Anatomy of the Best Deathcore Mixes

Modern deathcore mixes are a masterclass in controlled chaos. When you hear a track from Lorna Shore, Slaughter to Prevail, or Shadow of Intent, you’re hit with a sonic onslaught that is simultaneously devastatingly heavy and surgically precise. The production quality is non-negotiable; even smaller bands are expected to deliver mixes that are polished, powerful, and ridiculously tight.

The challenge? Balancing impossibly low-tuned guitars, gravity-blast drumming, guttural vocals, and sub-bass without it all turning into a muddy, incoherent mess.

The good news is that achieving this level of sonic brutality in your own DAW is more accessible than ever. It’s not about some hidden magic trick; it’s about applying specific, modern production techniques with intent. Let’s break down the key elements that separate an amateur demo from the best deathcore mixes.

The Inhumanly Tight Drum Foundation

In deathcore, the drum performance needs to be flawless. We're talking about a level of precision that sits right on the edge of "robotic," and that's the point. The drums are the engine, and that engine needs to be perfectly timed and absurdly punchy. This is achieved through a combination of meticulous editing and heavy sample use.

Sample Reinforcement is Mandatory

Forget the purist debate; in this genre, samples are a creative tool for achieving the necessary cut and consistency. Live drums, especially during 300bpm blast beats, can lose impact. Samples bring it back.

• The Go-To Tools: Drum libraries like GetGood Drums (the P IV Matt Halpern pack is a classic for a reason) and Toontrack Superior Drummer 3 are industry standards. For replacement, Slate Trigger 2 is the king.
• Actionable Technique: Don’t just replace the drums entirely. Blend samples underneath the live shells. Take your live kick, and layer a punchy, clicky sample (like a classic Slate Kick 10) underneath it. Use Trigger to place the sample, then blend it in until the kick has the perfect amount of attack to slice through the dense guitars. Do the same for the snare, often blending a fat, close-mic'd sample for body and a separate room sample for explosive ambience.

Surgical Editing and Quantization

The groove in deathcore comes from the riffs, not from a laid-back drum feel. The drums need to be locked to the grid.

• Your DAW’s Best Friend: Whether you’re using Beat Detective in Pro Tools or the flex/slicing tools in Logic and Reaper, the goal is to get every single kick, snare, and tom hit perfectly aligned. For double-kick sections and blast beats, this is non-negotiable. It’s what creates that machine-gun-like precision that defines the genre. You can dial in a touch of humanization later, but start from a place of perfect timing.

Taming the 8-String (and Lower) Onslaught

The biggest challenge in a deathcore mix is handling guitars tuned to Drop G, F, or even lower. They occupy a massive frequency range, threatening to swallow the bass and kick drum whole. The key isn't to make them louder, but to make them fit.

Master the High-Pass Filter

This is the single most important EQ move for modern metal guitars. You need to aggressively carve out low-end to make space.

• Actionable Technique: Slap an EQ on your main rhythm guitar bus. Use a steep high-pass filter—18dB or 24dB/octave is a good starting point. Sweep the frequency up from 20Hz. As you move past 80Hz, 100Hz, and even 120Hz, listen for the point where the guitars start to sound thin and lose their power. Back it off just a touch from there. It will feel extreme, but this space is essential for the bass and kick to exist. Getting this right is a fundamental part of EQing metal guitars for maximum impact.

Sculpting Mids for Aggression, Not Absence

The old-school scooped-mid sound doesn’t always work for deathcore. You need bite and clarity, and that lives in the mid-range.

• Actionable Technique: Instead of a massive scoop around 500Hz, think more surgically. Use a dynamic EQ like FabFilter Pro-Q 3 to notch out the "woof" or "mud" in the palm mutes, typically between 200-400Hz, but only when those frequencies get excessive. Then, add a wider boost somewhere between 1.5kHz and 4kHz to bring out the pick attack and string definition. This ensures your guitars sound aggressive and clear, not just hollowed-out.

Finding a Place for the Bass

When the guitars are in an 8-string’s register, what role does the bass even play? The answer: it provides the true, clean fundamental low-end and the distorted, audible grit that helps the guitars feel even heavier.

The "Dirty" and "Clean" Bass Split

This is a standard technique for a reason. Don't rely on one bass track to do everything.

• Actionable Technique: Duplicate your bass DI track.
  1. The "Dirty" Track: On the first track, high-pass it heavily, maybe up to 400Hz. Then, abuse it with a distortion plugin. The Darkglass Ultra from Neural DSP is purpose-built for this, but a SansAmp or even Soundtoys Decapitator works great. This track gives you the audible clank and grind that lets you hear the bass on laptop speakers.
  2. The "Clean" Track: On the second track, low-pass it where your dirty track begins (around 400Hz). Keep this track relatively clean. Its job is to provide the solid, foundational sub-bass weight. Blend the two tracks to taste.

Sidechain Compression is Your Best Friend

To get that final level of punch and clarity where the kick drum hits like a cannon, you need to use sidechain compression.

• Actionable Technique: Put a compressor on your "Clean" sub-bass track (or the whole bass bus). Set the sidechain input to your main kick drum trigger/sample. Now, every time the kick hits, the bass will duck in volume for a few milliseconds, clearing a pocket of space for the kick’s transient. Use a fast attack and fast release; you shouldn't audibly hear it "pumping," but you'll feel the kick hit much harder. This is a crucial secret behind powerful metal compression techniques.

Vocals That Cut Through the Wall of Sound

Deathcore vocals, from guttural lows to pterodactyl highs, need to sit on top of an incredibly dense mix. Sheer volume and EQ won’t cut it; you need to use saturation and aggressive compression.

Saturation Before Aggressive EQ

If you can't hear the vocals, your first instinct might be to boost the high-mids. Before you do, try saturation. It adds harmonic content that helps the vocal slice through the mix without becoming harsh.

• Actionable Technique: Use a multi-band saturator like FabFilter Saturn 2 or iZotope Trash 2. Focus the saturation on the mid-range (800Hz – 5kHz). This will help the vocal compete with the cymbals and guitars. For an even more aggressive sound, set up a parallel track, crush it with an 1176-style compressor, add heavy distortion, and blend it in slightly underneath your main vocal.

Reading about these techniques is one thing, but seeing them used in real-time by the producers who defined the sound is another level entirely. The best deathcore mixes are built on these exact principles, dialed in by engineers with thousands of hours of experience.

The list of Nail The Mix instructors includes pioneers and modern masters like Will Putney (Thy Art Is Murder, Fit For An Autopsy), Dan Braunstein (Spiritbox), and Buster Odeholm (Humanity's Last Breath, Vildhjarta). If you want to see exactly how they tackle punishingly low guitars, program blistering drums, and make vocals dominate a mix, check out the full Nail The Mix sessions catalog to watch them build these massive tracks from scratch.