Do I need an external audio interface for my Kronos?

[Hal2001]

I was under the impression that, because the K has a built in audio interface with USB audio out, that I would not have to buy a separate audio interface. That's what Korg tech support also told me yesterday. However, I wonder if I would get higher quality digital audio recording results with my mac if I purchased an Apogee Duet or TC Electronic IMPACT-TWIN and bypass the K's internal audio interface? Would that be overkill and wasteful or is that advisable? Sometimes I record the K's headphone out into my Zoom H2 digital recorder and the sound seems to be very good. But I often hear sound files from other keyboardists and they appear to have more clarity and purity. I am interested if any of you are just recording via the K's USB audio out, or if you are all using audio interfaces. Thank you for your advice.

[X-Trade]

The 'built in' audio interface isn't really an interface as such at all but just a software function.

So when you use the USB audio, you are hearing the direct output of the Kronos without any analog signal path in between to distort or colour the signal. It is the pure digital output.

Any external audio interface you will hook up to the analog outputs will therefore not be as clear or pure (although in reality this can be good enough to be unnoticable). Only a really bad audio interface will cause any terrible colouration of the sound.

Of course, if you are on Windows, you will find that the Kronos USB implementation leaves some things to be desired - for example it has no ASIO driver so can't be used for super-accurate timing and latency correction.

[tdwctdwc]

I use the K's built in audio interface with my PC's Asio4all driver, connected through usb cable .

Works perfectly. Crystal clear sound and no latency .


R

[jimknopf]

Each interface has some latency.

And I know of several people, including me, who experience problems with the Asio4all solution.

So I don't use the Kronos interface but an external soundcard instead.

[Sam CA]

And I know of several people, including me, who experience problems with the Asio4all solution.

So I don't use the Kronos interface but an external soundcard instead.

I'm definitely one of those people who experienced problems. Random clicks and pops and other annoying problems. Nothing that I could reproduce so I was never able to spot the problem. If I opened up the same session 2 hours later, everything seemed to be working fine. So, for me an external sound card is the best way to go.

[tdwctdwc]

Each interface has some latency.

And I know of several people, including me, who experience problems with the Asio4all solution.

Yeah too bad Jim, well with me it's been smooth sailing ...

[plisken]

And I know of several people, including me, who experience problems with the Asio4all solution.

So I don't use the Kronos interface but an external soundcard instead.

I'm definitely one of those people who experienced problems. Random clicks and pops and other annoying problems. Nothing that I could reproduce so I was never able to spot the problem. If I opened up the same session 2 hours later, everything seemed to be working fine. So, for me an external sound card is the best way to go.

Problem was gone because it probably was not Asio4all that was causing it.

Go here and download this : http://www.thesycon.de/deu/latency_check.shtml

Run it, if at any time it goes into the red that means there is a hardware/driver interfering with you having real time audio. Usually things like WIFI cards could cause this problem. But every computer is different so you just have to keep turning off stuff until the problem is gone.

Hope that helps. I never get pops and clicks with Asio4all unless I change the sample rate to like 88khz

[Hal2001]

So when you use the USB audio, you are hearing the direct output of the Kronos without any analog signal path in between to distort or colour the signal. It is the pure digital output.

So then, it doesn't really get any better than "pure digital output" and then I can continue to use my DAW's EQ and compression plugins to aim for better final mix effects. That's something I, admittedly, have not yet mastered. This audio interface question only came up for me today because I was in Guitar Center and the musician/salesperson told me that an Apogee Duet 2 would have better "converters" than the Kronos and thus I would have better recordings. His comment made me wonder whether I was recording an optimal signal. Of course there's an incentive for him to sell me an audio interface as well. Thank you very much for your quick response. Hal

[X-Trade]

The problem with ASIO4ALL goes beyond the simple pops and clicks - you may sometimes get better performance without ASIO4ALL than with. But the real problem is that it is just not a professional ASIO driver. It simply makes some clever system calls to improve the performance of a normal WDM driver.

A proper ASIO driver has latency compensation so that all of the inputs and outputs are in time and the DAW can adjust for any latency that is a known constant. ASIO4ALL does not do this.

[Hal2001]

I use the K's built in audio interface with my PC's Asio4all driver, connected through usb cable . Works perfectly. Crystal clear sound and no latency . R

Happy to hear that. BTW your soundcloud samples sound real nice and clearly recorded, the way I like it. P.S. It appears that I do not need any additional driver to make my mac record.

[tdwctdwc]

I use the K's built in audio interface with my PC's Asio4all driver, connected through usb cable . Works perfectly. Crystal clear sound and no latency . R

Happy to hear that. BTW your soundcloud samples sound real nice and clearly recorded, the way I like it. P.S. It appears that I do not need any additional driver to make my mac record.

Thanks . Well it's been working perfectly for me : i record on 24 bit - 48khz and asio4all works flawlessly with the Kronos the moment i connect it. May i ask what is the processor power of your Mac and how many rams ?

[Hal2001]

May i ask what is the processor power of your Mac and how many rams ?

I have a 5 year old iMac 3.06 GHz Intel, 4GB Ram, Snow Leopard. You can see my setup on my latest song on my youtube account (link below). I've been recording via GarageBand and will likely go to LogicPro when I have the time to tackle its new learning curve. Currently, about every 5 takes, I get latency issues when multitracking, so I run a 5 second dummy recording to get it back to 0, for another 5 or so takes. I'm hoping that the latency will resolve under LogicPro. On the other hand it may be due to my 5 year old computer not being able to handle multitrack recording of my K's midi and audio at the same time. I always simultaneously record the K's midi with the K's audio so that I have notation for my performances. When I just record midi, I have no latency issues at all.

[tdwctdwc]

ok, well logic could improve things for you . Try it and if the lag still exists, then you better off buying an audio interface .

Honestly, my workflow consists only on audio, ever since i got the kronos .

I don't multitrack midi and audio together ( that could be the problem for you ) . What i do is record all my music on the K's sequencer first, then play back the song as i record onto Ableton live , one track at a time . It's a lengthy process because i have to mute all other tracks on the K and repeat the process until all tracks are recorded onto my DAW .

I'm doing it the safe way, but couldn't be happier with the results .

[Hal2001]

ok, well logic could improve things for you . Try it and if the lag still exists, then you better off buying an audio interface . What i do is record all my music on the K's sequencer first, then play back the song as i record onto Ableton live , one track at a time .

Yes the last method I've used to multitrack, one at a time, like when I recorded this song, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86vyKp87So8&feature=plcp and it came out perfect, exactly the way I wanted. What's interesting is that, you're saying, an external interface might help deal with my latency issue. I know the principle is that an audio interface takes over some of the processing that the computer does, but then isn't the Kronos doing exactly that with it's own built-in interface? Thus would it really make a difference in latency to use an extra interface. Pardon my naivety on this issue.

[jimknopf]

plisken, I know the dpc latency checker, and I know a sound technician who once explained to me, that it is not that simple to display latency, and the latency checker does not really show what users normally expect it to show, but I forgot the details of that explanation.

I also know the lengthy discussions about windows driver activites possibly causing problems. But in doubt it only really helped here (Windows 7) in very rare cases to deactivate a WiFi card or the like.

So for me the choice is simple:
- with asio4all I get unneccessary CPU use, and hard to diagnose problems, as soon as I do a recording session with several midi/audio tracks.

- with my external Focusrite Scarlett and real Asio drivers I get no problems at all. I enjoy latency-free monitoring, can record more than one track from a Kronos Combi at once, and have my other keyboards connected for recording at the same time, directly accessible in my DAW template.

So for me it is
a) more reliable and problem free
b) more comfortable
to use the external audio card.

Anyone who gets by with the Asio4all solution and does not need anything else, should enjoy that, of course.