Mixing heavy guitars can be one of the most challenging aspects of mixing heavy music.
I’ve found that, usually, the main culprit is mixers overcomplicating the process.
This first thing that you have to get right is that you must dial in a good guitar tone at the source.
As engineers, we tend to focus too much on gimmicky gear and techniques and forget that the source matters more than anything.
Two of the most important elements of your source guitar tone are both your cabinet selection and mic placement.
Luckily, nowadays, all you need is a great sounding impulse response and you can achieve amazing sounding guitar tones right in your home studio with a cheapo amp sim.
You can download my custom impulse response for absolutely free by clicking HERE.
As someone who uses both live tube amps and amp sims on a regular basis, I can tell you with 100% certainty that it doesn’t matter which you use.
Great tone is great tone. Once you have a great source metal guitar tone, THEN you can dive into the mix.
By focusing on a few key elements, mixing heavy guitars can be much simpler than you’d think.
The truth is the mixing your heavy guitars doesn’t have to be complicated. As a matter of fact, it should never be complicated.
Here are some tips on getting your metal guitar tracks sitting right in your metal productions using simple EQ and compression techniques.
Check out my metal guitar mixing technique by watching this tutorial.
