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Scarlett 18i20 and 48-point patchbay

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Topic Scarlett 18i20 and 48-point patchbay
I am using a Focusrite Scarlett 18i20 connected to a Focusrite Octopre, giving me 16 in's/out's in a Windows 10 environment. I recently acquired five 500 series mic preamps ((2) Neve 1073's; (2) Great River pre's); and (1) A-Design pre) racked in a lunchbox along with a hardware compressor. I also acquired a 48-point 1/4 inch patchbay. I use an XLR snake for the vocalists, guitarists, drum mics, etc. to plug into for recording. The XLR snake cables run from the recording room and are plugged in to the various inputs of the 18i20 and the Octopre to use via ADAT. I've been reading and studying various methods of hooking up my patchbay, but can't seem to get my head wrapped around some issues.

I would like to be able to patch some of the mic in's on the Scarlett and/or the Octopre to various outboard preamps and/or the compressor. The pre's are plugged in to the patchbay matching each of their in's and out's respectively. The hookup of the Scarlett and Octopre to the patchbay, though, has got me stumped.

Here's my specific questions:

1. For instance, mic 1 is a vocal mic coming in. I want it to go into the 18i20 input 3. Question: Do I plug the mic into input 3 on the Scarlett and then plug Scarlett output 3 into an out on the patchbay?

2. Does the above connection then allow me to patch from the output on the patchbay to the input on, say, the Neve pre, and then the out from the Neve pre back into the patchbay in for the Scarlett input 3? In other words, since nothing is physically plugged between the Scarlett input and the patchbay corresponding input, will this still work?

Sorry this is so convoluted. Maybe I should just ditch the patchbay and use Mix Control to make the patches?

Any insight would be appreciated.
2
Hey,

Patch bays are not that difficult to understand and I'm happy to explain it to you.


If you want to use different preamps you have to connect their output to the input of your interface.

Connect on the output of mic preamp to the in on the backside of thepatchbay.

Connect the interface input to the output on the backside of the patch bay.

Do this with all your interface inputs and all your preamp outputs.

Example :

If you like to use a neve preamp ( on patch bay 1) on input 8 of the interface.
Insert a cable into output 1 on the front of the patchbay and insert the other end into input 8 on the front side of the patchbay.

Now your mic preamp 1 is connected to input 8 of your interface.

Please note that signals are Line level as soon as they leave the preamp.

There is a post from me somewhere explaining the patchbay to a board user....
... Shall see if I can find it :-D

## EDIT ##


Read this post
Perhaps it will clear things up for you

It's not about what you got to use ....    but how you use what you got...

[ Post last edited on 05/25/2017 at 04:57:38 ]

3
Thank you for the assistance. Got it working great now. I appreciate your thoughtfulness.
4
Your welcome

- Angelie

It's not about what you got to use ....    but how you use what you got...

5
Hi mburnslaw,

I have just come across this and wanted to try and offer some advice.

Interesting set up you have here.. To answer question 1 yes this is possible however you will need to route the audio in Focusrite Control or Scarlett Mix Control so that Input 3 is routed to Line Output 3, Input 4 is routed to Line Output 4 and so on. To answer question 2 this all depends on the wiring and how you have this configured.

I apologise for a slow response with this, if you need any more assistance then it would be better to get in touch with us directly by opening a ticket at https://support.focusrite.com/hc/en-gb/requests/new

Best regards,

Alex Bull // Focusrite Tech Support
6
UPDATE: Ooops - just seen that this has been resolved. My bad!