The midi controlled patchbay, although the patchmate was good there were also things that annoyed me, first the relais are a bit noisy when they switch, nothing really bad but still, operation is quite complex. So I started out with better relais, smaller and more quiet and the operation is far less complex. On the front you will see two rotary encoders with a push button integrated , and LCD and eight push buttons with led's inside the button. On the back you have eight mono/stereo loops, dual mono out, a midi in and two midi thru outputs so you can devide the midi signal if you have multiple midi racks. Unit has midi control and program change and is fully programmable.
I also have build in a few power supplies for my racks that use external adapters and the phantom power for the midi pedal (7 pin din).
Operation is very easy, push one or more of the eight pushbuttons that correspondent with one of the eight loops, select the program number with the right encoder and push it, and it will be saved under that program number. Each loop can also be controlled by a midi control change number (can be programmed to any number) . You can set the midi channel and it also has a build in midi monitor (like the MP-2 has). Menu can be accessed with the left encoder, only 4 menus, working menu, set midi channel, set midi control change number and the the midi monitor.
Electronics, also quite simple, again a 8 bit pic µcontroller at 32MHz, optocoupler, 7805 and 7806 74HCT14 buffers, ULN2803 driver (relais), 16 relais, LCD, caps resistors, stacked jacks and a few transformers (toroid). All relais and Ic's in sockets for easy maintenance. All interconnects with flat cables.
All programming done in C pro for pic. PCB's made in Autodesk Eagle.