Set lists on the Kronos 3: a live performance workflow

In Set List mode the Kronos turns into a row of big labelled buttons: one touch per song, no bank digging, no mode switching, with smooth sound transitions as you jump. Each of the 128 lists holds slots that can point at any program, combination, or song, and every slot carries its own volume, transpose, and hold time.

The catch has never been the mode; it is the data entry. Naming slots, writing cue comments, and reordering songs on the hardware is a night of touchscreen typing. That is the part to move to the computer.

Open the Set Lists view in the editor (under the Prog/Combi browser) and it reads your set lists straight off the instrument. Open one and switch from Play to Edit; the editor re-reads it from the Kronos, so you always start from exactly what is on the unit. Then build the list in song order, one slot per song, top to bottom. Resist the urge to organise by sound type; on stage you think in songs.

• To assign a sound, select the slot and click Performance: the Prog/Combi browser opens as a picker with search and category filters. Picking only reads from the Kronos; it never changes anything on the instrument until you write.
• Songs with two keyboard sounds get two adjacent slots (verse piano, chorus pad), so mid-song changes are one tap on the next button rather than a hunt.
• Reorder by dragging a slot onto another, or use Cut, Copy, Paste, and Insert, which behave exactly like the panel's own Edit page.

A slot has a name of up to 24 characters, one of the same 16 colours the panel offers, a label font size, and a comment of up to 512 characters that the Kronos displays above the slot grid while you play. Used well, those four fields replace the paper setlist and the sticky notes on the keyboard.

• Name slots by song and section, not by patch: "Hallelujah verse", not "Warm EP 3".
• Use colour as a system, not decoration. One scheme that works: a colour per set (first set green, encore red), or a colour per keyboard role (piano blue, organ amber, synth purple).
• Treat the comment as a cue card: the key, the count-in, "starts on the pad, strings enter verse 2", "capo 3 on the guitarist, transpose is already set". Whatever you would otherwise have to remember at 11pm.

Some set list controls are live: move them and the Kronos changes under your hands, which makes balancing a set feel like a soundcheck. Each slot's volume, hold time, and transpose (up to 24 semitones each way) respond immediately, and so does the 9-band EQ with its input trim. Step through the list, play eight bars of each song, and trim slot volumes until nothing jumps out of the mix.

The tempo slider is the instrument's global tempo, not part of the set list, so it is not saved with your write; and selecting a slot whose program carries its own tempo resets it, exactly like the panel.

Name, colour, comment, and slot-assignment changes build up as a draft; the footer shows Unsaved changes until you commit. One Write to Kronos stores the whole set list, live tweaks and draft together. You pick the destination (the list it came from, or any other slot to keep a copy), the editor writes it, reads it back, and verifies it byte for byte before committing it to permanent memory.

Then make the backup: Save .syx exports the set list as a file on your Mac. Do it once per rehearsal and you can rebuild the whole gig on a borrowed Kronos from a USB stick and one Load .syx.

Writing set lists changes permanent memory, so it needs an activated license, and the Kronos will refuse the write with a "protected" message if Set List memory protect is on in Global mode. Check it before the dress rehearsal, not during.

At the venue the computer stays in the bag. The set list carries the names, the colours, the cue comments, and the balance you set at home; the touchscreen does what it was designed for, one tap per song. If something needs a quick fix at soundcheck, the editor can step through slots live from the laptop, but the goal of this workflow is that it will not need to.

The mechanics of every control mentioned here are documented in the Kronos 3 Editor user guide. If you do not have the editor yet, the 7-day trial is fully featured, set lists included.