Pot connected to a patchbay

[strssmmnt]

Hi, can anyone help a newbie like me?
I've seen in pictures that some patchbays on sk-1s has pots connected to them... like five banana jacks in a row has a pot at the bottom of it and, I guess, altering the sounds of the different connections you make in that row... how is that done?
I'm not even sure if this is an understandable question, but anyway... 
Best,
Strssmmnt

www.myspace.com/stressmoment

[Circuitbenders]

a rotary switch with several points connected too it?

You could have ground as the common point and then up to 12 other connections from a sound ROM as the switching connectors.

[jamiewoody]

most all things are possible. the only problem i see with multiple bend points to a rotory switch would be that you could only select one bend at a time, and you would have to rotate around other bend to get to the one you want.

it seems this is why televisions stoped sporting rotory switches.

[strssmmnt]

Ah, I see... thanks!
I thought maybe there was a way to add a pot so that you couls fade in or out the diffenet bends you make with the patch... or, I guess, use a switch or a pot to disconnect a whole row in a patch, making it possible to turn on and off the bends without ripping out the cables? what do you think? Am I way off here?

[Circuitbenders]

Its usually about now that your brain starts dribbling out of your ears.

Theres loads of different ways of wiring up patchbays and lots of cunning stuff you can do with switches etc. In theory you could wire up the tip and ground connections of a matrix of sockets in rows and columns, and then use a jack with the tip and sleeve terminals wired together. When you plug the jack in it will connect the two socket connections together which will connect that row to that column.

And the fact that even i can't understand what i just wrote there, and i know what i'm talking about, just goes to show how difficult these things are to explain 

[strssmmnt]

haha, perfect! I'm lost! But it was actually kind of helpful anyway...made me want to try some things right away... thanks for the inspiration!

[jamiewoody]

if you are not savy with metering (which i am not really...yet), you might try connecting jumpers with crock-clips to various potentiometers and to bend points when you find a cool sound. (i assume you are jiggy with probing for bends, just use a wire and start connecting different points. often resistors and solder dots on the printed circuit.).

and don't feel bad, i am still learning too. we all have to start somewhere!

[strssmmnt]

Yes, thanks, that's how I do it now, just trying stuff out. I have actually managed to make a few really cool keyboards but in theory I have no idea of what it is I've done. I guess that would be the next step, to understand what it is I'm doing...but it seems I'm more of a tryer and a doer than a reader... Some might call it lazy, but I prefer creative.