ANALOG STUDIO SETUP Basic Overview of Recording Studio

ANALOG STUDIO SETUP Basic Overview of Recording Studio I/O

Studio Layout § Recording studios require literally miles of cable in order to connect all of the facilities’ equipment.

I/O § § The I/O of a studio can be broken down into three areas: Control Room I/O Machine Room I/O Studio/Iso booth I/O Control Room Machine Room Recording Console I/O Tape Machine I/O Mic Inputs from Studio and Iso booths Outboard Gear I/O – including Time Based and Dynamics Effects, outboard Mic Pres’s Monitor Amplifier/ Speaker level cue Cue amplifier I/O outputs for headphones DAW interface I/O Studio/ Iso Booth

The Control Room w/ Patchbay All of the I/O in a studio is wired to a patch bay for ease of operation and efficiency in routing signal. Patch bays are either attached to the console (as shown) or are in a separate rack. Speakers Mixing Desk Patch Bays Producer’s Desk Sound Diffuser

§ § § Signal Routing and Patch A patchbay is set up as pairs ofbays rows The top row is usually an output row, the bottom an input. I/O from gear, mic panels, etc are wired to the backs of the bays. The patchbay connects a point on the top to the point directly beneath it. This is referred to as “normalled”. The diagram to the right shows the most widely used configuration for a patch bay The half-normalled connection.

3 Types of Patch bay Connections 1. Non normalled or open 2. Fully Normalled 3. 1/2 Normalled

Non Normalled • Used where you don’t want the two rows to connect. • Most commonly used for outboard gear to avoid feedback.

Full Normalled • Generally only used for the mic line and mic preamp input rows • To avoid one mic being connected to several preamps at once.

Half Normalled • The most common row, used for all rows except the mic line/mic pre and outboard gear rows. All the line level I/O (except for outboard gear) is connected on half-normalled rows.

Half vs. Full Normalled • Half: When a patch cable is plugged into the input (bottom) row the connection from top to bottom is broken. Not true for the output (top) row - if a cable is plugged into the output row the connection from top to bottom is maintained.

Half vs. Full Normalled • Full: When a patch cable is plugged into the input (bottom) row the connection from top to bottom is broken - just like half. However, if a cable is plugged into the output (top) row the connection from top to bottom is also broken.