Kade Young breaks down vocal mixing on the Allen & Heath SQ mixer using real Sunday service tracks. He starts with completely unprocessed vocals that sound rough and uneven, then works through each channel systematically.

His approach hits three main areas: EQ, compression, and reverb. For EQ, he high-passes around 200Hz and cuts problem frequencies that make vocals sound thick or muddy. The compression uses an RMS vocal preset as a starting point, with gain reduction hitting where green meets yellow on the meter. He listens for control without obvious pumping.

The reverb setup involves three sends: plate reverb for vocals, hall reverb for vocals and instruments, and room reverb for drums. Smart trick here – less hall reverb on the lead vocal keeps it focused, while more on backgrounds creates that choir effect.

Young’s method is practical rather than technical. He turns reverb up until he hears it, then backs off until it sits right in the mix. No gates on live vocals. Each vocalist gets individual treatment because every voice needs different settings.

The before/after comparison shows dramatic improvement. What started as vocals jumping in and out of the mix becomes polished and controlled. Young mentions this clip comes from his SQ Mastery course where he builds complete mixes from scratch.

His free vocal EQ cheat sheet has been downloaded over 10,000 times, which speaks to the practical value of his teaching approach. The whole demonstration takes raw church vocals and transforms them into radio-ready sound using straightforward techniques any sound engineer can apply.