Andrew Wade’s A Day To Remember Trick: New Cab Sound, No DI

Ever found yourself staring at an already-amped guitar track, loving the riff but hating the cabinet sound? It’s a classic producer nightmare. You’ve got killer guitars from a band like A Day To Remember, but maybe the cab they used just isn’t hitting right in your mix, and worse – there’s no DI signal in sight. What do you do? Re-record everything? Sometimes, but legendary producer Andrew Wade (the man behind the console for numerous A Day To Remember hits) has a seriously clever workaround for this exact situation, letting you essentially swap out the cabinet sound without needing that elusive DI.

This trick is a bit of a deep dive, but trust us, it’s gold. If you’re ready to learn how to perform sonic surgery on your guitar tracks, let’s get into it. This is the kind of invaluable, real-world technique you can learn more about when you see pros like Andrew mix full tracks from artists like A Day To Remember on Nail The Mix.

The Dilemma: Great Riff, Wrong Cab, No DI

So, you’ve got this monster amped guitar track. It’s got the performance, the energy, but the cabinet tone is just… not it. Maybe it’s too fizzy, too boomy, or just doesn’t gel with the rest of your mix. The obvious solution, re-amping through your favorite cab or IR loader, is off the table because you don’t have the clean DI signal.

You can’t just slap an impulse response (IR) plugin directly onto an already amped and cabbed guitar track. Why? Because you’d be layering one cabinet sound on top of another, often resulting in a phasey, muffled, or just plain weird mess. You need a way to bypass the original cabinet’s sonic footprint and impose a new one.

Andrew Wade’s Solution: The “Re-Perform and Match” Technique

This is where Andrew Wade’s ingenious method, shared during a Nail The Mix session, comes into play. It’s a multi-step process that might sound a little wild at first, but the results can be a total game-changer. As Andrew himself admits, “sometimes you have to do some extreme stuff!”

Step 1: Recreating the Performance (The “Fake DI”)

This is the foundational step. You need to create a new DI recording of the guitar part.

• Play it Again, Sam: Grab a guitar and re-record the riff as accurately as you can. It doesn’t need to be absolutely perfect, but the closer, the better.
• Guitar Choice Matters: Crucially, use a guitar that’s similar to what the band likely used. Pay attention to the tuning. Does it sound like hot humbuckers (think EMGs) or something brighter like single coils? A little guitar knowledge helps here. If in doubt, you could even ask the band what gear they tracked with.
• Record it Clean: Track this performance as a clean DI signal. This new DI will be your canvas.

Andrew even reminisced with Eyal Levi about doing a version of this back on “October 14th, 2014” – a testament to how long these kinds of problem-solving skills have been in a producer’s toolkit!

Step 2: Crafting Your Ideal Tone

Now, take that freshly recorded DI track and sculpt the guitar tone you wish the original track had.

• Amp Sim It Up: Load up your favorite amp simulator plugin. Andrew Wade used Pod Farm in his demonstration, but any amp sim that allows you to choose different amp heads and cabinets will work (think Neural DSP, Amplitube, Guitar Rig, etc.).
• Dial in Your Dream Cab: This is where you select the cabinet sound you want. Experiment until you have a tone that you absolutely love. This sound – your re-recorded DI processed through your chosen amp and cab sim – becomes your “reference tone.” This is the sonic fingerprint you want to impart.

Step 3: The Magic of EQ Matching

Here’s where the real sorcery happens. You’re going to use an EQ matching plugin to transfer the frequency characteristics of your dream tone (including that desired cabinet response) onto the original problematic amped track.
Andrew Wade specifically showcased the iZotope Ozone 5 Equalizer for its powerful EQ matching capabilities. While Ozone 5 is an older version, the principle remains the same, and newer versions of Ozone or other plugins with robust EQ matching features (like FabFilter Pro-Q 3, MeldaProduction MEqualizer, or even some stock DAW EQs) can achieve similar results.

Here’s the process:

Capturing the “Good” Profile (Your Reference)

1. Place your EQ matching plugin on the track with your re-recorded DI and your dialed-in dream amp/cab sim tone.
2. Play the track and engage the plugin’s “capture,” “learn,” or “snapshot” feature. Let it analyze the full frequency spectrum of this desired sound. This creates your reference EQ profile.

Capturing the “Original” Profile (The Track to be Changed)

1. Now, either drag that same EQ matching plugin instance (if it supports multiple profiles) or open a new instance of it on the original amped guitar track – the one with the cabinet sound you don’t like.
2. Play this track and, again, capture its frequency spectrum. This is your target EQ profile.

Applying the Match

1. Within the EQ matching plugin, you’ll now instruct it to make the target profile (the original amped track) sound like the reference profile (your dream tone).
   • Set your “Reference” (or “Source”) to the profile captured from your DI track (the purple one in Andrew’s Ozone 5 example).
   • You want to “Apply to” the profile of the original amped track (the yellow one in his example).
2. Hit the “Match” button.
3. Fine-tune the results. Andrew Wade suggests:
   • Smoothing: Turn this down, often all the way, for a more precise match.
   • Amount: Adjust this (he cranked it up in the demo) to control how aggressively the reference curve is applied. You’ll want to A/B this to hear the difference.

By doing this, you’re essentially using advanced EQ strategies to imprint the desirable cabinet characteristics of your reference tone onto the original recording, effectively “bypassing” its original cabinet sound. As Andrew demonstrated, the original sound can be “totally different” after the process, giving you that sought-after cab tone!

Why This Works (And When to Use It)

This technique is powerful because an EQ curve represents the frequency balance of a sound. A significant part of a guitar cabinet’s unique sound is its frequency response. By matching the EQ curve of a well-miked cabinet (even a simulated one) to an existing amped track, you can convincingly alter its perceived cabinet.

Is it a perfect substitute for a true re-amp with a DI? Not always, but it’s an incredibly effective tool when you’re painted into a corner. It can salvage tracks, open up creative possibilities, and save you from the monumental task of re-tracking everything (though, as discussed in the session, sometimes even full re-performances of songs happen in the mixing world!).

This method is for those moments when you receive tracks and think, “This is great, BUT…” It allows you to take control back and shape the tones to fit your vision, even with limited source material.

Beyond the Trick: Mastering Your Mixes

Learning ingenious workarounds like Andrew Wade’s no-DI re-amping technique is just a glimpse into the world of professional audio production. Imagine having access to the full multitracks from bands like A Day To Remember and watching seasoned pros like Andrew mix them from scratch, explaining every decision, every plugin choice, and every problem-solving technique they use.

That’s exactly what Nail The Mix offers. You get to see how they tackle challenges, dial in massive guitar tones, make drums punch, get vocals to sit perfectly, and glue everything together with bus processing (yes, including those crucial metal compression secrets!).

If you’re serious about taking your metal mixing skills to the next level and learning directly from the producers behind albums you love, check out the A Day To Remember session with Andrew Wade. It’s time to move beyond presets and truly unlock your sound. You’ll be amazed at what you can achieve with the right knowledge and techniques.