The Top Seven Music Softwares for Modern Metal Guitarists

The bar for modern metal production is ridiculously high. Twenty years ago, a local band's demo sounded like, well, a demo. Today, that same local band is dropping tracks that sound polished, punchy, and professional enough to rival major label releases. The game has changed.

The good news? The tools to achieve that sound are more accessible and powerful than ever. You don't need a million-dollar studio to craft a world-class metal record from your bedroom. But you DO need the right software. From DAWs that can handle 100+ tracks of pure chaos to plugins that can tame the low-end of a nine-string guitar, your software choices are critical.

Forget the generic "best of" lists. This is about the essential music softwares that will help you create crushing, modern metal tones that can compete in today's landscape.

1. A DAW That Can Keep Up: Reaper or Pro Tools

Your Digital Audio Workstation is your command center. While you can make metal in any DAW, the workflow for this genre is demanding. You need something that won’t crash when you’ve got 16 tracks of guitars, a massive drum library, and layers of synths.

Reaper: The Customization King

Reaper is a beast for metal production. It’s incredibly lightweight, so it runs smoothly even on modest computers. But its real power lies in its insane customizability. You can create custom actions and macros for repetitive tasks like editing multi-tracked guitars or quantizing drums, which saves a ridiculous amount of time. It’s affordable, stable, and a favorite among countless metal producers for a reason.

Pro Tools: The Industry Standard

If you plan on sending your tracks to a professional mixer or working in commercial studios, you’ll run into Pro Tools. It’s the industry standard, and its audio editing and bussing capabilities are top-tier. While it can be more resource-intensive, its rock-solid editing workflow, especially for things like comping vocals or tightening up drums, is undeniable.

2. Inhumanly Good Drums: Get Good Drums & Superior Drummer 3

Modern metal drums are a combination of perfect performance, tight editing, and powerful samples. The sound is often hyper-realistic and punchy in a way that’s almost impossible to achieve with just a raw acoustic recording. That's where drum libraries come in.

Get Good Drums (GGD)

Founded by the minds from Periphery, GGD libraries are basically "mix-ready" out of the box. Kits like Modern & Massive or the P IV Matt Halpern Signature Pack are pre-processed to have that signature punch, attack, and clarity you hear on modern records. They cut through a dense guitar mix with minimal fuss, making them perfect for writing and producing quickly.

Toontrack Superior Drummer 3

If GGD is the finely-tuned race car, SD3 is the entire auto shop. It gives you an insane amount of control. You get raw, multi-mic'd drum samples recorded by George Massenburg that you can process from the ground up. You can stack samples, control bleed, and program intricate velocity details to make your programmed drums sound indistinguishable from a real performance. It’s the ultimate tool for tweakers who want to craft a truly unique drum sound.

3. World-Class Guitar Tones (In a Plugin): Neural DSP

The days of needing a cranked 100-watt head and a perfectly mic’d 4×12 cab to get a pro guitar tone are over. Amp sims have gotten scarily good, and Neural DSP is leading the charge. The consistency, versatility, and sheer quality you can get from their plugins are game-changers for home-studio guitarists.

There's an Archetype for pretty much any modern metal flavor you can imagine:

• Archetype: Gojira: Incredibly versatile. It can do the crushing high-gain thing, but its ambient effects and pitch-shifter (a must for emulating those Whammy pedal tricks) make it a creative powerhouse.
• Fortin Cali Suite: If you just want pure, unadulterated high-gain aggression that sits perfectly in a mix, this is it. It’s tight, articulate, and perfect for down-tuned chugs and fast riffs.
• Archetype: Plini: Need to cover everything from crystal cleans to saturated leads and djenty rhythms? This is a go-to for progressive metal producers for its flexibility and pristine sound quality.

4. Surgical EQ for Low-Tuned Chaos: FabFilter Pro-Q 3

When you're dealing with 8-string guitars tuned to F# and a bass guitar fighting for the same space, a basic 3-band EQ won't cut it. You need a surgical tool to carve out space and eliminate mud without gutting your tone.

FabFilter Pro-Q 3 is the undisputed champ here. Its gorgeous interface lets you see exactly what's happening in the frequency spectrum. More importantly, its Dynamic EQ function is a lifesaver for modern metal.

Actionable Tip: Got a muddy buildup in your palm mutes around 200-400Hz? Instead of cutting that frequency from the whole track (which can make your tone thin), use a dynamic band in Pro-Q 3. Set it to only duck that frequency range by a few dB when the palm mutes hit. The mud disappears, but your tone's body remains intact. Learning these kinds of EQ strategies for mixing modern metal is non-negotiable.

5. Taming the Beast with Multi-band Dynamics: FabFilter Pro-MB

Low-tuned, high-gain guitars are dynamically wild. The low-end chugs can be explosive while the sustained chords are much quieter. A standard compressor can squash the life out of your tone trying to control this.

Enter multi-band compression. A tool like FabFilter Pro-MB lets you apply compression to specific frequency bands.

Actionable Tip: Put Pro-MB on your main rhythm guitar bus. Set a band to cover just the low-end "chug" frequencies (e.g., 80-250Hz). Now, you can apply fast, aggressive compression to only that band. This will tighten up the palm mutes and make them super consistent, without touching the mid-range bite or high-end clarity. It's one of the key metal compression secrets to getting a controlled, powerful guitar sound.

6. The Unsung Heroes: Tuning and Timing Correction

Modern metal production demands perfection. A slightly out-of-tune chord or a snare hit that’s a hair off the grid can stick out like a sore thumb.

• Celemony Melodyne: Yes, for guitars. Melodyne's polyphonic algorithm is black magic. Did you record the perfect take but one note in a complex chord is slightly sour? Melodyne can fix it on the DI track before it even hits your amp sim. It's a lifesaver that can salvage an otherwise unusable take.
• Slate Trigger 2: This is the industry standard for drum sample replacement and reinforcement. It lets you blend samples underneath your live drums to add punch and consistency. Want a snare that has the organic feel of your live take but the massive "crack" of a sample? Trigger makes it easy.

7. Coloring Outside the Lines: Synths & Samplers

Modern metal is genre-fluid. Bands like Spiritbox, Falling In Reverse, and Polyphia pull from hip-hop, pop, and electronic music. To do this, you need a sonic palette that goes beyond guitars, bass, and drums.

• Xfer Serum: The go-to wavetable synth for electronic producers is also a secret weapon for metal. It’s perfect for creating massive sub-basses to layer under your guitars, gritty 808s for a breakdown, or atmospheric pads to build tension.
• Native Instruments Komplete: This is an entire universe of sounds. With Kontakt, you get access to thousands of sampled instruments, from cinematic strings and orchestral percussion to weird, glitchy sound effects. It’s the ultimate toolkit for adding those unexpected layers that make a modern metal track stand out.

From Great Tools to a Killer Mix

Having the right software is the first step. You can have every plugin on this list and still end up with a mix that sounds thin, muddy, or just… not quite professional. The real magic happens when you know how to use these tools—how to make them work together to serve the song.

It's about knowing exactly how much multi-band compression to use on the guitars, which frequencies to carve out of the bass to make room for the kick, and how to glue it all together.

That's the gap Nail The Mix was built to fill. Imagine watching the actual producer who mixed bands like Gojira, Meshuggah, or Periphery show you every single move they make, using these exact types of tools, on the real multi-tracks from the album. No theory, just practical, actionable techniques you can apply to your own music immediately.

If you're ready to go beyond just owning the software and truly master the art of mixing modern metal, this is your next step.

Unlock Your Sound: Learn How to Mix Modern Metal Beyond Presets