GetGood Drums Zilla Cabs: Your Guide to Modern Metal Tones

Getting a massive, mix-ready guitar tone inside your DAW can feel like a moving target. You dial in an amp sim, scroll endlessly through impulse responses, and what sounds crushing in solo suddenly vanishs or turns into fizz when the drums and bass kick in. It’s a common frustration.

While there’s no single plugin that will magically fix your mixes, starting with the right tools for the job makes a world of difference. When it comes to modern metal guitar, you need an IR pack that delivers the punch, clarity, and aggression that the genre demands. This is exactly where the GetGood Drums Zilla Cabs pack comes in.

This isn’t just another collection of IRs. It’s a curated and highly specific toolkit designed for heavy music. Let’s break down what makes it so effective and how you can use it to get brutal guitar tones in your own productions.

What Exactly Are the GetGood Drums Zilla Cabs?

At its core, the GGD Zilla Cabs pack is a comprehensive impulse response library created in partnership with Adam "Nolly" Getgood. If you’re in the metal world, you know that name. Nolly's work with Periphery and as a producer has defined a huge part of the modern metal sound, and his ear for tone is legendary.

This pack captures the sound of various Zilla Custom Cabinets—a brand synonymous with modern high-gain metal—loaded with industry-standard Celestion speakers.

What’s Inside the Pack:

• Cabinets: You get IRs from iconic Zilla Cabs like the Fatboy and Super Fatboy, known for their tight low-end and focused projection.
• Speakers: The pack features tried-and-true metal mainstays like the Celestion Vintage 30 and the G12K-100, alongside other popular choices.
• Microphones: Nolly captured these cabs with a whole array of classic mics, including the Shure SM57, Royer R-121, Sennheiser MD421, and more.
• Nolly’s Mixes: Crucially, the pack includes Nolly’s own meticulously crafted multi-mic blends. These are fantastic starting points that save you the guesswork of blending multiple IRs yourself.

This is a specialized tool. Just like you'd reach for a plugin like Soothe to tame harshness, you reach for the GGD Zilla Cabs when you need an authentic, professional, modern metal guitar foundation.

Dialing in a Killer Tone: A Step-by-Step Approach

Having a great IR pack is one thing; knowing how to use it is another. A great tone is the sum of its parts. The GGD Zilla Cabs are a critical component, but they work as part of a chain. Here’s how to build that chain for maximum impact.

Start with the Right Amp Sim

Your impulse response acts as the speaker cabinet and microphone, but it needs a great amp head to drive it. The Zilla Cabs pair perfectly with virtually any modern high-gain amp sim.

Popular choices include:

• Neural DSP Archetypes: Nolly, Gojira, Fortin Cali Suite
• STL Tones: ToneHub or Amphub (Will Putney, Andy James models)
• Bogren Digital: Ampknob RevC
• Free Options: The TSE X50 or Nick Crow Lab 8505 are still solid choices.

The key is to turn OFF the cabinet section of your amp sim plugin so you can use GGD Zilla Cabs in a separate IR loader.

Loading and Blending Your IRs

Once your amp head is set, it’s time to load your IRs. You can use a dedicated IR loader plugin like the free NadIR from STL, or your DAW’s stock loader if it has one.

The real power comes from blending. While Nolly’s pre-made mixes are excellent, learning to blend your own gives you ultimate control. A classic combination for metal is to pair a dynamic mic with a ribbon mic.

Try this combo:

1. IR Slot 1: Load an SM57 impulse. Nolly’s captures are fantastic. The SM57 provides the aggressive mid-range bark and attack that helps guitars cut through a dense mix.
2. IR Slot 2: Load a Royer R-121 impulse of the same speaker. The R-121 is known for its smooth top end and warm, full-bodied low-mids.

By blending the SM57’s bite with the R-121’s body, you get a composite tone that is both aggressive and massive. Adjust the volume levels of each IR until you find the perfect balance. Don’t be afraid to experiment with other mics like the MD421 for a different mid-range character.

The Critical EQ Moves You Can't Skip

An IR gets you a raw speaker tone, but it’s not a finished record tone. Post-cab EQ is non-negotiable for making your guitars sit in a mix. This is less about the specific EQ plugin you use—your stock DAW EQ is perfectly capable—and more about knowing what moves to make.

Here are the essential steps for EQing metal guitars for maximum impact:

1. High-Pass Filter (HPF): This is your #1 tool for cleaning up mud. The low-end rumble from distorted guitars will clash with the bass guitar and kick drum. Set a high-pass filter somewhere between 80Hz and 120Hz to carve out this space. Use your ears; cut just enough to clean things up without making the guitars sound thin.
2. Low-Pass Filter (LPF): A lot of that harsh, scratchy "fizz" lives in the super-high frequencies. Use a low-pass filter to gently roll off the top end, often starting around 8kHz to 10kHz. This smooths out the tone without losing the aggression and attack.
3. Surgical Cuts: Every guitar tone has annoying resonant frequencies. Use a narrow Q on your EQ to sweep through the frequency spectrum and find them. Common problem areas are the "boxy" lows around 200-300Hz, the "nasal honk" around 400-600Hz, and the "painful fizz" somewhere between 3kHz and 6kHz. Cut these frequencies by a few dB.

Beyond the Basics: Pushing Your Tone Further

Once you have a solid foundational tone with your amp and the Zilla Cabs, you can use bus processing to glue everything together, especially when working with quad-tracked guitars.

Send all your rhythm guitar tracks to a single stereo bus or group. On this bus, you can apply processing that affects them as a single unit.

• Gentle Compression: A little bit of bus compression can even out the dynamics and make your guitars feel more cohesive. You don't need to slam it; a few dB of gain reduction with a medium attack and fast release can do wonders to tighten things up. Learn more about metal compression secrets here.
• Saturation: Adding a touch of saturation after your main distortion can add pleasing harmonics and a sense of 'bigness'. Plugins like FabFilter's Saturn or Soundtoys' Decapitator are great for this, but even a subtle tube or tape saturation plugin can add that extra 5% of vibe.

Skill, Not Just Tools, Makes the Mix

The GetGood Drums Zilla Cabs pack is an absolutely killer tool. It gives you direct access to the tones crafted by one of the best producers in modern metal. It removes a massive variable and gets you in the professional ballpark instantly.

But remember, a tool is only as good as the hands that wield it. The best producers could get a killer mix with stock plugins because they have the skills. It’s their deep understanding of EQ, compression, balance, and automation that creates the final product.

Using GGD Zilla Cabs will significantly upgrade your raw tones, but learning how to blend them, EQ them in context, and make them sit perfectly with a powerhouse drum performance and a thundering bass is what separates a good demo from a great record.

That’s where Nail The Mix comes in. Imagine watching producers like Nolly, Jens Bogren, Will Putney, and more—many of whom are official **Nail The Mix instructors**—mix real songs from bands like Gojira, Lamb of God, and Architects from start to finish. You get the raw multi-tracks and watch them explain every decision, from dialing in guitar tones to mastering the final track.

If you’re ready to learn the skills that put world-class tools like GGD Zilla Cabs to their best possible use, check out our full catalog of Nail The Mix sessions and see how the pros build those massive metal mixes you love.