Patch Bays (Digital?)

[ChrisW]

Patch bays, hate 'em, but a necessary evil I think.

Just bought Logic and an Aurora 8. Now looking for a way to integrate hardware compressors, eq and reverb into my DAW.

I was presuming a standard patch bay with the Aurora ins and outs patched in.
But then the SSL X-Patch sparked an interest in another way of doing it.
On researching I see an Aussie company 'Violet Audio' offer a digital patchbay.

So will any of these do what I want to do (take audio out of a couple of channels of Aurora, patch into a few hardware processors, then back into Aurora and Logic), without the mucky muck of a traditional patchbay and patch cables?

I must admit, having read forum (other) discussions on the X-Patch and a few on the UPM88 (Violet Audio) I'm mightily confused.

[Chinagraf]

Unless you want to patch digital streams around (and I mean who does other than Nasa and Rick, right?) then you're really only looking at the analog side of the Violet.
I'm getting the SSL, although I really need 2 or 3. The way I saw it was :
Violet - pro - XLR in and out
- in and out buttons on the front so you can patch manually without a computer
- Digital patching (AES?) in case I ever want to launch a shuttle
con - only 8 analog in/out for around $1100
- I'd rather have 8 more analog than the digital side
- AND last time I checked, MAC OSX support was, and I quote, "under development"

SSL pro - 16 in and out for around $1500
- XLR for input 1 and 2 on front panel as well as rear Dsub, so you can hook in something external easy if needed (no climbing behind racks)
con - Dsubs. I hate soldering them but I prefer to do my own cabling.

Is the Aurora 8 in and out? Even if you only need a few now, you always find a way to fill a patchbay up pretty quick so you could use the 16 on the SSL.
If you think about a 96 way tt bay being around 500 bucks plus patchcords you're spending a fair bit anyway. I looked for a dsub to tt one and it was something like 900 bucks!? Hello?
One thing I'm not sure about is parallels. I have a few on my tt bays that I use for mults instead of tying up multiple converter outputs. Not sure how that would work with either of the above.

[ChrisW]

Thanks, I'd love to get the SSL.
I agree, it works out to be decent value.
One thing that concerns me is the rapid eating up of the ins and outs.

Do you use two of the outs to go to your DAW?
So the x-patch is capable of 7 or 8 separate stereo fx?

SSL are not doing it's job helping people understand this unit.

[rick]

i have a ssl x desk , what you have to figure in with all this low cost ssl stuff is everything comes out and in via db 25 connecters , so you need to get looms which in the case of the x box ran another $1000 so i presume the patch thing will be a simliar amount

patch bays cost you $$$ no matter what you do :(

i have a z system 32 x 32 digital patch ( look up the price one day when your bored) and two apogee uv-1000 routers as well
then i end up leaving everything in the one chain that i like 100% of the time anyway !

[mark rachelle]

http://www.tcelectronic.com/digitalkonnektx32.asp

[Chinagraf]

Hey Chris, what is it about the x-patch that's confusing you? Just think of it as a normal 16 in and out analog patchbay that you don't need patchcords for. What you use the ins and outs for is up to you.
My room is not for drum tracking (we have another room for that) so I only need 2 ins to DAW. Agreed, if you need 16 ins to your DAW then you could eat up connections fast but if you don't then
something like this is really handy. Main reason I want it is for chaining outboard when mixing without having to go through mutiple stages of conversion, as I would have to if I just used all my outboard plugged into converters and inserted them plugin style. One of these and 2 x-desks will get you most of the way
to the same setup as the matrix at under half the cost. (minus the daw control/moving faders of course)
Rick is right about the cost of Dsub cables, but they really aren't hard to make yourself, but you need to drink beer to protect yourself from the solder fumes.
I haven't quite got my head round the TC one Mark linked to, but from a quick look it appears to patch digital streams so you would still be using multiple stages of conversion if you were chaining say 3 or 4 bits of outboard.

[ChrisW]

I read a long Gearslutz thread about it, and that left me very confused.
I'm also easily confused about traditional patch bays. .... I'm a drummer.... go figure.

Well this sounds better than I expected.
I don't have too many fx, and plan to keep my drum tracking rig (mostly Q8 channel strips) separate.