I'm a dumbass... but patch bay or mixer?

Hi, I've gradually been building up my studio and over time I have gathered a lot of rack equipment and now I am wanting to get it all set up properly and more organised. My set up is basically the MPC outputted to amp/speakers, and then various keyboards/synths/mic etc inputted to the MPC. I always end up swapping these inputs depending on what I'm recording (actually I have two inputs at a time and record everything in mono).

My question is, what is the best way to manage this so that I am not constantly swapping the inputs to the MPC?

First I considered adding a patch bay to the rack and doing it that way, but I'm not sure it's necessary. My second thought is getting a mixer with many inputs, having all instruments plugged into the mixer and then have the mixer permanently plugged (stereo) into the MPC.

Is the mixer suitable to select and record the instruments through? i.e. if I want to record from keyboard X one day, can I just turn that channel up on the mixer and record? Does it cause a problem/change that all the other inputs are always going into the mixer at once?

If anyone understands what I'm rambling on about and has any advice, please let me know Thanks!

A mixer would seem to suit your needs from what you've discribed (config will depend on the pieces of gear that'll go into it).

I started out with a 10 channel mixer, but ended up needing a 24 channel after aquiring quite a few pieces of gear here and there. I like to run everything that's stereo to two channels.

You can also add a patchbay if you find you need one (for routing of efx or whatever).

Excuse my brief explinations, but I assume most of us here are intermidiate and advanced users. If not, and for those that need to, you can bring your game up by reading this.

http://www.tweakheadz.com/mixing_and_mastering.htm

http://www.tweakheadz.com/patchbay_setup.html

..well the point of a patchbay is for what you said : so you don't have to swap around inputs and outputs on the back of your gear

they're pretty cheap too.

patchbay. set it up in a rack, preferrably under all your other gear so the cables dont get in the way. wire everything (synths, MPC, fx, samplers, mixer, DAW interface) into the bay from the back, label all the jacks on the front and then get/make a bunch of short patch cables to connect your gear/fx as you need. this is a LUXURY to have. worth the hassle of setting it up for sure if you have more than 2-3 pieces of gear/effects.

Perfect answer, thanks I'll do that. Just for my knowledge and curiosity, is there any reason I wouldn't be able to achieve the same thing from a mixer? Thanks

Dreadful wrote:Perfect answer, thanks I'll do that. Just for my knowledge and curiosity, is there any reason I wouldn't be able to achieve the same thing from a mixer? Thanks

Basically think of a patchbay as a "router". A mixer differs in this category, though you can do some routing to some degree through the auxes. Plus a mixer adds character to the sound as well as being able to tweak and contour with the eq that you can't do with patching alone.

I hear what you're saying. Well as I will be wanting to route through a compressor for example, I'm thinking the cheapest way to go would be to get a patchbay, and I have an old 2 channel mixer... I'm with you on the sound that mixers add, so if I wanted to, I could use the patchbay to route everything else through my 2 channel mixer, or even just an EQ rack, and that way I'm kinda getting the best of both worlds the cheapest way... does that make logical sense or have I missed out an obvious factor there?