Pro Studio Live Mixing Vocals Session with Zach Nicholls

Tune in to this episode for some amazing mixing and tracking advice from Zach Nicholls. During this episode, Zach shares tracks from Ariana Grande and Victoria Monet, Eric Bellinger, and Karina Pasian. You’ll learn how and why Zach likes to add noise and grit to his mixes, and what sort of tricks he uses to create his unique “landscape" of audio. Zach shares with us some great advice for staying organized and efficient when tracking and mixing in the studio.

In this episode, Zach also shares a lot of great advice for how to treat vocals in a mix, including some great tips on using saturation. Since we open up multiple mixes throughout this episode, you can really get a sense for Zach’s process, and how he changes his behavior from artist to artist. It’s an extremely informative and educational episode for anyone looking to improve their mixing and tracking techniques, especially when it comes to killer vocals.

Also in this episode:

How Zach keeps himself motivated
Zach's goals for moving forward with his career: adapting more philosophies and workflows
The importance of listening to things through your studio speakers, and taking breaks in the studio
How Zach got his start in Boston: who helped him and how it happened, and what he recommends to people starting out
How to be accessible in the industry
How he treats a mix differently depending on the time frame
Taking notes in Pro Tools
Zach's organizational methods and templates
How Zach approaches making two similar vocals distinct, but also work well together
Zach's routing for each session
Philosophy on how to decide how many doubles to make of a vocal
Panning vocals tips
Music theory advice, and how it applies to vocal mixing
How Zach changes the way he works with vocalists, depending on their personality
The importance of editing as you track, and how Zach does it
Zach’s advice on using reverbs, delays, and de-essers
Tips for compression on vocals: compressing for “tone"
Zach’s philosophy on pitch correction for vocals
Why Zach doesn’t side chain delays, and how to make delays more present
Zach’s two delay methods
Using asymmetry as a tool in your mix
What Zach uses on vocals and why
Zach’s philosophy on the low end in vocals
Why and how Zach uses noise in analog emulation plugins
Getting “grit” in a track: how Zach does it
Mixing instruments with similar resonance
Zach’s method of using digital summing busses: why and how he does it
When to use subtle compression, vs strong compression, vs no compression: taming vs shaping
Adding foley tracks to create a soundscape
Mimicking analog in the digital realm
Advice for using saturation and parallel compression
Zach’s philosophy on “slowing down the audio”
A discussion of slew rate
Using EQ to accentuate aspects of your mix
How Zach EQs vocal reverb
Panning and asymmetry
A discussion of sample rate and bit depth, including why he upsamples to the sample rate he likes to work with
Zach's tracking experiences with Eric Bellinger
The tracking and comping process: how much is too much comping?
Zach’s template for cutting vocals, including a discussion of the different templates that he uses
The importance of templates, and of constantly refining them
Organization for comping and tracking: key commands for playlisting, and methods for speeding up the process
Zach’s preparation habits before tracking
How Zach handles sessions with massive amounts of vocals all at once
Why Zach prefers when an artist agrees to do background vocals on a different day, with a different mic
Zach’s vocal chain for tracking
Processing for vocals, how Zach treats the background vocals differently than leads
How Zach treats his summing sections, and how that’s a huge portion of his unique sound
Advice on treating low end in your mix
Philosophy on audio as compressions and rarefactions and how that ties into mixing
Gain staging advice
Zach’s overall thoughts on compression and saturation
Making your own sound: the importance of not necessarily going with the status quo on everything
The importance of developing a system and being organized in order to improve your workflow