Terrible distorted tone can be the bane of any heavy music mixer’s existence when it’s time to mix metal guitars.
Nothing is more frustrating than trying to make a tone work in your mix that just won’t cooperate no matter how hard you try.
What do you do if your guitar tracks still don’t sit right even after you’ve tried every mix trick in the book?
What if they still sound like crap even though you’ve applied every EQ cut and boost under the sun?
Is there some analog-style EQ plugin that you can buy that’ll magically turn harsh, muddy, fizzy guitar tones into the tones that you’re looking for?
I used to think so, but unfortunately… Gear and plugins WON’T fix mix issues.
Skills, techniques and workflows DO.
I learned my lesson the hard way by wasting thousands of dollars on gear and plugins only to realize that my mixes sounded exactly the same…terrible.
It wasn’t until I interned at a pro studio and learned from real professionals that I finally understood the truth: It’s all about how you mix…not what you’re mixing with.
This week I’ll be releasing a 3-Part video series called “Fixing It In The Mix”.
In this series, I’ll be diving back into old, not-so-great mixes of mine from early on in my career as a metal engineer.
The goal is to see if I can successfully “fix” the problem tracks in these old mixes with the skills that I’ve acquired over the last 12 years.
In today’s video, I’ll be fixing a heavy guitar mix that makes me cringe when I listen back to it today.
Let’s mix metal guitars the right way.
On the topic of guitars..
You can download my Impulse Response Octopack for free by clicking HERE.
The Octopack includes 8 microphones and two different mic placements for each:
– Shure SM57
– Shure SM81
– Sennheiser e609
– Electro-Voice RE16
