Mixing and Mastering Music: 10 Things Every Metalhead Must Learn

Here is an SEO article targeting "mixing and mastering music," written in the style and tone of Nail The Mix.

Let's be real: mixing modern metal is a different beast than it was 20, or even 10, years ago. The bar for production quality is insanely high. The days of a local band getting by with a dodgy demo are long gone. Today, audiences expect even unsigned bands to sound as polished as a major label release.

Add to that the fact that musicianship has leveled up dramatically, bands are tuning lower than ever, and genre lines are basically disappearing. How are you supposed to keep up when you’re trying to mix a track with 9-string guitars, hip-hop samples, and a blast beat section?

The good news? The tools and knowledge are more accessible than ever. With plugins like Neural DSP and drum libraries from Get Good Drums, you can craft a pro-level mix in your bedroom. But you have to know the modern rules of the game.

Here are ten essential things you need to master when mixing and mastering modern metal.

1. Embrace the Polish: It's a Non-Negotiable

First, a mindset shift. The raw, slightly messy production of an album like Avenged Sevenfold's Sounding the Seventh Trumpet simply wouldn’t fly today. The modern metal landscape demands perfection. This means tight editing, surgical EQ, and controlled dynamics are not optional "nice-to-haves"—they're the baseline. The gap between a local band's mix and a Periphery record is smaller than ever, and your goal is to close that gap completely.

2. Tame the Low-End Chaos

With bands using 8- and 9-string guitars, the low-end is a battlefield. The guitar might be dipping into the same frequency range as the bass, which is fighting the kick drum for space. If you don't get this right, you get mud.

How to Fix It:

• Multi-Band Compression: Slap a multi-band compressor like the Waves C6 or FabFilter Pro-MB on your bass guitar. Isolate the low-mid frequencies (around 80-200Hz) and set it to trigger only when the kick drum hits. This creates a pocket for the kick to punch through without making the bass disappear.
• Dynamic EQ: Use a dynamic EQ like the FabFilter Pro-Q 3 on your guitars. Find the fundamental frequency of your lowest chugs and set a dynamic band to dip slightly whenever the bass guitar plays a note in the same register. It’s a transparent way to make two clashing elements coexist.
• High-Pass Everything (Almost): Be ruthless with your high-pass filters. Guitars probably don’t need much below 80-100Hz. Vocals can often be high-passed up to 120Hz or more. This cleans up a massive amount of low-end rumble that you might not even notice is there until it's gone.

3. Rethink the Guitar and Bass Relationship

When a rhythm guitar is tuned to F#, what is the bass even supposed to do? This is a huge challenge in modern metal. The bass can’t just double the guitar riff an octave down anymore. Its role has changed.

Modern Bass Strategies:

• Let the Bass Own the Sub-Frequencies: Often, the best approach is to let the guitars handle the low-mids and aggression, while the bass provides the foundational sub-bass weight. Use a low-pass filter on your bass to roll off the high end so it’s not fighting the guitars for definition. A plugin like Waves LoAir or Submarine can help add clean, controllable sub-harmonic content.
• Heavy Distortion for Definition: A heavily distorted bass tone, blended in parallel with a cleaner DI signal, can help it cut through on smaller speakers. Plugins like the Darkglass Ultra from Neural DSP or Joey Sturgis Tones' Bassforge are perfect for this. The distortion adds upper harmonics that make the bass audible even when the fundamental is clashing with the guitars.

4. Master Modern Metal Drums: Samples & Programming

The drum sound of modern metal is defined by a combination of tight playing, surgical editing, and sample replacement. In many cases, the drums are entirely programmed. Don't fight it—embrace it.

• Sample Replacement is Your Friend: Even with a great drummer and recording, blending samples is standard practice. Use a plugin like Slate Trigger 2 to layer a punchy kick sample (like the P-Kick from the GGD Invasion library) underneath your real kick. Blend it in at around 50-70% to add consistency and power without losing the human feel.
• Program with Personality: If you're programming drums with Superior Drummer 3 or GGD, don't just quantize everything to 100%. Use the humanize functions to slightly vary the timing and velocity. Pay attention to ghost notes on the snare and how a real drummer would voice their cymbal work. Little imperfections are what sell the performance.

5. Nailing Aggressive and Clean Vocals

Modern metal vocalists are more dynamic than ever, often switching between brutal screams and pop-influenced clean singing in the same song (looking at you, Spiritbox and Falling in Reverse). You need to be able to handle both.

• Parallel Processing is Key: Don't try to get everything from one vocal track. Send your main scream track to an auxiliary bus and absolutely demolish it with saturation and compression. A Decapitator from Soundtoys or SansAmp PSA-1 plugin works great. Blend that distorted track back in underneath the main vocal to add aggression and body without sacrificing clarity.
• Automate Your Effects: Your clean vocal section probably doesn't need the same gritty slap delay that your scream section does. Automate different reverbs and delays to turn on and off for each section. Use a clean plate reverb for the chorus and a darker, filtered delay for the heavy verses.

6. Handle Hyper-Technical Performances

The level of musicianship today is just insane. You'll get DI tracks from guitarists who can shred better than shredders from 20 years ago. This means your mix needs to be just as precise.

• Micro-Manage Your Automation: Don't just set a fader and forget it. Automate the volume on palm-muted guitar sections to be slightly louder than the ringing open chords to enhance the dynamics. If a fast lead run is getting lost, automate a 1-2 dB volume boost just for that phrase.
• Surgical Noise Gating: Fast, staccato riffing requires an aggressive noise gate. But a simple gate can sound choppy. Use a more advanced gate like the Pro-G from FabFilter in its "upward expander" mode. This allows you to increase the volume of the signal when it's above the threshold, making riffs punch harder while still gating the noise between notes.

7. Think Beyond the Genre

Modern metal isn't just metal anymore. It pulls from hip-hop, hyperpop, country, and EDM. Your production should reflect that. Don't be afraid to use tools and techniques from other genres.

• Use Synths for Texture: Layer a simple sine wave synth underneath your bass guitar to add controlled low-end weight. Use an arpeggiated synth pad from a plugin like Serum or Pigments, sidechain it to the kick, and tuck it way back in the mix to add energy and movement.
• Incorporate Samples: Listen to bands like PeelingFlesh or Falling in Reverse. They use 808s, trap hi-hats, and vocal samples. Don't be afraid to drop an 808 sample underneath a breakdown for extra impact or layer a reversed cymbal swell into a transition.

8. The Power of Automation and ‘Ear Candy’

A static mix is a boring mix. The best modern productions are filled with small, dynamic changes that keep the listener engaged. We're talking about "ear candy"—subtle effects and automation moves that you might not notice on first listen, but that make the track feel alive.

• Automate Delay Throws: On the last word of a vocal phrase, automate the send to a delay bus to go from 0% to 100% and then back down. This creates a classic "delay throw" that adds drama and fills empty space.
• Filter Sweeps: Use an automated low-pass or high-pass filter on your drum bus or a synth pad to build tension into a chorus or breakdown. A slow filter sweep over 4 or 8 bars is a classic EDM trick that works perfectly in metal.

9. Build a Powerful Mix Bus and Mastering Chain

Your mix bus is where everything comes together. A little bit of processing here can glue the whole track together and give it that final polish and loudness. This is a critical step in both mixing and mastering music.

A Go-To Mix Bus Chain:

1. Subtractive EQ: Start with an EQ like the Pro-Q 3 to make small cuts. Got some boxiness around 400Hz? A little harshness at 3kHz? Nudge it down by 0.5-1 dB. Our EQ strategies hub page has tons of tips for this.
2. Bus Compression: Use a classic VCA-style compressor like the SSL Bus Compressor or Town House from Plugin Alliance. Aim for slow attack, fast release, and just 1-2 dB of gain reduction on the loudest parts. This adds punch and "glue." Dive deeper on our compression hub page to perfect this.
3. Limiting: Finish with a transparent limiter like the FabFilter Pro-L 2 or Ozone Maximizer. This is where you get your commercial loudness. Don't slam it too hard—aim for 3-5 dB of gain reduction. If you have to push it harder than that, go back and fix your mix balance.

10. Learn from the Pros Who Live It

Years ago, if you were in a death metal band, you might end up recording with a guy who only knew how to make singer-songwriter records. The results were usually terrible. Today, there's a huge ecosystem of producers who specialize in metal. They've already figured out the solutions to all these problems. The fastest way to level up is to learn directly from them.

All these techniques are a great starting point. But reading about a multi-band compression trick for kick and bass is one thing. Watching a pro like Will Putney or Jens Bogren actually dial it in on a real session from a band like Fit For An Autopsy or Opeth? That’s a whole different level of learning.

At Nail The Mix, that’s exactly what you get. We put you in the virtual studio with the producers behind your favorite albums. You get the actual multi-tracks from massive songs and watch, for hours, as the original producer builds the mix from scratch, explaining every single plugin, setting, and decision.

If you’re serious about making your mixes compete, this is how you do it. See for yourself how the pros unlock their sound and mix modern metal beyond presets.