What’s the Best EQ Plugin for Metal? (It’s Not What You Think)

You’ve seen it in every forum and Facebook group. The question comes up a hundred times a day: “What’s the best EQ plugin?” You see guys with jaw-dropping mixes using some obscure, expensive EQ, and the gear acquisition syndrome (GAS) kicks in hard. You think, if I just had THAT plugin, my mixes would finally punch.

Here’s the thing: it’s the wrong question.

While plugins matter for very specific tasks—like using Soothe2 to surgically tame guitar fizz without killing the aggression—when it comes to general EQing, the brand name on the plugin is the last thing you should worry about. The "best" EQ is the one you know inside and out, the one that lets you make the right decisions quickly and confidently.

The real question isn't "which EQ plugin is best?" but "what KIND of EQ does this job need?" Let’s break down the different types of EQs you should have in your arsenal and which ones the pros reach for to get bone-crushing metal mixes.

The Surgical Workhorses: Your Go-To Problem Solvers

These are your digital, transparent EQs. Think of them as scalpels. You use them for precise, surgical cuts to clean up mud, carve out space, and fix problems without adding any color or "vibe."

FabFilter Pro-Q 3

There's a reason you see FabFilter Pro-Q 3 in nearly every pro-level session. It's the undisputed king of surgical EQs. The visual interface is incredible, letting you see exactly what's happening in the frequency spectrum.

What Metal Producers Should Know:

• Dynamic EQ is a Game-Changer: Got a snare that’s perfect, but the hi-hat bleed is tearing your face off every time the drummer opens up? Instead of a static cut that dulls the snare, use a dynamic band in Pro-Q 3. It will only dip the harsh frequencies when the hi-hat gets too loud, leaving your snare tone intact.
• Find and Kill Resonances: The "spectrum grab" and band soloing features are your best friends for finding those nasty, ringing frequencies in a distorted guitar or a roomy tom. Just grab the peak, pull it down, and tighten the Q. Problem solved.
• Linear Phase for Parallel Processing: When you're running parallel tracks (like a clean and distorted bass track), using a linear phase EQ can prevent the phase shift that normal EQs introduce, keeping your low end tight and focused.

Your Stock DAW EQ

Seriously. Before you spend a dime, learn your DAW’s stock EQ. They are incredibly powerful, have virtually zero latency, and are more than capable of handling 90% of your EQ tasks. Anyone who tells you that Logic's Channel EQ or Reaper's ReaEQ can't produce a pro-level mix simply doesn't know how to use them.

What Metal Producers Should Know:

• Master the High-Pass Filter (HPF): The single most powerful move for cleaning up a mix is high-passing everything that isn’t the kick or bass. Use your stock EQ's HPF on guitars, vocals, cymbals, and toms to remove the low-end mud that clutters your mix and eats up headroom.
• It’s FREE: You already own it. Spend the time you would have spent researching other EQs by mastering the one you have. The skills will transfer to any other EQ you ever use.

The Broad-Strokers: EQs for Tone & Vibe

These EQs aren't for surgery. They're for painting with a broad brush. Modeled after classic analog hardware, they have a "sound&" and are designed to make things sound better with big, musical boosts and cuts.

SSL-Style Channel Strips

The sound of countless rock and metal records was shaped on Solid State Logic (SSL) consoles. Plugins like the Waves SSL E-Channel or Slate Digital's VMR channel strips bring that classic, punchy EQ character into your DAW.

What Metal Producers Should Know:

• Forced Decision Making: Unlike Pro-Q, SSL EQs have less flexible Q controls. This forces you to be decisive. You can't noodle around for an hour. You make a broad boost at 5kHz to add bite to a guitar, a wide cut at 300Hz to clear mud, and move on.
• That Punchy Mid-Range: The SSL EQ is famous for its aggressive, forward mid-range character. It's killer for making snares crack, guitars bite, and vocals cut through a dense wall of sound.

Pultec-Style EQs

The Pultec EQP-1A is a legendary piece of analog gear, and plugins like the Waves PuigTec EQs or UAD’s version emulate its magic. It's famous for one particular trick that seems to defy logic.

What Metal Producers Should Know:

• The Low-End Trick: On a kick drum, try boosting at 60Hz to add weight and meat, then attenuating at the same 60Hz. The boost curve is broader than the cut curve, so the result is a massive, tight low-end punch without the tubby mud. It’s a classic move for a reason.
• Silky Highs: The high-frequency boost on a Pultec is famously smooth and "airy." It's perfect for adding that expensive-sounding sheen to a mix bus, an acoustic guitar, or a lead vocal without making it harsh.

But Be Careful: The Dark Side of Chasing Plugins

It’s easy to get lost in the sauce, collecting dozens of EQs. But more tools don’t make you a better mixer. In fact, they can often hold you back.

Plugin Acquisition Syndrome is Real

We've all been there. You see one of the incredible Nail The Mix instructors like Jens Bogren or Will Putney use a specific plugin and you think you need it. The truth is, they could get a world-class mix using nothing but stock plugins. Their mixes are great because of their ears, their experience, and the thousands of decisions they make—not because of one magic tool. Focus on mastering one or two EQs rather than collecting twenty.

Latency, Phase, and Why Your DAW Might Hate You

Every plugin you add introduces a tiny bit of delay (latency). Modern DAWs have Automatic Delay Compensation (ADC) to fix this, but it's not always perfect, especially with complex routing.

This is a huge deal with EQs. An EQ works by manipulating phase. When you put a high-latency EQ (like a linear phase EQ) on one track in a parallel chain—say, your parallel drum crush bus—and not the other, you can create nasty phasing and comb filtering that weakens your sound. This is why learning the fundamentals of things like metal compression and how routing affects phase is so damn important. You have to be mindful of what your plugins are doing under the hood.

The Bottom Line: Your Brain is the Best EQ

You could give a hundred chefs the exact same ingredients, and you’d get a hundred different dishes. Mixing is no different. It doesn’t matter if you’re using the same plugins as your hero. What matters are the choices you make.

The best EQ plugin is the one that allows you to do your best work. It's the one that feels intuitive to you and lets you translate the sound in your head to the speakers with the least amount of friction. For some, that’s the visual feedback of Pro-Q 3. For others, it’s the simplicity of their stock EQ.

Stop chasing the next shiny object. Spend that energy learning the tools you already have. Deeply understand how to carve out space for a chugging riff, how to add air to a screaming vocal, and how to control low-end mud. Those are the skills that make a real difference.

Want to see exactly how the pros use these concepts to craft massive metal mixes?

Watching a world-class producer choose the right EQ for the job, dial in the perfect curve on a screaming vocal, and explain every single move is the fastest way to level up your own skills. In the Nail The Mix sessions catalog, you can be a fly on the wall as the producers behind bands like Gojira, Lamb of God, and Periphery mix their iconic tracks from scratch. You get the raw multitracks to mix alongside them, letting you apply these techniques for EQing metal guitars and everything else in your own DAW. That's how you truly learn what makes a mix work.