kronos 2 vocal Track

[countrycreek]

so am I understanding right I can record a complete vocal track on the kronos 2 just plug in mike and sing the track?

[Mike Conway]

so am I understanding right I can record a complete vocal track on the kronos 2 just plug in mike and sing the track?

Yes, but there are some settings to make for you get a better sound. Charles Ferraro had some great tips on THIS thread:

The Kronos has EXCELLENT sound sculpting tools that can do wonders for any signal.

For starters Pianoboy, de-ess your vocals with the multiband compressor. I say do that first because you don't need sibilance going into the saturation stage.
To de-ess simply
-Bypass bands 1-3
-Set the crossover of bands 3-4 anywhere between 8-12k. Solo the band and use your ears to find what works best. You're not trying to capture any tonality, you're just trying to target any sizzle and air.
-Use a hard-knee
-Put your attack and release settings as fast as they'll go. Or you can give yourself some release if you want to clamp down on sibilance but the 58 isn't giving you much top end anyway so you don't really have to worry about it.
-Put your range parameter on -24 to set the band into compression as opposed to expansion mode
-Then simply lower your threshold till you start ducking those highs
-Don't use makeup gain.
The De-essing will be subtle, and it's supposed to be. You're not trying to kill the high end clarity of your voice. If you're not a trained engineer then you might want to skip it entirely.

Next shape your voice with a mic modeler. Route IFX1 into IFX2. Choose 038 Mic Modeling +PreAmp. You're going to want to do this whether you decide to de-ess or not.
-Choose the Vocal Condenser which models a U87 (There's your $3k dollar mic)
-Experiment with the Position parameter to find what works. Closer positions will increase the 'proximity effect' which can give your voice more low end definition. Or use further positions if your voice is too boomy.
-Leave the low and high cuts on thru since it's okay to saturate the whole signal. or use the low cut as a makeshift highpass filter.
-Turn saturation up to 100% and then boost the gain till you feel like you've given yourself enough top end... then back off the saturation percentage to find a sweet spot. Bias will increase the amount of even order harmonic distortion.

Compress your voice! Use the Stereo Compressor in RMS mode with lookahead OFF. Unfortunately a vocal compression tutorial will take too long lol.

Use a Parametric 4 Band EQ to finalize your vocal (all the better if you make these EQ adjustments while listening to your voice in the context of a mix). Lastly try using a reverb send. You did it!

Again if there's any single tool to use in this signal chain to boost the "crispiness" of your voice it's definitely the Mic Modeler+PreAmp.

You can get pretty extreme with some settings. Check out the 4:28 mark of THIS VIDEO.
(Clicking that link should take you straight there.)

[psionic311]

Haha, that was entertaining, Mike! Stories from Farm Land, gotta love vocal FX.

Kronos is the gift that keeps on giving.

[Mike Conway]