Week Four: Connectivity - Posted on 2014-05-05 by Carmon Peery

Week four I learned about connectivity. We went into detail of all the connectors and what they look like. I learned that two conductor connectors are used for making connections which consists of only two components, hot and cold, hot and ground. Each have two separate isolated conductors which are intended to connect to specific wires. Three conductor connectors consist of three separate isolated conductors which are intended to connect specific wires. Multi-pin connectors allow many isolated signals to be sent simultaneously through one connection. Each pin is soldered or crimped to a corresponding wire. Common where many channels of audio are being sent. They are in and out and have individual connection for each channel. 

Analog audio is signal voltage and Digital audio is binary code. Microphone level is ground -60dBu and pro audio level is +4dBu. 

The unbalanced cables are RCA, instrument, speaker and BNC cables. The balanced cables are XLR, TRS, TT and Snakes. Multi-channel balanced audio cables are ELCO, DL, D-sub/DB25 cables. 

MADI is a protocol which was developed by AMS Neve SSL and AES. It uses BNC cables or lights pipes to carry multi channel digital audio. Patch bays provide a centralized hub where all analog audio connections can be made. Dictating  the default signal flow of the studio. Fully normalled is broken when a patch cable is inserted into either the tip or bottom jack. Half normalled is only patching onto the bottom jack will break normal. Parallel is normal and cannot be broken. Open is no connection between top and bottom rows. Split is one set of inputs and outputs feeds both the top and bottom row, with the top row mirroring the bottom.

Can't wait for next week!