Analog SFX Processor Racks

Since I don't have any big music projects at the moment (just some small stuff) I decided it was time to do some changes to the studio that I had planned for a long time. The first thing I did was making a lot of balanced jack-jack cables because I wanted to hook up the analog SFX processors to the new Anatek SMP-16 I got a while ago from Ron. This is a digitally controlled analog audio and midi patch-bay. I like it a lot, but unfortunately they are not made any more, so they are hard to come by.

I removed the Moog Voyager RME from this rack because it wasn't in a convenient spot any way in that rack. That gave me the opportunity to put the Yamaha SD-5000 delay in there and the Sony's that I got and repaired earlier. The three Rolands are paired together and the Sony's two by two. The patch-bay has another 4 connections on the front (1 stereo input and output) that enables me to hook up another SFX processor when I want. A pedal for example or whatever. From the patch bay two stereo inputs and outputs go to an AD/DA converter in the rack next to it. So I can use two separate SFX chains in this rack. I can chain them together as well though. For example use all 4 Sony's in one chain by connecting the outputs of the first chain to the input of the second chain on the patch-bay.

In this picture you can see the rack next to it as well. This one also has an Anatek SMP-16 with the same construction. Also two stereo inputs and outputs go to the AD/DA converter. I'm not entirely done with this project yet since I ran out of stereo jacks. I ordered some more but they won't arrived until Thursday the earliest. So I decided to build everything in for now since I'm having a visitor over tomorrow. After that I'll have to remove everything again from the racks and do the rest of the wiring. It will be nice to be able to use these SFX processors next to the digital ones that I use primarily. At the moment I'm using a Behringer AD80000 as the AD/DA converter. I plan to replace it in the future by an RME ADI-8 or an Apogee converter, but for now the Behringer will do fine. They are quite OK in my opinion actually. I did play around a bit yesterday after I was done with the Sony DPS-D7 and Yamaha D-5000 delays. And I can tell you they are both very good :) I'm looking forward to using them in my productions. I have used a lot of external reverbs already, but never external delays actually. The only thing I need to get working now is getting them synchronized with the Midi Clock of my Sonar sequencer software.