How to Mix Low Tuned Guitars: Taming the Chaos

You got to love the earth-shattering power of a band tuned down to Drop A, F#, or even lower. It’s the cornerstone of modern metalcore, deathcore, and djent. But when it comes time to mix those sludgy, low-tuned guitars, what sounds crushing in the practice room can quickly turn into an undefined, muddy mess in your DAW.

The problem is simple: when guitars are tuned that low, they stop behaving like guitars. They invade the bass guitar's territory, creating a low-end traffic jam that leaves no room for the kick drum. Suddenly, your standard kick-and-bass relationship becomes a three-way battle for survival.

But don’t start high-passing your guitars into oblivion just yet. Taming this low-end beast is entirely possible. It just requires a different approach and a willingness to rethink how you carve out space in your mix.

The Low-End Traffic Jam: Why Low Tunings Are a Mixing Nightmare

Before you can fix the problem, you have to understand why it’s happening. Standard E-tuned guitars have a fundamental frequency around 82Hz, but most of their power and character lives comfortably in the 100-250Hz range and above. This leaves a nice, clean pocket for the bass and kick to do their thing below.

When a guitarist tunes down an octave, that all goes out the window.

Guitars Start Behaving Like Basses

A guitar tuned to F#1 has a fundamental of ~46Hz. Suddenly, the chugs and palm mutes are living in the same sonic space as a traditional 4-string bass. This isn't just a small overlap; it's a full-on collision. The instruments no longer have their own defined zones, and the result is flubby, indistinct mud where your powerful low-end should be.

The Phantom Bass Fundamental

Here’s where it gets even weirder. On a 5 or 6-string bass trying to keep up with these tunings, the fundamental of the lowest notes can drop below the range of human hearing (around 20Hz). What you're actually hearing from the bass isn't the true fundamental note, but the collection of overtones and harmonics that give it its character. This makes it incredibly difficult to find a "fundamental" to lock in with the kick drum, because it barely exists.

The Kick-Guitar-Bass Collision

This mess creates the infamous "three-way problem." Instead of a simple two-way decision of how to fit the kick and bass together, you now have three instruments fighting for the same limited space in the sub-100Hz range. If you don't have a clear strategy, your mix's foundation will crumble. Awareness of this issue is the critical first step.

Solving the Puzzle: Two Core Strategies for Low-End Clarity

There’s no single “correct” way to solve this puzzle, but most successful approaches fall into one of two main strategies. The right one for you will depend on the song, the density of the mix, and how much harmonic content you’re working with.

Strategy 1: The "High Kick" Tactic

This might sound counterintuitive, but one of the most effective methods is to place the kick drum above the fundamental mess of the guitars and bass. It's difficult to get a kick to sit below a bass guitar whose fundamental is already scraping the floor of the audible spectrum. So, don't. Flip the relationship on its head.

How to Do It:

1. Focus the Kick on Punch, Not Sub: Instead of boosting the kick at 50-60Hz for that deep boom, find its "weight" a little higher up, maybe around 80-100Hz. This gives it body without directly competing with the super-low guitar chugs.
2. Carve with Precision: Use a surgical EQ like a FabFilter Pro-Q 3 to make this happen. Put a bell curve boost in that 80-100Hz range on the kick and make a corresponding, gentle cut on the bass and guitar busses in the same spot.
3. Emphasize the Beater: The "click" of the kick beater is what will help it cut through the wall of distortion. Look for this in the 2-5kHz range. A transient shaper like the one in iZotope’s Neutron or a classic SPL Transient Designer can help accentuate this attack, making the kick audible even when the low-end is dense.
4. Let the Guitars and Bass Own the Subs: By placing the kick’s weight higher, you’ve given the stringed instruments the green light to own the super-low frequencies. This creates a powerful, heavy foundation with a kick that punches through it.

Strategy 2: Mix the Harmonics, Not the Fundamental

This is a totally different but equally valid approach, especially popular in modern metalcore. If the guitar and bass tones are saturated with enough distortion, their perceived pitch is defined more by their midrange harmonics than by their nearly-inaudible fundamentals. This strategy leans into that fact.

You essentially pretend the instruments are tuned higher and mix the part of the sound you can actually hear clearly.

How to Do It:

1. High-Pass Everything (Aggressively): This is the key. Be brave with your high-pass filters. On your main guitar bus, start with a filter around 100Hz and slowly move it up. You might be shocked to find you can go as high as 150Hz or even 200Hz before the guitars sound too thin. They'll lose the mud but keep the aggressive character.
2. Filter the Bass for Grit: Do the same for the bass, but focus on its role as a midrange driver. High-pass it to at least 200-300Hz. This sounds insane, but remember, you're not relying on it for sub-bass anymore. You're using it to provide the gritty harmonic content that glues the guitars to the drums. Plugins like FabFilter Saturn 2 or Soundtoys Decapitator can add harmonics to help the bass cut through on smaller speakers after you've filtered it.
3. Create a New Low End: Now that you've cleaned out a massive amount of space in the sub-bass region, you can insert a clean, controlled low-end from another source. Place a sub-synth or a clean sine-wave sample triggered by your kick drum in the 40-60Hz range. This becomes your new, perfectly controlled foundation. The kick provides the clean sub, while the filtered bass and guitars provide the aggression on top.

This is the secret behind many modern metal mixes. An in-depth guide to metal guitar EQ can show you just how far you can push those filters.

Essential Tools Beyond EQ

While EQ is your primary weapon, a few other tools are critical for getting low-tuned guitars to sit right.

Multi-Band Compression

A multi-band compressor is a lifesaver. When a guitarist palm-mutes a low string, it can create a huge, uncontrolled "woof" of low-end energy. A standard compressor would duck the entire guitar signal, killing your attack.

Instead, use a multi-band compressor like the FabFilter Pro-MB or Waves C6 on your guitar bus. Set one band to cover just the problematic low-end (e.g., everything below 150-200Hz). Now you can apply fast, heavy compression to only that frequency range, taming the palm-mute flub without squashing the aggressive mids and highs. This is one of the most powerful metal compression secrets for achieving a tight, modern sound.

Bass Layering

For these genres, a single bass track is rarely enough. The classic "clean sub/dirty mids" technique is essential.

• Clean Track: Duplicate your bass DI. On one track, low-pass it heavily (down to 150-200Hz) and compress it to get a smooth, consistent foundation.
• Grit Track: On the other track, high-pass it to where the clean track leaves off. Then, obliterate it with distortion. A SansAmp plugin, Neural DSP Parallax, or even a guitar amp sim can work wonders. Blend this grit track in to get audible bass definition that cuts through the mix on any system.

Learn From the Pros Who Do This Every Day

These strategies are powerful starting points, but seeing them applied in a real-world session is where the magic happens. Mixing low-tuned guitars is a signature challenge for many of the world's top metal producers, and they've developed incredible workflows to conquer it.

At Nail The Mix, you can watch producers like Will Putney, Joey Sturgis, and Andrew Wade—true masters of the craft—tackle this exact problem. Our catalog of sessions features multi-tracks from bands like Periphery, Knocked Loose, and Gojira, where you can see and hear how these low-end puzzles are solved, every single time.

Imagine seeing exactly how the pros EQ those Drop F# guitars to perfectly lock in with the bass and kick. It’s the kind of insight that can transform your mixes. And with URM Enhanced, you get access to over 1,500 more tutorials covering every aspect of modern metal production. Stop fighting the mud and start making it heavy.