Alright, we’ve recorded the vocals. Now what? In this episode, we’re diving into what comes after the red light turns off—editing, tuning, clip gaining, EQ, compression, automation… all the good stuff that takes your vocals from "usable" to "undeniable."

We’re talking about our start-to-finish vocal mixing workflows—from first comp checks to final automation passes. You’ll hear how we prep vocals for pitch correction, when and why we bounce tracks, what our go-to compressor chains look like (hint: they’re stacked), and how to know when not to touch anything at all.

Plus, we answer a listener question about working with MIDI drums and when to commit those tracks to audio.

You’ll Learn:

• Why clip gain can make or break your vocal mix

• How we approach pitch correction manually (and why we avoid the "auto" button)

• The vocal chain order we actually use—and how we layer EQ and compression

• Why sometimes less processing is the right move

• When to leave the VST drum processing on… and when to nuke it
  
  

• Our favorite channel strip tools and vocal compressors

• Chris’s take-your-pill alarm goes off mid-recording

• Why Steve buckled a CL1B into the passenger seat of his car

• The truth about "nonsense plugins" and when we finally let them go

• Mixing vocals with your speakers turned way down
  
  

Shoutout to Jim Kelly from Kilkenny, Ireland! We tackle his question about routing and processing MIDI drums—and how we decide whether to use the plugin processing or start from scratch.

There’s no one right way to mix vocals—but there is your way. The key is to make intentional choices and always ask: "What serves the song?"

📩 Submit your question here: Form Link
We’ll answer as many as we can in upcoming shows.