John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum

Hey guys,
Ive been quiet on her for awhile,but i have a problem.
I am building my studio and have hit a snag. I dont want this to get lengthy,so i am going to turn this into a three part question.First i have expanded my set up.It is as follows.

1)Digi 003 with eight analog inputs and outputs,4 mic pres,eight channels of ADAT optical,2 channels S/PDIF digital I/O,1 midi in 2 midi outs,studio monitor output,control room output,BNC word clock and a couple other things that or relevence for now.
2)Focusrite ISA 828 8 channel mic pre with eight input and out puts.
3)Presonus ADL 600 2 channel mic pre with 2 ins,2outs.
4)Behringer head phone amp with 4 headphone channels.
5)Digidesign MIDI I/O box with 10 ins,10 outs.
6)Korg TR88 keyboard
7)Alesis Masterlink Ml 9600 for mastering and burning.
Mackie big knob for all my monitor controlling in such.

So here is the first question.
I want to add a patchbay or two in order to make things easier.All the ones i have come across require you to either pull the face off of it or pull it out of the rack in order to change the wiring scheme of the patchbay.All of them have been balanced patch bays.I have come across a Hosa patch bay that has switches on the front in order to change the wiring scheme.This is a bonus.The only problem i see is that is an Unbalanced patch bay,but it will pass balanced signals when switched to the "De-Normaled" setting Only.Does anyone else think that this would be a problem,say if i ever wanted to pass a balanced signal in any other mode other that the "De-Normaled"mode?Should i just stick with the Balanced patch bay and just deal with the design?..

I need help!

Have you checked into the ADC patchbays? They have punch blocks where you can change configurations, etc. I think Neutrik makes a switchable patchbay as well...?

Thanks for the advice,The ADC models seem to be very nice.

Ok,part two.

To snake or not to snake?
I am not quite sure how to make all the connections between all of my gear.Should i get some snakes in order to accomplish this task or buy a whole bunch of individual cable?.All the snakes i have seen looked like they had a smaller gauge cable in them than an individual cable.Would the sound quality be just as good in a snake or would the individual cables be better?And what if i decide to rearrange a piece of gear or something?Then there might be unused cables on the snake and i will have to buy new cables to hook up my system in a new way.

How far is your racks from the patchbay? You can do this a couple ways. The most configurable would be to use the ADC patch panels. You can mount one in the rack for quick changes of connection types. Say changing from 1/4" to XLR. Some of those patchbays, you can specify I cable length from bay to punch panel. Or you can run a snake to it from the bay. You can also make an assortment depending on your connection needs (plan for certain gear you know will always be the same connection).

A lot of it comes down to budget. Most everything I have is on snakes. Just be sure to give yourself a large fanout. (2-3') depending on size of rack. I've seen several people also build harnesses with multiple 22-24awg mic wire (such as Belden or Mogami console wire).

All of my equipment will be in a desk i just built.It will hold 64 pieces of gear,so everything will be right there.The patchbay will be no more than 10' away from any piece of equipment.The desk is about 7' long and 3 and a half feet wide.I have all Mogami cords right now.Money is not an option to me when it comes to the quality of sound.
Also my desk will not be full for awhile,but i will be adding equipment here and there.Do you think if i go the snake route that i should go ahead and get some extra connections on it for the future,or just deal with each piece of gear as i add on to it?

Personally, I always like to have extra connection ready for plug and play. You know how it is when you get a new piece of gear. you want to hook it up right now and check it out. or perhaps a client or other engineer/producer brings something in, and you can quickly just plug it in and go. Even if it's just adding some mic cables to extend it to a rack or something. You can never have too many cables ready for stuff.

Thats true.I always love to hook it p right when i get it.
Ok,3rd question.
I have two rooms,one of course the control room and the other the tracking.I am going to put in some wall plates between the two to make thing easier.My question is about the type of connectors in each location.I know i should have female XLR connectors in the wall plate in the tracking studio to just hook up a standard mic cable to it.What about the control room?Should the wall plate have the same female connectors,or male connectors.I would think the female to keep things simple.And what about passing headphone signals through?I have a headphone amp to push it.Will they work fine passing through the plates?They will of course be separate plates with TRS connectors and not the XLR.

Typically from the tracking room(s), you would either,

A: wire directly to a patchbay, or;
B: Wire directly to the console.

If either of these are not an option, you probably want to make the connectors in the control room, male XLR.

Headphone signals are fine, just be sure the cabling is separated from your mic lines. Especially if they are amplified headphone signals.

They can be on the same plate, just be sure they're not running in the same snake cable or something like that.

Yeah,neither of these are an option.There will have to be connections between the two rooms.
Can the connections on the plates for the headphone signals be TRS or do they need to be TS connections?