What is a patchbay?

[mbandgeek]

I think that you are being a bit harsh here. mbandgeek has indicated elsewhere on the site that "I admit it i am a teenager that has a lot of time and no social life whatsoever. I like being a theater technician and I am learning new stuff every day from this website, and getting points for my cluelessness in some topics." Clearly he is just trying to build up his knowledge.

It would be impossible for us to tell you how to patch into your patchbay, except to say using a cable. There are many different ways that the patchbay can be internally connected and there is no way that we can know which one of the options it is without seeing it and testing it. Is there anyone in your school who knows how it is configured? Since it is obvious that some people do not feel that you asking questions is an appropriate use of these forums, you may wish to contact me by PM, but ultimately, without being in your space we cannot tell you how to patch into the panel.

In all of this i am just trying to find out which are the most common methods of wiring one of these, like why is there four holes on "one channel?"

 

[Eboy87]

thats a good idea, but all the cables lead into what we call "black hole of sound," it has all the sound cables running down that hole. Also when designing the theater, they made all the cables leading in and out of the sound board the same color, and tied it all together with cable ties. so it is near impossible to find what cable leads to what.

In this case, your best bet is gonna be trial and error, find a free day and spend it testing what is patched to where. Then, once you know what's coming from where, and where it goes, LABEL IT, so you don't have to go through this again.

And as for four jacks for one input, they may be tielines, to put multiple mics in one channel. Never found a use for this myself, but I guess it's one of those "just in case" things.

On a lighter note, sounds like the same guy who built your space built ours

 

[Chris15]

OK, when you say that you have 4 sockets per channel, what type of sockets are these, Take the plug that is currently plugged into it, is it 1/4''? TS or TRS? When you say 4 sockets is this 2 at the front and 2 on the back?

As far as testing it goes, have you a music source (CD etc.) and a DI Box? Plug it into one of the mic inputs and play until something happens. You may find it useful to write a manual of sorts to explain the idiosyncrasies of your space to future techs.

 

[Chris15]

And as for four jacks for one input, they may be tielines, to put multiple mics in one channel. Never found a use for this myself, but I guess it's one of those "just in case" things.

Doing this will cause all sorts of interesting things to occur, least of which will be the lack of control you have.

Do Not connect multiple inputs together, use a mixer. Splitting an output can be done in most cases without a problem.

As far as I was aware, is not a tie line simply a wire between two points?

 

[mbandgeek]

OK, when you say that you have 4 sockets per channel, what type of sockets are these, Take the plug that is currently plugged into it, is it 1/4''? TS or TRS? When you say 4 sockets is this 2 at the front and 2 on the back?

As far as testing it goes, have you a music source (CD etc.) and a DI Box? Plug it into one of the mic inputs and play until something happens. You may find it useful to write a manual of sorts to explain the idiosyncrasies of your space to future techs.

It has 2 1/4th" TRS connesrors on the front and 2 of them on the back.

So you're saying to keep a log of the changes. that is a good idea. I'll have to try that one day.

 

[mbandgeek]

In this case, your best bet is gonna be trial and error, find a free day and spend it testing what is patched to where. Then, once you know what's coming from where, and where it goes, LABEL IT, so you don't have to go through this again.

And as for four jacks for one input, they may be tielines, to put multiple mics in one channel. Never found a use for this myself, but I guess it's one of those "just in case" things.

On a lighter note, sounds like the same guy who built your space built ours

this all depends on when your theater was built. ours was built in 1992.

 

[Chris15]

Not just a log of changes, but if you work out the way it is wired, write it down. Write down other useful things, breaker locations, Service dates, etc.

As far as the panel itself goes, my guess is that there are cables plugged into both of the sockets at the back. Probably one of those goes to the mic input wherever in the space and the other goes to a mixer input. From the fact that the front of your panel is not covered in leads, I would guess that they are either half normalled or fully normalled

You almost always have your incoming signals on the top row of a single unit and your outgoing on the bottom. Now there are 3 different types of internal connections that can happen in the back. First is just all open and ready to be patched which is the wisest and most basic. The second and somewhat usefull is half-normalled which means the top bottom pair are already connected internally w/o an external patch and then you can come out of that maintain the current internal patch while splitting it and sending it somewhere else on the front patch. Then the last is just fully nornalled which is again internally already plugged into each other but as soon as something is plugged into one it breaks the connection.[/CURLS]

So the plugs on the back in the top row are most likely to be the inputs from various places in the room and the bottom row probably feed to your mixer.

You say there are something like half a dozen leads plugged into it, I take it that you mean on the front? If, where are the other ends of these? That would help you to work out what they are.

It would seem as though EBoy87 was not being serious when he said that the same person built their space. I think that he intended the comment as though the installations are similar, all the cables going into the wall and out to who knows where, as you put it, "the black hole of sound".

 

[Eboy87]

Doing this will cause all sorts of interesting things to occur, least of which will be the lack of control you have.

Do Not connect multiple inputs together, use a mixer. Splitting an output can be done in most cases without a problem.

As far as I was aware, is not a tie line simply a wire between two points?

Well, I call things differently than most people, but I do think that ours connect multiple inputs together, but that may be more for outputs, like splitting auxes to two different amps. Like I said, I've never used them, so I may be wrong.

BTW mbandgeek, our theater was built around '92-'95.

 

[Chris15]

Well, I call things differently than most people, but I do think that ours connect multiple inputs together, but that may be more for outputs, like splitting auxes to two different amps. Like I said, I've never used them, so I may be wrong.

BTW, our theater was built around '92-'95.

It may be as simple as whoever designed the space had a brain and put in spare lines for future use.

And unless your install was done by an actual audio company, I am not surprised that everything is the same. An audio company would likely use multicore cabling, but if they aren't consider the fact that buying by the roll is much cheaper, so it will be that they are all the same colour. Make sense?

 

[Eboy87]

It may be as simple as whoever designed the space had a brain and put in spare lines for future use.

And unless your install was done by an actual audio company, I am not surprised that everything is the same. An audio company would likely use multicore cabling, but if they aren't consider the fact that buying by the roll is much cheaper, so it will be that they are all the same colour. Make sense?

Are you trying to make a statement about my competince?

Yes, I'm well aware of how companies do installs, but since half the equipment in our space has failed, and I'm running around trying to keep it going long enough till it is replaced, I have my doubts about the company that installed our system. Right now, there is a group renting our space for a choral concert who brought in thier own pro engineer, and even he can't figure out half of what the hell is going on in there.

We've also just had someone from the said company come in to try and fix some of our problems, and, low and behold, half of what was "fixed" still doesn't work.

I havn't had time lately to test my theory on the tie lines, but I can tell you that they are labeled "tie line 1" "tie line 2", as opposed to "spare." I may not have been in this buisness as long as some, but I do know how to read and not make assumptions about others without knowing their background.

 

[Chris15]

I sorry if I have offended you. By the sounds of it the company that installed your system was incompetent. Do you know who installed it? I know that my school got the PA installed by a communications company and as a result of that it is very limiting.

As best I understand it, a tie line is simply a cable between A and B. May I ask, these cables that are labelled Tie Line 1, 2, etc. where do they go, or is that the purpose of your experiment. It seems that many installation companies simply wire it up and hope that no one will ever need to repatch it. Mine has no labelling either. I labelled it myself. But because of the lack of consideration of need, I only have 6 channels, so identifying them is not a problem.

Again, I apologise if I offended, I did not mean to.

 

[mbandgeek]

Not just a log of changes, but if you work out the way it is wired, write it down. Write down other useful things, breaker locations, Service dates, etc.

You say there are something like half a dozen leads plugged into it, I take it that you mean on the front? If, where are the other ends of these? That would help you to work out what they are.

It would seem as though EBoy87 was not being serious when he said that the same person built their space. I think that he intended the comment as though the installations are similar, all the cables going into the wall and out to who knows where, as you put it, "the black hole of sound".

No i mean the top row on the front, they just loop around and go into another hole on the top row on the front. No cables even go to the bottom row.

 

[mbandgeek]

I sorry if I have offended you. By the sounds of it the company that installed your system was incompetent. Do you know who installed it? I know that my school got the PA installed by a communications company and as a result of that it is very limiting.

As best I understand it, a tie line is simply a cable between A and B. May I ask, these cables that are labelled Tie Line 1, 2, etc. where do they go, or is that the purpose of your experiment. It seems that many installation companies simply wire it up and hope that no one will ever need to repatch it. Mine has no labelling either. I labelled it myself. But because of the lack of consideration of need, I only have 6 channels, so identifying them is not a problem.

Again, I apologise if I offended, I did not mean to.

no i wasn't offended. And i don't know who installed all of our theater stuff. It was a long time ago.

 

[Chris15]

Are there cables coming into the back?

 

[Chris15]

no i wasn't offended. And i don't know who installed all of our theater stuff. It was a long time ago.

I meant that to EBoy87.

 

[Eboy87]

I'm sorry I overreacted, it was a really bad first block in school today, don't ask.

As soon as the current group leaves, I need to go through and make another list of what works and what doesn't. I'll experiment with the tie lines then, and post my findings.

Again, sorry Chris15 that I overreacted.

 

[Chris15]

I'm sorry I overreacted, it was a really bad first block in school today, don't ask.

As soon as the current group leaves, I need to go through and make another list of what works and what doesn't. I'll experiment with the tie lines then, and post my findings.

Again, sorry Chris15 that I overreacted.

That's OK. We all have times when we are not as calm as we might otherwise be, I do it too. I look forward to hearing the results of your experiment. List of what don't work are good, but disconnecting those things where possible is even better...

 

[mbandgeek]

Are there cables coming into the back?

As far as i can see there is only 4 of them. but it is kind of dark in our booth. Next timr that i am in there i'll bring a flashlight.

 

[Eboy87]

List of what don't work are good, but disconnecting those things where possible is even better...

Well, I'd love to, but most of what doesn't work is located in our two amp towers that has some power distro in it. I'm not to wild about the idea of crawling around in there with umpteen amps on and 120V 20a current swirling around me. I'll come out with Einstein's hair, or worse

 

[Chris15]

Well, I'd love to, but most of what doesn't work is located in our two amp towers that has some power distro in it. I'm not to wild about the idea of crawling around in there with umpteen amps on and 120V 20a current swirling around me. I'll come out with Einstein's hair, or worse

I don't know, you should have an RCD / GFCI to save you. Personally, I would not have a problem with it IF I was able to isolate the power to it at an upstream breaker, but otherwise I too would prefer not to. If you want a little something to "motivate" your school's administration into getting someone up there, consider this: amplifiers have fans. Fans build up dust. Dust is flammable, so you need to clean your amp fans out every once in a while. Otherwise, the building might burn down. Similarly, I would think that broken equipment is probably generating heat which could also lead to fire. That might help get it fixed, but it sucks that Its not too easy to fix.