KPA for Vocals?

  • when it comes to powerful rock vocalists the dynamics are just too much to go straight to track without some form of signal balancing in between. At a minimum there needs to be a good preamp, compressor and often some minor EQ before hitting the track if you want to achieve a pro quality result in the end

    I beg to differ here: with 24 bit converters, there is more than enough dynamic range to capture the signal as it is and then do the shaping later within the DAW - typical example being the Slate Digital virtual mic and virtual FX rack: you capture the signal as clean as you can and then add the characteristics of microphones, preamps, compressors etc during the mixing stage. Lots of pro users there, so you can definitely get pro quality from this.


    All this flexibility may not be necessary for experienced studio pros, who just "know" what preamp/ comp combination will sound good and are happy to commit this at the recording stage - sometimes fewer options are better at the mixing stage ;)


    A separate issue is what your talent is used to hearing in their headphones: it they are used to having a pre-compressed and pre-EQed in their cans, they may have problems with an uncompressed monitor signal. If you still want all the freedom of the "clean" signal, this can be addressed by inserting comp / EQ in the monitor feed to give them what they need.


    But it definitely isn't NECESSARY to compress/ EQ before recording to get pro results in the age of 24 bit converters.

  • Just to specify it further for fun, 24-bit converters does not mean 24-bit or 144 dB of dynamic range. Well designed ADCs advertised with 24-bit converters typically perform at around 17-bit (104 dB, plenty wrt this thread topic so I'm wasting your time here :P), and the theoretical limit of converters is 20-bit which you get with the really expensive stuff.

  • You cannot use the Profiler to replace an "expensive vocal chain". It is not designed for that purpose, or replace such preamps or to operate with microphones.

    I tried with a mic in the return output. It does'nt work well, 'cause the signal is too low.

    But i tried with a preamp in the return output, and it works well (REM preamp).

    I've profiled my TL Audio C1, and the sound with my Shure Beta 58a was very good... conform to the original sound of my preamp.


    There's no reason that the KPA would be able to profile a chain for guitar, including studio preamp, and not be able to reproduce the same preamp for vocal.