I've been getting well acquainted with my Kronos. She's the center piece of my little studio so much so in fact that I do all my songs on her. I like the features of the sequencer/multi-track recorder on the Kronos. It's all I ever dreamed of (I wish there were more than 12 audio tracks though) and it works well for me as a keyboardist because I can put all my songs right there into the Kronos and even record my external keyboards,guitars, drum machines etc. right into it. It's really amazing but I'm sure you all already know that.
I'm ready to take it to the next step with the Kronos and am curious how well it does when you record vocals into it and I mean singing vocals which can be demanding to record. There's no XLR output on the back so I'd have to convert to 1/4 cable and that already makes me skeptical if it's all that great for handling vocals.
Can anyone kind of chime in on that? I've also been thinking about getting a cheap 24track recorder or something and just bouncing down songs from the Kronos onto there and just using that to record vocals. Wish I could afford a decent computer and those fancy software programs like protools but yah know I'm still broke after buying this expensive Kronos.
Never recorded directly to the Kronos, but have recorded vox to a Tascam multitrack portastudio, then imported. Works very well once you know how to do it.
blazerunner wrote:
Can anyone kind of chime in on that? I've also been thinking about getting a cheap 24track recorder or something and just bouncing down songs from the Kronos onto there and just using that to record vocals. Wish I could afford a decent computer and those fancy software programs like protools but yah know I'm still broke after buying this expensive Kronos.
I don't necessarily believe more expensive gear is the solution. a 24 track recorder sounds like more work, more learning curve.
I have imported plenty of audio vocal files into the SEQ and they sound very good.
That said, I don't see why a live vocal can't be successfully recorded onto 1 of the 16 audio tracks of Kronos. I haven't done it but my guess is that several K owners of used audio in for vocals, guitars, etc etc , using the SEQ
Kronos should do the job well if you intend to record DEMOS only.
For more serious vocal recordings, Kronos is not up to the task, just like most built‑in 'interface' mic preamps, or small mixers.
Instead buying 24-track recorder, wouldn’t be better to buy an affordable mic preamp, and use Kronos as a recorder ( I assume you already have a descent microphone)
If you need a solid vocals you really need a descent mic and preamp, and it does not mean to spend thousands. I do a lot of vocals, and my ART Pro MPA2 with Aston Stealth deliver the results that I am very pleased.
Poseidon wrote:Kronos should do the job well if you intend to record DEMOS only.
I tend to agree with what Poseidon said. The dry recording itself would be fine. You can do all sorts of great vocal processing too with the mic modeler or even create a de-esser with the multiband compressor. That all said... the part where a modern DAW really shines is in the detailed editing of timing and pitch. The Kronos can’t stack up against a program like Melodyne, the Antares stuff, or VariAudio in Cubase. Most DAWs come packaged with those analysis style vocal editors.
A 24 track wouldn’t be any better than the Kronos imo but I’m not sure if a company has made a hardware vocal editing solution yet.
Thanks for all the replies so far. Here's where I'm at with my Kronos and mic.
The track I create on the Kronos usually take up all the audio slots so I don't have room for vocals. So I was thinking well I'll create a master and record that on to a 24 track like tascamDP thing and use that for recording vocals on to the track I made on the Kronos. I need room for verses, bridges, chorus, layering yadda yadda. Vocals take up a lot of track space too. I wasn't sure if the Kronos was ideal for vocal recording.
My Mic is a Rode NTK Tube mic going into a Warm Audio WA73 with the built in EQ and a Lexicon processor for vocal effects. If it matters I have all this running through a little 6 channel mixer. I could run from the Mixer into the Kronos. If I'm just going to lean on the Kronos for vocal recording. If I did the multi track recording route it would just be a master track from the Kronos recorded into the mixer and vocals added to it. The same as with the Kronos.
Well, you can also use free software to record complex vocals. I haven't used this application you're talking about, and I don't quite understand the problem and why you can't do it in your software. By the way, it would be interesting to know what other programs you use, since I am only a beginner at making music, and I need to learn how to record my voice correctly. I learn to sing with the help of a tutor and articles like https://musicaroo.com/learn-how-to-sing-better/. I like this activity, so I study new information enthusiastically and devote a lot of time to this hobby.
Last edited by dangarang on Mon Jun 20, 2022 6:02 am, edited 1 time in total.
Wow, well this was certainly resurrected from the dead. The forum bots can be quite entertaining.
Funny part is I started reading the first few lines thinking this was a new post and I thought wow I totally share the same experience as this guy... and then I looked at the handle and realized it was me.
I am ashamed though looking back at this because I posted this in 2019 but in actuality I had the Kronos since 2017 and I was afraid to use it so it sat collecting dust for about 2 years before I finally got the courage to learn it. It was such a leap from the Triton I had previously it took sometime to let it grow on me but that's what happens when you main a single Keyboard for decade. It's hard moving on so forgive me.
3-4 years later I think I agree more with GregC. The Kronos can handle vocals just fine. At this point I've run just about everything else through this thing. Every setup has a trick or setting it prefers more than the others but when you find the sweet spot all is good. It's a wonderful keyboard.
A song is like a room. Effectively you could like that each of your furnitures in that room would have the same volume, the same colors and be very closed to each other. But it will sound so dull.
The magic word is : The space.
It is why IMHO I don't recommend to record vocals directement dans le Kronos.
Why ?
Because you would have to use the same categories of effects for all your tracks and so... ...it will lack of spatialization. And all the recorded tracks will look to tight to each other.
But it is only my own advice. No more.
Poseidon wrote:Kronos should do the job well if you intend to record DEMOS only.
I tend to agree with what Poseidon said. The dry recording itself would be fine. You can do all sorts of great vocal processing too with the mic modeler or even create a de-esser with the multiband compressor.
I know this was posted a long time ago but I just now read it because of the update.
Charles, can you please tell me how to create a de-esser with the multiband compressor?
It's the one thing that I thought was missing. My Symmetrix has one but it's old and doesn't stand up to today's standards.
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