mic>xlr>patch bay>back to mic preamp?

[SoundCampaign]

Here's my scenario...I have a couple of different rooms that I'm recording in...Each room is going to have it's own snakes/inputs (w/ xlr inputs) to plug the mics into...Now my question is if it's a wise decision to send all of my snakes from the three rooms to a balanced patch bay...Then what I'm thinking is if i can then send out of the patch bay (obviously 1/4 in balanced to xlr) and those xlr's would then go into my mic preamps...(Apogee Trak2, Focusrite isa 428, rnp, EH12ay7 etc.)
Would this be wise or am I going to lose a ton of fidelity by the conversion from xlr to 1/4>1/4 to xlr and into the mic pres..I'm just wondering if this is how I should wire my studio so I'm not having to go behind the desk every time I want to use a different room...Also will there be phantom power issues if I do it this way?

Thanks for your help

Peace!

[7rojo7]

There are some who would say that it's possible and most likely to lose some fidelity with every connection that's made. I suppose you could try to plug your mic directly into your preamp and fashion some sort of stand for that, you would find it difficult to mic a snare and some other instruments like that though.
If you need a lot of points TT is the way to go 96 points in 1 rack space, if not bantam 1/4" works too 52 points in 1.5 to 2 rack spaces.
I'm sure someone will tell you where you can read about signal flow, you might try posting this at the Geekslutz branch.
Ultimately all of your gear could be hooked up to the patch bay so that no one has to see you bend over or disappear to make mysterious connections when you're supposed to be concentrating on them.
The Idea is to bring the back of all your gear to 1 central convenient place so you can seem elegant and in control of your senses while Patching instead of bending over and scratching your whatever doing various forms of connecting.
I would hazard a guess that at least 90% of all music ever recorded has had its signal run through a patch bay.
It seems like a good Idea to me.
Study the signal flow of your studio carefully, you can wire your patch bay to make connections even without using cables and these can be successfully rerouted at any time with the use of cables. They can be constructed with multi pin connectors so you can reconfigure your set up at a moments notice if need be. you might not have all of these needs but everybody needs a few bays in the studio

[Mystical]

Umm you don't really ever want to run phantom power through a patch bay. You are asking about a patch bay pre mic-pre are you not?

Try posting this in the geekslutz forum... I'm sure youill get tons of very helpfull technical answers.

[DirkB]

Why not construct a xlr-xlr patchbay where the outputs on the top row are the various mic xlr's and the inputs (bottom row) are the inputs of your preamps. Then you'll never have to worry about running phantom power on one of the lines while using a jack plug to make the patch from one of your lovely ribbons to one of the preamps .

Greetings,
Dirk

[Mystical]

[Mark107]

Originally Posted by DirkB

Why not construct a xlr-xlr patchbay where the outputs on the top row are the various mic xlr's and the inputs (bottom row) are the inputs of your preamps. Then you'll never have to worry about running phantom power on one of the lines while using a jack plug to make the patch from one of your lovely ribbons to one of the preamps .

Greetings,
Dirk

I have two patchbays like this, in two different studios. Works great, highly recommended.

[robmix]

Originally Posted by Mystical

Umm you don't really ever want to run phantom power through a patch bay. You are asking about a patch bay pre mic-pre are you not?

Try posting this in the geekslutz forum... I'm sure youill get tons of very helpfull technical answers.

Ah, there's a lot of voodoo surrounding this but the reality is I've worked in major studios throughout the country and every single one of them had phantom running through the patchbay. Just turn phantom off before you unplug something.

[7rojo7]

Mute your monitors before patching, some places you can't turn off the phantom power. I've never ever had a problem and surely more than 90% of the studios that exist and 100% of the studios I've worked in do run +48V from the mic in of the console to the studio tie lines (with a mic attached at the other end). Otherwise how does it get there?
I've have 8 ribbon mics, 2 of them now for 10 years and I've never had a problem with phantom power, they have huge tranformers as the basis of their design. The only problem I've had is with AC on the grill and that didn't even damage them. Singing into them without 2 popfilters might do a little damage though, close mic the cone of a 200 watt stack and maybe if you have someone unp lg the gtr while it's on (?)

[Mark107]

Originally Posted by robmix

Ah, there's a lot of voodoo surrounding this but the reality is I've worked in major studios throughout the country and every single one of them had phantom running through the patchbay. Just turn phantom off before you unplug something.

I had bantum patchbays for years with phantom running through them. It sucked. There would be occassional intermittant connections that would results in noise, plus the ever-present possibility of noise blasts to the musicians headphones. No amount of cleaning made them reliable. Once I switched to xlr, no more issues ever.

[audioez]

FULL NORMALLS between microphone ties and mic pre amps, this works for Neve, SSL and everyone else.