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I am building a custom patchbay for my preamps and compressor. All of which are 1/3 rack sizes (no, they are not tiny Universal Audio preamps. :roll: )

Instead of wiring a XLR and TRS for the balanced lines in, those combos from Neutrik would be the best thing. I don't even know if its OK to just wire a TRS jack and XLR up together to common lines (ganged 1, 2, 3).

Any help is appreciated.
Thanks.

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anonymous Sat, 04/23/2005 - 01:29

If I understand the term "normalized" as it relates to audio connectors correctly, then:

Normalized jacks would be for use in building a conventional patchbay, where convention dictates a row of input jacks and a row of output jacks...in this design you'd want the in-jacks and the out-jacks connected electrically, so, I assume normalized TRS/XLR combo jacks might have an additional conductor terminal?... and... this extra terminal would be for connecting (shorting) the jacksets together?...and...if you'd just be wanting to use the jacks as simple inputs, then you wouldn't need jacks with this extra conductor terminal?

I've had zero experience with building patchbays, so I'm actually sort of guessing.

The concept of "normalled" audio connections gets pretty weird, and I don't pretend to have a vast knowledge of it.

:roll:

anonymous Sat, 04/23/2005 - 01:53

Ok, for the panel mounts, I would go to this website:

http://

He has some really good panel mounts. They have threads on the actual panel mount so you don't have to use any nuts. This makes a pretty big difference whenever you have a bunch to do. Plus they're easier to change because you can leave everything soldered and just switch that particular panel mount to a different spot on the panel, etc.

Then, I usually get the "DP" label plates from Redco. You can get them to print just about any label you want on there. I'd also buy the rack panel from the guy at TrikTags. I've done several racks with this method from 2-space racks with one pre to mobile shock-mounted racks with 18 spaces, etc. It's really a good system. The guys at both TrikTags and Redco will give you great customer service and about the best prices. I'm going to try and upload one pic of a rack with these products.

Oh yeah...for regular mic cable stuff, the NC3MX and NC3FX from Neutrik are the least expensive and they still get the job done. Easy to solder also.