You can buy a minibay thru todays sponsor Unzunz: unzu.nz/bbmbv2 they ship to EU and US or check their other products here unzu.nz/bobeats and follow them on Instagram here: unzu.nz/bbinsta - they are a store focused on unique indie products that might not make it into larger stores!
As a guitar player, synth nerd, and fellow groovebox obsessed this is so helpful. Your old video on patch bays was a huge inspiration for me. I watched it many times. This is the next level. 22:01
What’s wrong with a little overkill. On my guitar I have a ge200 and connect a pedalboard with a metal extreme, digital delay, octave and a volwah. Whereas for my synths I just have a Zoom 70CDR
I just did this exact thing except I used a spare patchbay . I can now route any sound in my studio through my pedals in any combo. It’s a beautiful thing.
I use the Boredbrain Patchulator to change up the signal order of my pedalboard. Makes it easier to interface with synths as well. I've started to build a synth setup on a pedalboard. All semi modular, so they can talk and play with each other.
Top Notch Video as always! I can't agree more with the importance of labeling. I've plugged and unplugged gear to move around, and before I labeled what was what, actually burned out a power adaptor in the process. Thankfully it was just an adaptor and not permanent damage on the equipment. It makes things so much easier to navigate around too! A patch bay for Pedals! Genius!
Oh boy! Just reading the title gives me GAS for a patchbay. I kinda use this idea with my mixer to run signals out and back in, so I bet this will be really helpful!
wonderful video bo, good idea with the pb! just need to slap a looper pedal at the end of the chain, imho! give it a try for endless loops and layers :)
This is an excellent video, Bo! I do happen to know from experience that patchbays are the penultimate stop on the train which inevitably leads to matrix mixers. The water is warm here...
Just a quick comment from an ex-roadie: put clear heatshrink over all your wire labels to protect them, or they will fall or get rubbed off! Even better, get one of the Brother labelers that prints directly on heatshrink sleeves.
Bo, I don't understand... I have the df audio minibay as well and mine flows from top to bottom... you seem to be connecting things across the bottom row... how did you go about doing that?
Turn off normalization If you have gen 1 open up box and use switches to turn off normalization If you have gen 2 theres switches behind a panel on the front
Would you share which wires you use, link which you like. Your thoughts on which cables you would not choose. Great thoughts and information on the order of connection, and finally the useful use of a portable printer.
I'm building a live pedal board for my synths and have been greatly irritated by the lack of stereo aux sends on mixers. I think the Radial Key Largo is my best option, but having a mixer with channel EQ and 2 stereo aux sends would be ideal... The only thing that seems to tick those boxes is the PLAYdifferently model 1.4... Which is outside of my price range right now.
you cannot buy the minibay from European Union distributor without customs hassle? Am I missing something? I love it, but geting it sent to EU sure is not cheap, and customs process are complex. Some retail distributor I am not aware within EU?
Surprised you didn’t do the Erica matrix mixer. It’s literally all of the benefits and dozens more and no need for patch cables. I have 2 in my current rig.
That one is very good too but i felt minibay is better suited for pure pedal setups One negative i see with the erica is reliance on minijacks for gear patching. So it would mean very difficult connections between L jack TS plugs into pedals into minijacks somehow
@@BoBeats I agree with that being its biggest flaw. However I bought 28 right angle mini TS make to 1/4 TS female cables to work around that. It is however an additional expense….. I would love if they made a thicker version with all side mounted 1/4 jackfields!
@@yannleroch1760 kinda. But kinda a hybrid. The difference is there are 3 different attenuation settings that can be applied to each route, so a very limited mixer, but it does make it much more creative than just a router.
@@yannleroch1760 also while most routers will allow feedback loops (an integral part of the experimentation with the Erica and where you need that attenuation ability) and most routers will allow one ( source) to many (destinations) I know of no router that allows many (s) to many (d) and many (s) to one (d) routing. In fact that is by definition mixing.
thanks for the video! i always wondered: what do you do with the aux outs on stereo channels on a mixer? do aux1 and aux2 still correspond to the left and the right signal of the channel respectively? also, i'm using the tascam lm-8st for connecting my synths/samplers/fx/etc in the studio and i can highly recommend it, it's small and it doesn't have unnecessary stuff like EQs that you hardly ever need when working with such gear
Hey! You have to test bc this could be different depending on mixers signal path. Could be its hard wired aux 1 L channel and aux 2 R, or some sort of sum. Hard to say!
So this is pretty cool Bo. I’m wondering - do you find it annoying that your 9V pedals need a different power supply from 5V modular? Is there a market for 5V pedals (that could be powered by USB or phone batteries instead of wall power)?
My wallet saw me watching this and had a heart attack. I've just come back from a day in the emergency ward. The patient will survive if I don’t watch any more videos like this.
Genius... I didn't know a non-eurorack mini patch bay like that existed... Neither I knew I needed it. I just hope I could spend to populate something exactly like that... ... But in the meantime I can just buy that bay and let it sit with the other underused gear... Just in case 😂
That's great so long as you're signed up for relatively and subjectively generic effects categories. There's nothing wrong with wanting to throw some chorus and delay on an instrument and calling it a day. But that's not why most of us are here.
@@adeevisionI haven’t owned one, but I’ve read through the website and watched some videos. I think that you’re hand-waving away the fact that I can’t use that box to get a virtual LVX or Nightsky, and even if I could, the controls on board don’t come close to replicating the user experience of having the control layouts of each pedal, which ignores both the fact that that UX has been designed or might be intended to be performed - knobs manipulated during a song. I’ve got NOTHING against multi effects, but I do think you have a fundamental lack of understanding as to why and how we use pedals. It’s likely very different from you. And that’s okay!
@@adeevision you can use all three knobs to control values, you mean. Except that the majority of the pedals (plural) we're using have 6+ knobs. Let us know when you catch up.
Ummm...the idea of a pedal board is to conventiently arrange pedals in a signal chain, comprised of the pedals/effects your music requires. A patch bay seems counter-intuitive and in this case, takes up too much real estate. Why not just get a multi-effects processor and use a midi foot controller?
The video should explain in detail why But in case it doesnt suffice: One chain is inflexible Synth setups are basically music production setups and not one instrument setups like a typical guitar pedalboard setup Therefor having the ability to quickly patch things is important and also to set up multiple routings at the same time
Can't answer for OP here but In my case I got the chroma console and added it to my mixer as a send/return for that purpose but... In some cases you need multiple send returns and want separate parallel FX processing. For instance my groove box goes into my board and our to a limiter and back in and then I boost the bass on that channel. Then I also run that signal out to a separate channel where I pull the bass out and run it into the chroma console and so I can process the non bass and mix it in. It's all about the flexibility of routing in and out of the mixer.
@@BoBeatsto be fair things have moved on from in/out of earlier processor. I had iterations of lots of expensive pedals, switchers, patch bays For sheer flexibility that eclipse what you are doing the helix floor is so difficult to beat Happy to show you how I’m incorporating synths, guitars, vocals through 1 helix with stereo/mono independent fx flows. All recallable and infinitely flexible People often reproduce say the cosmos on helix and upload for others At this point with free updates it’s a no brainer
While some clearly see "conveniently arrange pedals in a chain" as a pro, lots of us see this as creatively restrictive. There's lots of reasons why you might want to mess with your order of operations (reverb/vibrato or reverb/distortion for examples) and you'll see both pedals which allow you to flip that order internally and pedal boards which have multiple copies of the same pedal, which is a kind of insanity I have a lot of empathy for. Patch bays and matrix mixers are both incredibly limiting for people who want all of the flexibility.
6:48 Cool looking but I hate spending hundreds on cables that are used for one purpose only. Keep looking at upgrading to one of the Cioks isolated power supplies but it is $250. If I was going to spend $250, I would rather spend that much coin in another Synth not a power bank or cables.
You can buy a minibay thru todays sponsor Unzunz: unzu.nz/bbmbv2 they ship to EU and US or check their other products here unzu.nz/bobeats and follow them on Instagram here: unzu.nz/bbinsta - they are a store focused on unique indie products that might not make it into larger stores!
I got super excited but then saw they ship to the EU and USA but not the UK 😢 Curses to Brexit!!
As a guitar player, synth nerd, and fellow groovebox obsessed this is so helpful. Your old video on patch bays was a huge inspiration for me. I watched it many times. This is the next level. 22:01
I've got a Minibay coming and even without getting my hands on it yet, I'm already in love! I'm probably going to end up ordering a second one!
What’s wrong with a little overkill. On my guitar I have a ge200 and connect a pedalboard with a metal extreme, digital delay, octave and a volwah. Whereas for my synths I just have a Zoom 70CDR
I really like the cables that have the flat back to them to keep the pedals close together, very tidy!
19:00 one of my Mixers has 4 Subgroub Outs with matching pairs , the ( qx2442 ) i use my Aux send to make feedback loops xD
Amazing video, thank you🙏.
Full of great ideas and for sure it is the best 101 tutorial how auxs, sends, returns, normalization etc works. Thank you!
I just did this exact thing except I used a spare patchbay . I can now route any sound in my studio through my pedals in any combo. It’s a beautiful thing.
👌
Patchbay as replacement for a loop switcher is a really cool idea.
I use the Boredbrain Patchulator to change up the signal order of my pedalboard. Makes it easier to interface with synths as well.
I've started to build a synth setup on a pedalboard. All semi modular, so they can talk and play with each other.
Top Notch Video as always! I can't agree more with the importance of labeling. I've plugged and unplugged gear to move around, and before I labeled what was what, actually burned out a power adaptor in the process. Thankfully it was just an adaptor and not permanent damage on the equipment. It makes things so much easier to navigate around too! A patch bay for Pedals! Genius!
This is a great idea for using multiple pedals.I have many ideas now how to setup my pedals for my synths. Great video!
What a tour de force of an explanation. Thank you.
The patch bay on the pedalboard is a good idea!
Been Waiting 3 Yrs for this ! Thank you Bo
Thank you for watching! Sorry it took me so long 😄
Just picked up one of the Minibay patch bays and two of the Nanopatch M' 🎼🎶🎵🖤
How cool is that pedalboard. Knob heaven.
Meaty info video. Excellent work Bo
thank you! it took a while to make
Oh boy! Just reading the title gives me GAS for a patchbay. I kinda use this idea with my mixer to run signals out and back in, so I bet this will be really helpful!
wonderful video bo, good idea with the pb! just need to slap a looper pedal at the end of the chain, imho! give it a try for endless loops and layers :)
i really do need to get a looper like roland rc, i am not very used to using loopers!
This is an excellent video, Bo! I do happen to know from experience that patchbays are the penultimate stop on the train which inevitably leads to matrix mixers. The water is warm here...
havnt gone down the route of matrix mixers just yet... but...
Just a quick comment from an ex-roadie: put clear heatshrink over all your wire labels to protect them, or they will fall or get rubbed off! Even better, get one of the Brother labelers that prints directly on heatshrink sleeves.
YES to patch bay 🎉
Just gave Perfect Circuit and Big Daddy Hosa a few bucks for this patch bay and 16x sets of STP-201RRs and a bunch of other cables 😂 thanks my dude
Bo, I don't understand... I have the df audio minibay as well and mine flows from top to bottom... you seem to be connecting things across the bottom row... how did you go about doing that?
Turn off normalization
If you have gen 1 open up box and use switches to turn off normalization
If you have gen 2 theres switches behind a panel on the front
@@BoBeats ah gotcha. I have gen 1. I was just curious, my setup does what i need it to do.
If I see a Zoia I always scroll through to see if any patches I made were used. I think that might be the biggest change that pedal made to my life
That’s pretty awesome 😲
This showed up while I was taking a break from reconfiguring my patch bay interconnects. Coincidence???
Google knows you…
Can you get parallel effects with your setup? I would suggest you look at RME fireface ufx iii.
Yeah, i can do parallel
Would you share which wires you use, link which you like. Your thoughts on which cables you would not choose. Great thoughts and information on the order of connection, and finally the useful use of a portable printer.
I like the flat patchcables from EBS
I am sure theres cheaper equivalent cables but EBS have good reputation
I'm building a live pedal board for my synths and have been greatly irritated by the lack of stereo aux sends on mixers. I think the Radial Key Largo is my best option, but having a mixer with channel EQ and 2 stereo aux sends would be ideal... The only thing that seems to tick those boxes is the PLAYdifferently model 1.4... Which is outside of my price range right now.
zoom cdr. job done
I thought I would find this rather easy to understand, but not I'm a little "mixed" up.
Maybe even a little fuzzy.
(Still very very useful.)
Dan from That Pedal Show needs to see this! lol
I don't know how to link/tag someone... someone please tag Dan lol
you cannot buy the minibay from European Union distributor without customs hassle? Am I missing something? I love it, but geting it sent to EU sure is not cheap, and customs process are complex. Some retail distributor I am not aware within EU?
Check with Unzunz! Linked in description. They are a Swe based store that sell to EU and US
@@BoBeats thanks a lot for the info. I did not realitze they were in Swe. Thanks!!!
Really interesting to see your solution to this one.
One thing - can you talk dirty to me about impedance and how you manage that?
Impedance.. honestly I have not found a solid way of dealing with it. I just plug stuff in and hope for the best 😅
@@BoBeats Haha, OK fair enough. 😂
Surprised you didn’t do the Erica matrix mixer. It’s literally all of the benefits and dozens more and no need for patch cables. I have 2 in my current rig.
That one is very good too but i felt minibay is better suited for pure pedal setups
One negative i see with the erica is reliance on minijacks for gear patching. So it would mean very difficult connections between L jack TS plugs into pedals into minijacks somehow
@@BoBeats I agree with that being its biggest flaw. However I bought 28 right angle mini TS make to 1/4 TS female cables to work around that. It is however an additional expense….. I would love if they made a thicker version with all side mounted 1/4 jackfields!
@@yannleroch1760 kinda. But kinda a hybrid. The difference is there are 3 different attenuation settings that can be applied to each route, so a very limited mixer, but it does make it much more creative than just a router.
@@yannleroch1760 also while most routers will allow feedback loops (an integral part of the experimentation with the Erica and where you need that attenuation ability) and most routers will allow one ( source) to many (destinations) I know of no router that allows many (s) to many (d) and many (s) to one (d) routing. In fact that is by definition mixing.
thanks for the video!
i always wondered: what do you do with the aux outs on stereo channels on a mixer? do aux1 and aux2 still correspond to the left and the right signal of the channel respectively?
also, i'm using the tascam lm-8st for connecting my synths/samplers/fx/etc in the studio and i can highly recommend it, it's small and it doesn't have unnecessary stuff like EQs that you hardly ever need when working with such gear
Hey! You have to test bc this could be different depending on mixers signal path. Could be its hard wired aux 1 L channel and aux 2 R, or some sort of sum. Hard to say!
@@BoBeats i always just assumed it was a sum of the stereo signal on each aux...
Hi Bobeats- what model Zoom recorder is that one you’re using?
Thanks👍
H6
Needs more Fairfield 🤠
So this is pretty cool Bo. I’m wondering - do you find it annoying that your 9V pedals need a different power supply from 5V modular? Is there a market for 5V pedals (that could be powered by USB or phone batteries instead of wall power)?
No not annoying at all
Its a bit annoying if a pedal require something otjer than 9v DC power. But the psu i use can handle it
Great pedal for a board like that is the Electro Harmonix Tri Parallel Mixer, cheap , very flexible and sounds good.
Looks cool but does it allow for patching between the fx loops?
@@BoBeats Think of it as a single channel with three sends and returns that can be turned on and off individually plus eq on every return and polarity
@@peterpeper4837 so, not nearly as useful as a patchbay!
@@pjforde1978 Two entirely different things and both necessary.
@@peterpeper4837 give me a matrix mixer any day.
I have exactly the same label maker :D
My wallet saw me watching this and had a heart attack. I've just come back from a day in the emergency ward. The patient will survive if I don’t watch any more videos like this.
What a nice pedalboard, Bo! Now, let's hear some music.
here you go bobeatsmusic.bandcamp.com
Esta buenísimo eso que hiciste ahí . . .
Genius... I didn't know a non-eurorack mini patch bay like that existed... Neither I knew I needed it.
I just hope I could spend to populate something exactly like that...
... But in the meantime I can just buy that bay and let it sit with the other underused gear... Just in case
😂
brilliant strategy 😘
Great anaother project to make me spend less time making music. 😅😂.. nice Baird though!
this is true
it does take a lot of time to set up
once set up its pretty practical tho!
🤟
Overkill? I say organised
One of known advantages of patchbay is flexibility in use of external effects. Nothing new 🤷♂
A patchbay is a great idea. One with minijacks not so. At least use one with proper jacks or TT phone
Omg I’m going through this crisis rn
Funny I was looking at the DF Audio mini for other things but now it’s all clear - get one for my pedal pile
Thanks Bo. You always come through and the timing of your topics is Swedish chef’s kisses
As the video shows: it will be time consuming setting it all up
But once set up, the patchbay will make everything so much more fun!
Or you can put them all in a mod dwarf and have one box with multiple pedal boards and synths !
That's great so long as you're signed up for relatively and subjectively generic effects categories. There's nothing wrong with wanting to throw some chorus and delay on an instrument and calling it a day. But that's not why most of us are here.
@@pjforde1978 you obviously haven't looked at the effects or the box!
@@adeevisionI haven’t owned one, but I’ve read through the website and watched some videos. I think that you’re hand-waving away the fact that I can’t use that box to get a virtual LVX or Nightsky, and even if I could, the controls on board don’t come close to replicating the user experience of having the control layouts of each pedal, which ignores both the fact that that UX has been designed or might be intended to be performed - knobs manipulated during a song. I’ve got NOTHING against multi effects, but I do think you have a fundamental lack of understanding as to why and how we use pedals. It’s likely very different from you. And that’s okay!
@@pjforde1978 I have plenty of understanding thanks! And yes you can use the knobs to change values!
@@adeevision you can use all three knobs to control values, you mean. Except that the majority of the pedals (plural) we're using have 6+ knobs. Let us know when you catch up.
Guitarist's been doing this for decades and Bo's over here acting like he invented the wheel lol
Overkill indeed 🤯
No such thing if yer addicted to pedals lolol
@@Hysteric_Subjects well...that's probably right 😅
What did that run you $3k. Must be nice
Dio can vez
flexing how much gear you own, without telling people how much gear you own
yeah, it's so crazy that a gear reviewer has a lot of gear
gear reviewers?
Go to any synth group and post ”show me your setup please”
@@BoBeats ignore the haters!
@@pjforde1978 i try my best, thanks for the reminder
Ummm...the idea of a pedal board is to conventiently arrange pedals in a signal chain, comprised of the pedals/effects your music requires. A patch bay seems counter-intuitive and in this case, takes up too much real estate. Why not just get a multi-effects processor and use a midi foot controller?
The video should explain in detail why
But in case it doesnt suffice:
One chain is inflexible
Synth setups are basically music production setups and not one instrument setups like a typical guitar pedalboard setup
Therefor having the ability to quickly patch things is important and also to set up multiple routings at the same time
Can't answer for OP here but In my case I got the chroma console and added it to my mixer as a send/return for that purpose but... In some cases you need multiple send returns and want separate parallel FX processing.
For instance my groove box goes into my board and our to a limiter and back in and then I boost the bass on that channel. Then I also run that signal out to a separate channel where I pull the bass out and run it into the chroma console and so I can process the non bass and mix it in.
It's all about the flexibility of routing in and out of the mixer.
Personally I agree with you... but I must admit that being able to isolate pedals can shorten the chain and perhaps the signal is stronger
@@BoBeatsto be fair things have moved on from in/out of earlier processor. I had iterations of lots of expensive pedals, switchers, patch bays
For sheer flexibility that eclipse what you are doing the helix floor is so difficult to beat
Happy to show you how I’m incorporating synths, guitars, vocals through 1 helix with stereo/mono independent fx flows. All recallable and infinitely flexible
People often reproduce say the cosmos on helix and upload for others
At this point with free updates it’s a no brainer
While some clearly see "conveniently arrange pedals in a chain" as a pro, lots of us see this as creatively restrictive. There's lots of reasons why you might want to mess with your order of operations (reverb/vibrato or reverb/distortion for examples) and you'll see both pedals which allow you to flip that order internally and pedal boards which have multiple copies of the same pedal, which is a kind of insanity I have a lot of empathy for. Patch bays and matrix mixers are both incredibly limiting for people who want all of the flexibility.
Nobody needs this amount of pedals
How do you know that?
@@BubbaSatori I’m highly resistant to consumerism
6:48 Cool looking but I hate spending hundreds on cables that are used for one purpose only. Keep looking at upgrading to one of the Cioks isolated power supplies but it is $250. If I was going to spend $250, I would rather spend that much coin in another Synth not a power bank or cables.