Anyone Use a Pre-Amp with their Kronos?

Kevbo · Post by **Kevbo** » Fri Aug 28, 2020 4:30 pm

Do you use a preamp with your Kronos for home studio recording? I've always recorded straight from the board, but wasn't sure if anyone found any necessity, or more interesting characteristics using a preamp.

Thanks!

GregC · Post by **GregC** » Fri Aug 28, 2020 5:03 pm

I am not clear on what circumstances , where a preamp is needed on a recording.

Straight Kronos
for all channels, recording to master WAV file.

Kronos acts as my mixer for 16 midi tracks plus audio.

voip · Post by **voip** » Sat Aug 29, 2020 5:56 pm

The audio signal levels coming out of the Kronos' Line Outs are pretty hot and easily sufficient for a preamp not to be necessary.

.

ChrisDuncan · Post by **ChrisDuncan** » Sat Aug 29, 2020 6:24 pm

As you doubtless know, preamps are their own little rabbit hole, especially with the modular 512 series of stuff being so popular. You get a 512 rack and a part of your brain demands that you fill all the empty slots (gotta catch 'em all!).

I don't have a large collection of preamps (and have intentionally avoided 512 racks to avoid that particular adventure), but I do have some SSLs that I like, as well as a pair of Neves. However, all of that is in the downstairs studio and the Kronos is upstairs in the living room, so I've never played around with tracking the Kronos through them.

Like the others, I just run straight into the audio interface, which for this station is a Steinberg UR-22. It doesn't add any color.

If you're looking for a particular sound I would personally reach for Kronos parameter knobs before I reached for my wallet. That said, if you already have some nice preamps, it would be interesting to hear what the different colors bring to the party, particularly on something recognizable like the pianos where we'd have a baseline for comparison.