The Watering Hole

I am getting fed up with unplugging and replugging my MIDI cables into my MIDI devices and want to know if any of you DIY'ers have any info on a MIDI patchbay or merger?  The premanufactured units I have seen are too expensive and seem to be a bit too limited. I have Googled it and found a few ideas.

I was thinking of getting 16 (all that I need) MIDI panel mounted sockets and making one myself but would like to know if it was possible without any active circuitry.  I thought I might could etch two boards for input and output and wire them to their respective ins/outs in a rack mounted box.

This would not only help with the plugging issue but also help on decreasing latency when going through several MIDI devices.

Dude, that's a LOT of MIDI!!!  :o  :D

cgtrox  8-)

Seems pretty simple.  Not sure why you would need to etch boards... I think MIDI DIN connectors just pass wire two channels and a shield.  So just take two conductor, shielded cable, wire the middle pin to the shield, the two on the left and right of that to each connector, and there you will have it.

Well from what I have read, only three wires are necessary to make MIDI work (as you mentioned) but I don't know if connecting more than several connections require some extra circuitry to clean up the MIDI signals.  

I was thinking that since that there were more than a few connections that it would be easier to wire them direct or to etch a board for inputs and outputs.  Some say that a balanced patchbay would work if you wire them correctly but I am unsure if there if there will be some signal degradation.

Thanks for your input and I may very well may try that before I look into the more sophisticated circuits.

Keebo,

I don't have any info on anything like this.  Google it, hit the usual DIY suspects sites...  see if you find anything.