Turtlerock Forum

Hello Turtles,

My first post

I need some advice on wiring some cables.

I am about to install patchbays in my studio so I can have all my synths, outboard and guitar pedals easily available during mixing.

The main question I have is how to wire the cables from the balanced ins/outs of the patchbays to the unbalanced in/outs of the guitar pedals? I have read many online resources (eg. http://www.rane.com/note110.html) and looked at the info in the Yamaha Sound Reinforcement Handbook but I can't seem to get a clear idea of exactly how to connect the cables at each end.

Do I make different cables to/from the patchbay? Do I float the shield at either end or connect it along with the ring lead to the sleeve of the unbalanced plug?

The soundcards I am using are RME Fireface and Multiface. Is it important to worry about +4/-10 signals? I have connected pedals directly to the ins/outs of these cards before and everything seemed to work reasonably well.

Do I really need to use a reamp box? I have an ART CleanBox (http://www.artproaudio.com/products.asp ... 13&type=90 haven't tried it yet). I've seen Rob's Missing Link and Passive Link and Nick Franklin's reamp box. Ideally I would like to have several channels running with pedals. That could get expensive using reamp boxes. Any DIY kits I could build into a rack unit for several channels (up to 8 say)?

Any help is MUCH appreciated.

Thanks and regards,
Andrew.

Whilst the 'most correct' way to interface your DAW with pedals for mixing would be:

Interface -> Reamp Box -> Pedal -> DI Box -> Preamp -> Interface

The cost of all of those devices will add up quickly once you connect a few pedals. I reckon in practice you can get away with just hitting your pedals with the line level audio from your DAW. Nothing should get upset or sound real bad so long as you keep your levels sensible. Some unbuffered fuzz pedals might sound a bit weird because of the output impedance of your DAW, but really... if you're processing through guitar effects I'm thinking it's not supposed to sound pristine anyway, right? You could always buy some cheap transformers from altronics and build a rack of reamps and DIs if you were concerned, but you'd still need the pres.

Now... wiring your unbalanced equipment to the patchbay will depend on a couple of things. For starters, what model of patchbay have you chosen?

Hi Nick,

Thanks very much for your reply.

If only I could afford a bunch of your great looking RD15's and some Neve pre's I'd be set!

Anyway, I'll go with connecting straight to the pedals from my RME outputs.

The patchbays I'm going to use are Samson S-Patch Plus (http://www.samsontech.com/products/prod ... rodID=1656)

I'm assuming I should use TRS jacks into and out of the patchbay and TS jacks in and out of the pedals (also synths?).

I just can't quite figure out whether to

A) join the cable shield to the ring (at the TS end)
B) leave it floating (at the TS end)
C) other wiring (as per http://www.rane.com/note110.html)...which would be the correct option(s)

Do I need to wire the cables differently coming to and from the pedals?

Should I still run the RME interfaces at +4?

Thanks for any advice.

Cheers,
Andrew.

I'd connect all your balanced gear to the patchbay with TRS-TRS cables and all the pedals with TS-TS cables. Leave all your shields connected everywhere and I think you'll be fine.

i've had success recently by placing a tuner at the start of the pedal chain. i don't really understand how it all works, but it was fine. there were no strange artefacts in the tone that i could hear. i also plugged a distortion pedal thru the insert of my console to track a distorted vocal. i did this without the use of the tuner, or anything to deal with the balanced/unbalanced differences....

but i guess something like distortion is a personal choice wether it sounds good or not.

If the input of the tuner is buffered (i.e. Boss tuner), then this will definitely change the way the distortion reacts to the line output you hit it with