The Best Soundtoys Plugins for Crushing Metal Mixes

When you’re staring at a new plugin, it’s easy to wonder: “Is this really going to make my mixes better?”

Here’s the deal. For some things, like a workhorse EQ, the specific brand doesn’t matter nearly as much as your skills. You can get a killer mix with a stock EQ if you know what you’re doing. But for other, more specific tasks—like adding a particular flavor of distortion or a vintage delay vibe—the tool absolutely matters.

That’s where Soundtoys comes in. Their plugins aren’t just generic processors; they’re character pieces designed to emulate iconic analog gear and push creative boundaries. They’re the kind of tools that excel at specific jobs, bringing a unique color to your tracks that you can’t get anywhere else.

But with a whole suite of them, which ones should a metal producer actually care about? Let’s break down the essential Soundtoys plugins that will make a real impact on your heavy mixes.

Decapitator: Your Go-To Saturation & Distortion Powerhouse

If you only get one Soundtoys plugin, make it Decapitator. It’s a Swiss Army knife for adding analog-style saturation, harmonics, and outright destruction to any source. It models five different types of analog saturation, from smooth tube warmth to aggressive solid-state grit.

The magic is in its simplicity and versatility. The “Drive” knob pushes the signal, the “Tone” control shapes the character from dark to bright, and the “Punish” button unleashes hell.

Bringing a Snare to Life

A common problem with sampled snares is that they can sound a bit sterile. Decapitator is the perfect fix.

• What to do: Put Decapitator on your snare top track or bus.
• The Style: Select the “A” style, modeled on an Ampex 350 tape machine preamp. It’s great for adding warmth and body.
• Settings: Start with the Drive around 4-5. Turn the “Mix” knob down to about 30-40% so you’re blending the saturated signal in with the original. This parallel processing adds punch and character without completely changing the core sound. For a bit more high-end sizzle, turn the Tone knob towards “Bright.” This is a fantastic way to make a snare cut through a dense wall of guitars.

Adding Grit and Presence to Bass

Trying to make a DI bass track compete with heavy guitars? Decapitator is your answer.

• What to do: Use this on an aux track for parallel processing. Send your clean bass DI to it.
• The Style: The “E” style (Chandler/EMI console) is perfect here. It has a forward, aggressive midrange.
• Settings: Don’t be shy. Crank the Drive up to 7 or 8 and hit the “Punish” button. Tweak the Tone control to fit the song—darker for a vintage vibe, brighter for modern grind. Now, blend that distorted aux track back in under your main bass track. You’ll get all the aggression and midrange clarity you need without losing the fundamental low-end from your clean signal, which is a key part of how to get that clanky metal bass tone.

EchoBoy: The Delay That Does Everything

Just like how not all EQs are created equal, not all delays are, either. While your DAW’s stock delay can handle simple echoes, EchoBoy is a masterclass in the history of what is delay in music. It gives you 30 different echo styles modeled after legendary hardware like the Echoplex, Space Echo, Memory Man, and more.

This isn’t just about timing; it’s about the character of the repeats—the saturation, the filtering, and the wobble that make vintage delays so musical.

Classic Vocal Throws in a Metal Mix

You need those big, epic delay throws on the last word of a chorus.

• What to do: Set up EchoBoy on an effects bus and send your lead vocal to it.
• The Style: Start with the “Studio Tape” or “Echoplex” style for some nice analog flavor.
• Settings: Sync the delay to your DAW’s tempo and set it to a 1/4 or 1/2 note. Roll off the high and low-end using the built-in filters (the “High Cut” and “Low Cut” knobs) so the delay tucks in nicely behind the vocal without adding mud or harshness. Use automation to only send the specific words you want to the delay bus. This is a crucial technique when you use delay on vocals for added epicness.

Creating Rhythmic Guitar Ambiance

Delays aren’t just for vocals. You can use them to create a rhythmic, textural backdrop for lead guitars or clean sections.

• What to do: Place EchoBoy directly on a clean or lead guitar track.
• The Style: Try the “Space Echo” style for its washy, reverb-like repeats, or the “DM-2” for that classic dark analog bucket-brigade sound.
• Settings: Use a dotted 1/8th note for that iconic rhythmic bounce. Dial the “Feedback” up so you get a few repeats, and use the “Mix” knob to blend it in subtly—around 15-25% is often enough to add depth without washing out the part.

Devil-Loc Deluxe: The Ultimate Drum Smasher

Sometimes, you don’t want subtle. You want to completely obliterate something. Devil-Loc Deluxe is an aggressive, beastly audio compressor inspired by the old Shure Level-Loc. It’s designed for one thing: crushing drums.

It has two simple controls: “Crush” (compression) and “Crunch” (distortion). The “Darkness” knob shapes the tone, and the “Mix” knob lets you blend it in for parallel processing.

Obliterating Drum Room Mics

This is the classic move. If your room mics sound a little boring, Devil-Loc will turn them into an explosive, breathing monster. In fact, it’s a great way to learn how to make small drum rooms sound massive.

• What to do: Slap it on your stereo drum room track or bus.
• Settings: Turn the “Crush” and “Crunch” knobs all the way up. You’ll hear the room signal get completely flattened and distorted. It will sound broken on its own, but now, slowly pull the fader for that room track up underneath your main drum shells. You’ll add an incredible amount of size, energy, and aggression to your whole kit. This trick is a staple for many of the world-class producers you’ll find on our list of Nail The Mix instructors.

Little AlterBoy: Monstrous Vocal Effects

For modern metal, post-hardcore, and metalcore, vocal production has gotten incredibly creative. Little AlterBoy is the perfect tool for that. It’s a simple but powerful plugin for pitch and formant shifting, a creative cousin to tools like Auto-Tune that are used for both correction and effect.

Creating Instant Gang Vocals & Octaves

Need to thicken up a gang vocal chant or add a demonic low octave to a scream?

• What to do: Put Little AlterBoy on your backing vocal or scream track.
• Settings: For a low octave, just shift the “Pitch” knob down -12 semitones. Use the “Mix” knob to blend it in underneath the original vocal. To thicken up a group shout, try shifting the “Formant” knob slightly up or down. This changes the character of the voice without changing the pitch, making one singer sound like a whole group of different people.

MicroShift: Instant Stereo Width

Based on the sound of the iconic Eventide H3000 and AMS DMX 15-80s hardware units, MicroShift is the fastest way to get super-wide stereo signals, making it one of the best stereo widener plugins available. It works by creating tiny pitch and delay variations between the left and right channels.

It’s perfect for making backing vocals, pads, or clean guitars feel huge and three-dimensional, pushing them out to the sides of your mix and making space for the lead elements in the center. After you’ve done your fundamental metal compression and EQ, a touch of MicroShift can add that final layer of polish.

The Secret Weapon: The Effect Rack

Here’s the thing: many of these plugins truly shine when used together. The Soundtoys Effect Rack lets you load any of these plugins into a single, modular interface. You can create insane custom processing chains—like running a vocal through Little AlterBoy, into EchoBoy, and then into MicroShift—and save it as a single preset. It’s an incredible tool for speeding up your workflow and creating your own signature sounds.

Skill, Not Just Tools, Makes a Great Mix

Owning these plugins won’t magically give you a pro mix. You can have the best tools in the world, but if you don’t know how and why to use them, you’ll just be spinning your wheels. A high-quality VST plugin is powerful, but the real magic happens when you understand the decisions behind each move.

This is exactly why we created Nail The Mix. It’s one thing to read about how to use Devil-Loc on room mics; it’s another to watch a producer like Will Putney or Kurt Ballou actually do it on a real track from a band like Knocked Loose or Converge, explaining their thought process every step of the way.

If you’re ready to see how the pros use these tools (and many more) to craft world-class metal mixes and truly learn how to mix music, check out our massive catalog of NTM sessions. You get the full multitracks and a front-row seat to see how it’s all done.