Logic , Patchbays , and Mic Lines

[John Scalia]

This is more of an outboard gear post , but it does all connect to Logic. 
Many of us have Patchbays , as many of us have a hybrid ecosystem. My brain was working overtime to find the most practical way of getting my mic inputs into my patchbay. 

I love the db25 connector , but it does force you to really think your snakes and how they are going to need to be fanned out. 

The issue is that some preamps don’t have front mic inputs , so that means having to get all my mic lines and preamps into my patchbay/system from the rear Lunchbox/rack. 
This really hung me up . I’ll admit , my brain was hurting trying to determine what I needed to purchase to make this all work. 

So my fix was to buy a Switchcraft XLR passthrough to run my mics into . It has db25 connectors on back.
I’ll venture to guess that many of us are doing this all in ONE room, and are NOT using a console. Those mics have to get into the ecosystem somehow. The XLR passthrough allowed me to have 8 XLR Female and 8 XLR Male in a single rack space. 
It’s $389 on Sweetwater. (This stuff adds up.) Then of course , needing to buy another couple db25 snakes. 
Thankfully , my Black Lion PBR 500 series rack has db25 in and out connectivity , and I already have one extra db25 to db25 snake. 
But I think what happens , is we buy some piece of new gear , then another, and suddenly we are needing to rethink and rewire EVERYTHING. Dear God make it stop. 
I’m very interested to find out how some of you are approaching getting your mic lines into your system. 
Do any of you use an XLR drop snake and run that into your Lunchbox rear? Or do any of you have a drop snake fanned out to TRS and run that into a TRS Patchbay ?