What Makes A Great Metalcore Mix?

Modern metalcore mixes hit differently. They’re brutally heavy yet surgically precise. Every kick drum feels like a gut punch, every guitar riff is a clear wall of aggression, and the vocals slice through it all without getting lost. This isn't the raw, sometimes-dodgy production of the early 2000s; this is a new standard of polished power.

The great news? That impossibly huge sound is more attainable than ever, even from your home studio. The gap between a pro mix and a bedroom mix has shrunk dramatically, thanks to incredible plugins and a deeper understanding of what makes a modern metal track work.

It’s not magic—it's a collection of deliberate techniques. Let's break down the anatomy of the best metalcore mixes and how you can apply these concepts to your own productions.

1. Inhumanly Tight and Punchy Drums

The foundation of any great metalcore mix is a drum sound that’s both organic and machine-like in its precision. The days of a thin, washy drum kit are long gone. Modern drums are all about impact and consistency, achieved through a blend of great performance, smart editing, and sample wizardry.

Sample Replacement and Layering

Listen to any major modern release, and you’re almost certainly hearing drum samples. It’s not about replacing a great-sounding kit entirely; it's about enhancement.

• Kick: The live kick provides the low-end "whoomph" and feel, but a sample (like one from the GetGood Drums libraries) is often layered on top to provide a consistent, clicky attack that cuts through the dense guitars. This ensures every double-bass hit is perfectly audible.
• Snare: A common trick is to blend in a sample like the Joey Sturgis TKO snare or something from the Slate Drums collection. This adds a powerful "crack" and body that remains the same for every single hit, eliminating the dynamic inconsistencies that can get lost in a fast, loud mix.
• Workflow: Use a drum replacement plugin like Slate Trigger 2 or Logic's built-in tool to place your chosen sample precisely underneath the live drum track. Blend the sample's fader with the original to taste.

Parallel Compression for Maximum Impact

Want your drums to sound explosive without just turning up the fader and clipping your mix bus? This is where parallel compression comes in. It's a cornerstone technique for achieving punch.

1. Set Up a Send: Create an auxiliary track (or "bus") and send your entire drum bus to it.
2. Obliterate It: On the aux track, insert a very aggressive, fast compressor. A plugin modeled after the Urei 1176 is perfect for this—think Arturia’s FET-76 or the Waves CLA-76. Use a fast attack, fast release, and a high ratio (8:1, 20:1, or even the "all buttons in" mode).
3. Blend It In: Bring the fader of this crushed aux track up underneath your main drum bus. You’ll hear the drums get thicker, punchier, and more energetic. This lets you add extreme power and sustain while retaining the transients and dynamics of your original drum sound.

2. Massive Guitars That Are Clear, Not Muddy

Eight-string guitars, drop-F# tuning… modern metalcore lives in the low-end. The biggest challenge is getting that massive, heavy guitar sound to be powerful without turning into an undefined wall of mud. Clarity is everything.

Carving Space with Aggressive EQ

Your EQ is your most powerful tool for this. A massive guitar tone isn't about having a ton of low-end—it's about having the right frequencies and getting rid of the rest.

• High-Pass Filter (HPF): This is non-negotiable. Put an EQ on your rhythm guitar tracks and use a high-pass filter to cut everything below 80-120Hz. This low-end territory belongs to the kick drum and bass guitar. Removing it from the guitars instantly cleans up the mix.
• Low-Pass Filter (LPF): A lot of that harsh, fizzy sound lives in the highest frequencies. Use a low-pass filter to gently roll off the top end, often starting somewhere between 8kHz and 12kHz. This tames the fizz without making the guitars sound dull.
• The Surgical Mid-Scoop: Don't just carve out a giant hole at 500Hz. Use a parametric EQ with a narrow Q (bandwidth) to find the specific "honky" or "boxy" frequencies that are cluttering up the sound. Often, small, precise cuts at multiple spots (e.g., around 400Hz and 800Hz) are more effective than one huge scoop.

Taming the Low-End Chaos with Multiband Compression

When you’re palm-muting a low-tuned, high-gain guitar, the low-mids (around 200-450Hz) can build up and become overwhelming. But if you EQ them out completely, the tone loses all its weight and power.

The solution is multiband compression. Use a plugin like FabFilter Pro-MB on your guitar bus. Set up a band to focus only on that problematic 200-450Hz range. Set a fast attack so it only compresses those low-mids during the chunky palm mutes, leaving the rest of the guitar tone untouched. This keeps the chugs tight and controlled without thinning out the sound.

3. Bass That You Can Actually Hear (And Feel)

With guitars tuned so low, what’s the point of the bass? Its role is to provide the fundamental low-end foundation and add a layer of dirty, grinding mid-range that helps glue the kick and guitars together.

The "DI and Grit" Combo

One of the most effective modern bass techniques is to split your signal into two tracks:

1. The Clean DI: This is your foundation. Keep this track relatively clean. Compress it heavily to make it super consistent, and EQ it to focus on the sub-bass and low-end (think 40-100Hz).
2. The Grit Track: Duplicate the DI signal (or use a splitter box during recording) and send it to another track. Slap an aggressive amp sim on this one—plugins like Neural DSP’s Parallax or the Darkglass Ultra VST are industry standards for this. Distort it heavily, then use an EQ to high-pass it around 200-300Hz and let it own the mid-range.

Blend these two tracks together. You get the solid, clean low-end from the DI and the audible, cutting aggression from the grit track. It’s the best of both worlds.

Sidechaining to the Kick Drum

To ensure the kick drum and bass aren't fighting for the same low-end space, use sidechain compression. Place a compressor on your clean bass DI track and set its sidechain input to receive the signal from the kick drum. Now, every time the kick hits, the bass's volume will duck for a split second, creating a perfect pocket for the kick drum's attack. This tightens up the low-end rhythm section immensely.

4. Vocals That Sit On Top, Not Buried Beneath

From brutal screams to pop-influenced clean choruses, modern metalcore vocals need to be dynamic yet consistently "in your face."

The Power of Serial and Parallel Processing

Don't rely on one plugin to do everything. Create a vocal chain. A typical modern metal vocal chain might look like this:

1. Pitch Correction: Melodyne or Antares Auto-Tune for polishing clean vocals.
2. Surgical EQ: Cut out any problematic resonant frequencies.
3. First Compressor (Taming Peaks): A fast, VCA-style compressor like an 1176 emulation to catch the loudest peaks.
4. Second Compressor (Adding Body): A slower, smoother optical-style compressor like an LA-2A emulation to level out the performance and add warmth.
5. Saturation: Send the vocal to a parallel track with a saturation plugin like FabFilter Saturn 2 or Soundtoys Decapitator. Crush it to create aggressive harmonics, then blend it in subtly behind the main vocal to help it cut through without increasing the volume.

Making It Sit in the Mix

Use automation to make the vocals feel alive. Automate the volume fader to push key phrases and choruses. Use automated delay throws and reverb swells to add "ear candy" and create a sense of space and dimension that keeps the listener engaged.

See How It's Really Done

Reading about these techniques is one thing. But watching a pro producer dial in these settings, make decisions in real-time, and transform raw tracks into a finished, polished mix is a complete game-changer.

At Nail The Mix, you get to be a fly on the wall for exactly that. We give you the full multitracks from massive bands and let you watch world-class instructors like Will Putney, Joey Sturgis, and Nolly Getgood mix them from scratch, explaining every single plugin, setting, and decision along the way.

If you’re ready to stop guessing and learn how the best metalcore mixes are actually crafted, check out our full catalog of sessions and see what you can learn by sitting in on a mix with the pros.