Behringer Patchbay Labels
Behringer Patchbay Template
Behringer Patchbay Templates
Behringer Patchbay Template

With a growing ragtag collection of (mostly ‘pre-loved’) studio outboard, and the mess of cables that results, I realised that I could no longer put off getting a patchbay. I say put off because I’d previously somehow come to the conclusion that I needed one because I thought I knew what they did, but whenever I did a little research about them I came away confused between the normals, half-normals, parallels, opens, bantams and jacks (well, I knew what a jack was at least). It seemed that I was not alone in my confusion – type ‘patchbay’ into any of the music tech forums and you’ll see hundreds of posts by desperate musicians, basically asking the same questions, but for connecting different bits of kit. This, I think, is why it’s hard to find a definitive “how to” for patchbay design – there’s no definitive setup – everyone’s studio, and therefore use for a patchbay, is personal and will need wiring differently. Perhaps people also expect too much in this age of insta-info, YouTube tutorials-for-everything and tiny-learn-curve software that can take much of the effort out of musical creativity (that’s a whole can of worms for another post). There are some things we just need to work out for ourselves.

My primary need for a patchbay was that I have more audio processors than auxes to send to them. Bearing this in mind (as well as budget) I decided that a Behringer Ultrapatch Pro PX2000 would be ideal as it had a parallel option as well as the regular normal, half and open switches (you can also normal aux sends, but parallel is good for sending a signal to multiple effects simultaneously). Once I had it in front of me I spent a long time thinking about how I wanted everything to communicate and experimented with patching just 2 or 3 things together to check whether each function behaved as I thought it would. I began to see the potential for an amazingly flexible, almost modular setup, and immediately bid on a second patchbay so that I could have all my main ins and outs patched.

Behringer Patchbay Templates Signal passes from the outputs to the inputs, without the need for a cable. The signal is only broken when a cable is plugged into the bottom row. This allows you to “mult” a signal by plugging a cable into the top row and route it to another input. Behringer Ultrapatch Pro PX3000 48-Point TRS Patchbay. Behringer #4 in Patchbays. Listings Price Guide. Featured Listing. Behringer Ultrapatch Pro PX3000 48-Point TRS Patchbay. Ginger Music Instruments. Hong Kong, Hong Kong. Quick Responder. $129.90 + $19.90 Shipping. As low as $12/mo.

Once I had the concept in my head, I started sketching out on paper what should go where. Open dmg file mac sierrawizardstree. After having to draw 48 little circles and labels a couple of times when making changes, I decided to knock up a basic blank template in Fireworks which I could print off and scribble over to my heart’s content. I found this quite helpful so am sharing it here in printable pdf format for free download. It has two blank 48 point patchbay templates per A4 sheet.

Behringer Patchbay Labels

One thing I underestimated was the amount of extra audio cables I’d need! In the past I’ve normally only had to pick up a few cables here and there from the local music shop for the latest bit of kit. Obviously out of the question for this particular bit of kit! I ordered two separate big lots of cables from AudioSpareshere in the UK. They were great, arrived next day each time and were considerably cheaper than competitors for cables equal to name brands. The only problem was with their cheapest looms: I ordered two and both had one ‘short’ jack that was moulded into the plastic too far, so wouldn’t snap into the connector snugly. I’m sure they would have replaced them if I’d complained but I couldn’t be arsed, so just cut the sleeves back a bit!

Behringer Patchbay Template

So, now I’ve got everything set up and I love it. If you have enough equipment to warrant one, the patchbay is a true studio essential. Certain bits of kit have a new lease of life from being able to have audio routed so easily into them. My studio almost feels like a big modular synth. The cabling to my mixing desk is the neatest it’s ever been.

Behringer Patchbay Templates

My fears were basically unfounded, it’s easy when you know how! Seriously though, it’s one of those things that is much easier in practice than in theory, that is just go for it, when it’s in front of you and you can test a few boxes through it, it will make sense with trial and error.

Behringer Patchbay Template

p.s. If you do need a bit more theory, I found these articles to be the most helpful/least confusing: Sound On Sound & EQ Magazine