After visiting DJ Ayres home studio he wanted us to meet Nick Chacona, the guy who mixes all his releases for T&A records.  Upon getting to Nick’s apartment we found a home studio well worthy of it’s own episode in our Home Lab Life series.  Nick started as a DJ and now produces deep house grooves solo and along side Anthony Mansfield for collaborations on their label Hector Works.  When not working on his own tunes Nick does post production for a variety of different producers and labels.

Nick’s studio is a balance of compact digital tools with just enough analog signal path to warm up the mix.  His laptop equipped with a UAD Solo card allows him to work on the road when traveling.  He tracks through an old Motu 896 with Black Lion Audio modifications that improve it’s sound quality ten fold.  Vintage console channel strips rehoused for the rack come in handy when he’s tracking new parts on his own songs, or for routing prerecorded tracks through when mixing for clients.  He monitors through a Benchmark DAC1 interface which also comes in handy for bouncing full mixes back through his rack gear.  Nick learned to mix on NS-10 monitors and keeps them handy for reference but finds his Dynaudio BM5A’s fatigue his ears less on long mix sessions.

Get the full scoop by watching the video above.  You can see Nick DJing in NY and abroad, and follow his releases for his own and other dance music labels on his website.  Thanks again to Nick (and Ayres who popped in for a cameo) and stay tuned for more Home Lab Life profiles here on our blog!