Important rack gear?

[mjresc]

Hi all,

In a possible hybrid studio setup with Apollo's as audio interface and external outboard preamps and compressors for tracking, what else should one be considering mounting in the rack units - besides possible effect and signal processors and rack panels?

I went through Thomann's webpage and found different categories of gear for rack mounting, but I'm not sure at all what could be defined as "nice to have" and "need to have". The list looks like this:

- Patchbay
- Power conditioner
- Power amp
- Signal splitter
- Headphone amp
- Digital converter
- Synchronizer and clock generator
- Miscellaneous studio gear

I will mainly be tracking vocals, so I know a lot of the gear would not be necessary, but think of the ultimate setup for this situation and what could be added.

Please feel free to also add different gear that you cannot live without in your workflow.

Thanks,
Martin

 

[LouisC]

- Patchbay = useful if you have other outoard gear - but research your needs properly (normailsed/semi-normalised etc)
- Power conditioner = Furman make the 'industry standard' and well worth it.
- Power amp = you'll more than likely be using powered monitors ?
- Signal splitter = You'll be doing most of this in the DAW
- Headphone amp = Your Apollo
- Digital converter = Your Apollo
- Synchronizer and clock generator = Your Apollo

 

[Joe Porto]

You can also split signal with a half normalled patch bay.

 

[mjresc]

I will definitely be adding more outboard gear to my rack units in the future, so I will make sure to do some thorough research on the patchbays and what would fit my needs the best. I think easy routing is the only right solution for me in order to make sure that I'll make good use of my outboard gear, so I don't need to change the cable routing every time I feel like compressor B instead of compressor A for instance.

Thank you for your response both of you!

 

[Neotrope]

start with what you need, then add on

 

[mjresc]

start with what you need, then add on

Will do. But it was good to be enlightened on the use of a patchbay and especially the power conditioner, which I had no idea would be a good investment as LouisC recommended and, as far as I can see, you also got placed at the top of your left rack unit - must be some truth to it then

Off topic: Congrats on the MP MIDI Controller! It's quite a rare sight!

 

[Clbraddock]

There are a lot of things that would be a better investment than any of the rack stuff you mentioned

1) Good Monitors
2) Good Headphones
3) Good microphones
4) Good room treatment/bass traps

If you have all of those covered then go for it adding rack stuff, but I would invest in high quality items from this list first.

 

[mjresc]

There are a lot of things that would be a better investment than any of the rack stuff you mentioned

1) Good Monitors
2) Good Headphones
3) Good microphones
4) Good room treatment/bass traps

If you have all of those covered then go for it adding rack stuff, but I would invest in high quality items from this list first.

I completely agree with you. I'm moving into a new studio in some months, and I'm pretty far with crafting my list on what I need. The outboard gear, I know, is not essential as a first step, but I think I got the initial steps covered and the additional things is purely for my own pleasure. I just wanted to know how I could utilize my rack gear in the best way possible.

1) Good monitors: IK Multimedia iLoud Precision MTM
2) Good headphones: 1 x Neumann NDH 20 and 1 x Neumann NDH 30
3) Good microphones: Sphere DLX and thinking about pulling the trigger on a Bock 251
4) It's a rented studio, but equipped with acoustic ceiling, acoustic panels on the walls, and a floating floor with carpet all over.

No bass traps though - I will see if that is needed when the time comes.

Thanks!

 

[Neotrope]

Will do. But it was good to be enlightened on the use of a patchbay and especially the power conditioner, which I had no idea would be a good investment as LouisC recommended and, as far as I can see, you also got placed at the top of your left rack unit - must be some truth to it then

Off topic: Congrats on the MP MIDI Controller! It's quite a rare sight!

oh yeah...have been FURMAN fan boy for decades. the right bay has conditioner underneath. i also have battery back up. had patchbay on the left but with the Apollo x16, made it redundant as no shortage of inputs now. and yeah, was early funder adopter of orginal rev onemp midi controller. added the mk2 version moment it was available.

 

[fastriver]

@mjresc This thread helped me, and might interest you:

The $20,000 budget from scratch thing

I think there are definitely newer members of this forum who will enjoy the answers of the more established members... apology if this has been done before (or many times before): You have to start over. You get two rooms (live room and mix room) that are already treated acoustically. You get...

uadforum.com

 

[rodd]

the patch bay is really important imo. I have a Samson S-Patch, and it has switches on the front that let you switch the jacks between through, normal, and half-normal. I use this feature all the time. A lot of patch bays have the ability to change the jacks, but you have to take the front panel off or flip switches on the back of the unit. Having it right on the front is very handy. Also, the Apollo will do these 3 things:
- Headphone amp
- Digital converter
- Synchronizer and clock generator (if you get a rack Apollo, which I recommend for your use case)

If you're using analog outboard gear and connecting to the line-inputs on the Apollo, you don't need a clock generator at all. You only need that when/if you get something that will connect with ADAT, and even then you can use the word clock output on the Apollo. Good luck, there's a lot to learn!

 

[thebeesknees22]

A UPC to plug all that gear into?

I get power blips a lot in my current apartment and the UPC keeps everything running safe and smooth with the battery backup in it. They're not cheap though. I went with a floor unit since the rackmountable ones are crazy expensive.

 

[mjresc]

@mjresc This thread helped me, and might interest you:

The $20,000 budget from scratch thing

I think there are definitely newer members of this forum who will enjoy the answers of the more established members... apology if this has been done before (or many times before): You have to start over. You get two rooms (live room and mix room) that are already treated acoustically. You get...

uadforum.com

That's super cool! It's always nice to hear from people what they are using in every aspect of their own studios. For me, I don't hear/read/watch a lot about the less "sexy" but really important stuff, simply because there's so much more information about 1176'ers, 1073's, and Sony C-800's out there. This is so valuable to me when beginning my journey of implementing outboard gear, and I already made some additions to my - already - well-equipped list of want's and need's, so thank you for showing me

 

[mjresc]

the patch bay is really important imo. I have a Samson S-Patch, and it has switches on the front that let you switch the jacks between through, normal, and half-normal. I use this feature all the time. A lot of patch bays have the ability to change the jacks, but you have to take the front panel off or flip switches on the back of the unit. Having it right on the front is very handy. Also, the Apollo will do these 3 things:
- Headphone amp
- Digital converter
- Synchronizer and clock generator (if you get a rack Apollo, which I recommend for your use case)

If you're using analog outboard gear and connecting to the line-inputs on the Apollo, you don't need a clock generator at all. You only need that when/if you get something that will connect with ADAT, and even then you can use the word clock output on the Apollo. Good luck, there's a lot to learn!

Yes, I realized that when digging a little deeper into the whole patchbay universe. I of course knew about the concept of one, but I wasn't sure exactly how much outboard gear was needed in order to get one myself, and I think it differs from person to person, but if you really want to utilize your gear and make sure you're not buying stuff that is just collection dust because the use of Console with your Apollo is _so_ easy, then I feel like it would be a good investment - especially since I have a few items already on my list that I would like to track with, but not always the same combination (1073 into a CL 1B one day, using a 6176 Channel Strip the next day for instance).

This might be silly, but I'm a big fan of a clean-looking workstation, so when exploring different patchbays it always annoyed my aesthetic side a bit with all the cables popping out (I want buttons and knobs, ha!). Again, I wanna emphasize that it's silly, but in my mind I gain a lot of creativity from being comfortable in my studio, just as I think I was a better soccer player (I'm danish) when I loved the cleats I was wearing (no joke), so I actually found the Flock Audio Patch-series very interesting. I'm not saying it has to be this, but I will definitely do some more research on this patchbay and see if its also what I'm after in terms of performance.

And good to know that the Apollo's will cover a lot of the different tasks. My setup will be an Apollo Twin X for desktop control and DSP, and then a rack mounted Apollo x8 in addition.

 

[mjresc]

A UPC to plug all that gear into?

I get power blips a lot in my current apartment and the UPC keeps everything running safe and smooth with the battery backup in it. They're not cheap though. I went with a floor unit since the rackmountable ones are crazy expensive.

Can you give me an example of a UPC so I can look into it? Google in danish is very much about barcodes of different kinds, and when searching in relation to 'music' and 'studio', a lot of 'Uninterruptable Power Supply (UPS)' shows up, but is it basically the same?

 

[Neotrope]

i use cyberpower battery backup, or uninterruptible power supply UPS, and Furman power conditioners

 

[mjresc]

i use cyberpower battery backup, or uninterruptible power supply UPS, and Furman power conditioners

I will do some research on those. Already sold on the Furman, though. Seems essential.

 

[bellows and brass]

the patch bay is really important imo. I have a Samson S-Patch, and it has switches on the front that let you switch the jacks between through, normal, and half-normal. I use this feature all the time. A lot of patch bays have the ability to change the jacks, but you have to take the front panel off or flip switches on the back of the unit. Having it right on the front is very handy. ............

+1 for the S-patch.
Some of the semi-pro patchbays out there are of rather low quality, but so far 2 years in, I have no complaints of the s-patch.

This might be silly, but I'm a big fan of a clean-looking workstation, so when exploring different patchbays it always annoyed my aesthetic side a bit with all the cables popping out

Not silly at all....I'd say manditory!!
A well designed patchbay would be normalised so at the start of the day the patch leads would be in their rack.

One often overlooked and far from glamorous aspect of small studio ownership/setup is the ability to solder and make up custom cables.
Apart from saving a shit load of money, it allows you to make the cable exactly as you want it, out of the wire you want,
I learned the skill early, and with a basic tool kit of a cheap soldering iron and cradle, cheap hot air gun for heatshrink, basic multimeter, an expensive wire stripper, and a bit of scrap wood with various holes drilled in it, some panel mounted xlr's, and lots of scribble in big letters for what pin is what and for the termination lengths of a wire with different connectors, all my cables are custom made with either star quad for mic/patch cables, or the much thiner/cheaper belden 8761 for installation cabling that wont see movement or get stood on.
The best way to have an unsightly workstation is having messy cables!!

 

[thebeesknees22]

Can you give me an example of a UPC so I can look into it? Google in danish is very much about barcodes of different kinds, and when searching in relation to 'music' and 'studio', a lot of 'Uninterruptable Power Supply (UPS)' shows up, but is it basically the same?

oh yeah basically what @Neotrope said. Uninterruptible power supply. It just keeps things running for a few minutes if the power goes down or blips off so you can safely shut everything down if need be and/or things will just keep running like nothing happened when the power comes back on.

I went with this APC one since a buddy recommended it to me: (probably a little overkill tbh, but it works so I'm happy)

Amazon.com

The cyberpower ones neotrope uses may be a better buy though.

I also run a furman power conditioner into my UPC for all of my outboard gear as do others here.

 

[Rainflower]

I’m running two of these UPS also from amazon. One for the live room, one for the control room.

APC UPS AMAZON

It’s a nice reassurance that everything will stay powered up in the middle of a session.