren't 1/4 inch. Not all patch cables are the same either. Some are unshielded. Some are 4-circuit. Use only good quality audio patch cables.
You might not need a patchbay depending upon what equipment you have, how many pieces of equipment you have, and how many external sources you are using. I went almost 15 years without a patchbay until my equipment inventory grew and demands required more flexibility. If you have s simple setup using a good quality mixing console with sends and returns, you may not even need a patchbay.
A patchbay is used to conveniently switch multiple outputs to multiple inputs throughout your audio system. Let's say you have two studios with maybe six mic sources in each. Let's say you have two or more recorders with eight inputs. It is not a good idea to just buss the pairs of mic cables together. Example: Mic 1 from Studio A bussed to mic 1 from Studio B and then connected to input 1 on a record input. Let's say you want to move mic 1 to channel 6 in the recorder. Do you want to go fumbling around behind the equipment plugging and unplugging cables? And possibly loosing a mic feed and wasting time troubleshooting why you get no sound? This could be embarrassing in a professional atmosphere and your client might be reluctant to work with you.
This group of patchbays handles all of my needs
A lot of patchbays have normalling contacts. Normalling means when no plugs are inserted, audio is switched by a set of internal contacts so that the signal coming into the patch channel is fed by default to the output either to the front and/or back jacks or some variation of such. The advantage of normalling is that if you have a standard configuration, you may not have to use any patch cables. Only if you want to re-route a signal you will use a patch cable or cables.