Balanced / Unbalanced

[digital lofi]

Granted, I can be a little thick.

Sort of specifically I'm asking in terms of my FMR RNP & RNC and my patchbay.

I'm still tinkering with the routing in my ghetto studio but more or less everything goes through a patchbay so that I can move the signal around - I have a Lynx L22 so only two analogue channels into the DAW.

So, when cabling the RNC into the patchbay I go with the unbalanced (TS). I got that.

RNP can use either balanced or unbalanced. So if I use TRS out from that, and via balanced TRS patch cables, route it into the RNC, do I have to sweat something hinky happening to my signal? What is the actual consequence of that?

Do I need to even bother using balanced out from the RNP? Sometimes I patch that directly into the Lynx (balanced cables), or into a mixer that is connected using balanced, so does that mean that absolutely these should balanced? Or, again, is it a wash? None of these cables is running very far, 5' or 10'.

And it's not like I'm laying down supper high quality audio. But you know, try to have a good signal so when someone wants to pay me to remix ;)

[Tomasz]

Why not use your RNP as a balance box for your RNC?.... And patch the whole shebang into your patchbay.... Thereby eliminating the 6 db (?) drop from unbalanced cables and reducing the possibilities of interference..( hum, hash, Rfi, etc). It can be a zero-gain amplifier for LINE signal level processing..

Just some thoughts

[digital lofi]

And good thoughts, man. I mean that's certainly an option. My thinking is that I don't necessarily always want to compress the signal or compress things I don't want/need to run through the preamp. Right?

Interesting about the zero-gain amplifier; I hadn't heard of that before.

Ah 6db drop. I think I'd heard that. And I sort of figured the noise issue but I don't worry about that as much as I should.

Hmmm...

[Tomasz]

My thinking is that I don't necessarily always want to compress the signal or compress things I don't want/need to run through the preamp. Right?

Right... So, bypass the compressor when you only want the pre, and turn the gain on the RNP to ZERO when you want the compressor only...

[digital lofi]

I'll take your advice. It makes perfect sense. I just need to get my cable needs sorted. It'd help if I could roll my own. But I'm stretched pretty thin as is.

Thanks for walking me through this :thumbs:

[Mixwell]

You can use a single TRS cable between the Insert Point of the RNP and the Input Jacks of each side of the RNC for simple operation. This TRS cable will act as a "send and return", in a unbalanced fashion of course. You can easily interface the RNC with a Balanced Patch Bay, and other balanced equipment with custom cabling. True, the RNC is UNBALANCED, but it is still +4.

With balanced wire: the RNC Side will use a TS [Tip - Sleeve] connector for I/O, where HOT is connected to the Tip as usual, BUT COLD [Ring] and GROUND [Sleeve] of the cable are soldered together of the SLEEVE of this TS connector. At the other end, the balanced cable is terminated to a T/R/S connector where, HOT [Tip] COLD [Ring] and GROUND [Sleeve] are used normally.

[digital lofi]

Adam, excuse my thickness, I'm a latecomer to all this electrical engineering stuff...

Where's the best place to get this custom cabling? I've read about it but since I don't solder myself I'm not sure where to get this cable... should I come visit the shop ;)

[Mixwell]

Mercenary is the Best Place by far!

We are trying to get these cables up on the site as a SPECIFIC Part so people can order them without ordering a headache as well.

[moose]

If you go from balanced to unbalanced there's a 6dB drop... if you go the other way there should be no change. Unbalanced runs are usually fine for short distances... most of the hi-fi mastering houses actually have unbalanced runs since everything is just a couple 2-3 feet.

The bigger question when mixing unbalanced & balanced is if the gear is pin 2 hot or pin 3...