Mixing Heavy Music
Mixing Heavy Music
Mixing Heavy Music
HEAVY MUSIC
Mixing Advice Tailored to Rock, Hardcore
& Metal That Will Take Your Mixes from
Amateur to Pro
Jordan Valeriote
CONTENTS
PREFACE1
PART ONE:
SETTING THE STAGE 3
CHAPTER 1: MIXING BASICS 4
CHAPTER 2: THE TOOLS 7
CHAPTER 3: WORKFLOW 18
PART TWO:
TRACK-BY-TRACK TIPS & EXAMPLES 26
CHAPTER 4: DRUMS 27
CHAPTER 5: BASS 41
CHAPTER 6: GUITARS 44
CHAPTER 7: VOCALS 51
CHAPTER 8: MIX BUS 59
CHAPTER 9: YOUR JOURNEY 63
WHERE TO GO FROM HERE 64
PREFACE
Ever since the first time I stepped into a studio to record with my
punk band in high school, I knew I belonged behind the glass, not
on stage. It became my dream to produce and mix records pro-
fessionally.
It took many years and many thousands of hours to turn that dream
into reality, but I eventually earned opportunities to work with great
bands and labels on records I’m proud of.
All along the way, I had many conversations with other engineers,
both aspiring and professional. I was hungry for every bit of knowl-
edge I could soak up from a pro ahead of me, and I was equally hap-
py to share my knowledge with newer engineers coming up behind.
I love talking about this stuff, and can easily discuss mixing philoso-
phies, favorite audio gear and studio stories for hours at a time.
In 2015, I somewhat stumbled into sharing my knowledge online in
the form of emails, videos and courses. I never imagined that over
100,000 people would follow my content or that I’d train thousands
of upcoming engineers from over 50 different countries. Turns out
that sharing my knowledge with others and seeing them become
full-time producers, get their band signed, or get millions of streams
on their mixes has been just as fulfilling as working on a killer re-
cord myself.
This book is one more way for me to help mixers move forward and
get better at their craft. I’ve attempted to write down what I believe
are the most important things to learn about mixing, and the most
effective tips for mixing heavy music specifically.
By no means is this a comprehensive encyclopedia of mixing. I’m
not going to bore you to death with bare-bones basics or nerd out
on advanced concepts that don’t really matter.
VOLUME
The simplest and arguably the most important tool we have is the fad-
er. When all is said and done, it’s the final balance between the tracks
that makes the biggest impact on the mix.
If your vocal is too loud or too quiet, your mix sucks - even if the drums
are slamming. You can get an incredible snare sound, but if it’s too loud
in the mix, it’s just annoying.
We mixers have a tendency to reach for fancier tools when the best
solution is to simply turn it up or down.
PANNING
Panning is our first line of separation in the mix. We can pan instru-
EQ
Now we’re getting a little more advanced. EQ allows us to turn specific
frequencies up or down. This allows us to emphasize or exaggerate the
pleasing parts of an instrument, and on the flip side, minimize or re-
move the unpleasant or unnecessary frequencies.
An EQ plugin or hardware unit will have some or all of these features:
FILTERS
A High-Pass Filter (HPF) will cut out anything below the chosen frequen-
cy, allowing the higher frequencies to ‘pass through.’ A Low-Pass Filter
(LPF) allows the low frequencies to pass through while eliminating fre-
quencies above a set point. Filters are the most efficient way of getting
rid of unwanted high or low frequencies in a sound.
For example, you could use a HPF on heavy guitars, set between 90-
120Hz, to eliminate unnecessary rumbly low end and create more room
for the bass. Likewise, you could put a LPF on the bass track at 4kHz to
get rid of any hiss or noise in the high end that could interfere with the
guitars or vocals.
SHELVES
The next EQ type is a shelf. A high or low shelf raises or lowers all
frequencies below or above a set point. This is a smooth way to
boost low or high end and make broad strokes. Use a high shelf to
make a track brighter or darker; use a low shelf to increase or de-
crease the overall low end of a track.
BELL/PEAK
With a bell or peak EQ, we can boost or cut a specific frequency,
leaving the ones around it more or less untouched (more on that in
a second). Using this type of EQ, we can zero in on problem frequen-
cies to notch them out without affecting the rest of the tone. We can
also boost very specific frequencies to help a track cut through the
mix or to emphasize its character.
HARDCORE TIP:
Remember how I said panning is a powerful separation tool? Well,
keep in mind that your mix won’t always be heard on headphones
or in a scenario where the listener is perfectly placed between the
left and right speakers (think of a car)! In the real world, your pan-
ning won’t mean as much for separation as it does in the studio. To
really exercise your EQ muscle, do your EQing in mono. This forces
all the sounds to come out of one spot, all on top of one another.
So while your guitar and vocal sounded plenty separated when it
was panned 100% left, in mono you hear how the frequencies are
covering each other up (aka ‘masking’). You’ll be forced to EQ in
ways that give each instrument its own space in the frequency spec-
trum. I’ve found this to be a really powerful mixing technique. It’s a
bit weird to get used to, but when you flip it back to stereo, the mix
will sound that much bigger.
COMPRESSION
Compression is another incredibly powerful tool, but it’s not as easy
to master as the ones above. In the simplest terms, a compressor
allows us to turn down the level of a track automatically. It allows us
to control the dynamics - that is, the difference between the quiet-
est and loudest parts of a track.
A compressor has a threshold, either hardwired or adjusted by
hand. When the signal exceeds that threshold, the compressor kicks
in and turns it down. When we turn down the loudest parts of a sig-
nal, it allows us to turn the whole track up, which means the quieter
parts can be heard more easily.
RATIO
This is a hard one to wrap your head around. The ratio is displayed
as 2:1, 4:1, 6:1, etc.
A 4:1 ratio means that for every 4dB the signal exceeds the thresh-
old, the compressor will only allow it to exceed by 1dB (yeah, I
know... confusing).
So if your threshold is set at -10dB, and your signal comes in at -6dB,
it’s 4dB louder than the threshold. The compressor will kick in and
output a final level of -9dB, because for every 4dB over, it’s only al-
lowing a 1dB increase.
Truthfully you don’t ever need to think about ratios like that again.
Just know that lower ratios are more transparent and smooth, and
higher ratios are more extreme and noticeable. For simple, gentle
level control, use a low ratio like 2:1 or 4:1. For heavy, intense com-
pression and more aggressive dynamic control, use a higher ratio.
ATTACK
This is how quickly the compressor reacts to the signal - or “attacks”
it. A 30ms attack means that the compressor will kick in 30ms after
the signal hits the threshold.
Again, I don’t want you to overthink the numbers. Think of it in sim-
ple terms - fast, medium, slow.
A fast attack time will grab the signal quickly, reducing the transient.
A slower attack will allow some (or all) of the transient through, be-
fore clamping down on the signal. This creates the illusion that the
transient is actually louder than it was. That’s why we use a slow
attack on drum tracks - it emphasizes the transient. Are you starting
to see why compression is so powerful?
RELEASE
Release is how quickly the compressor returns, or releases, the sig-
nal back to it’s original volume. A slow release will gradually let the
signal go, while a fast release means the compressor turns down
the signal briefly and immediately lets it go until the next time the
threshold is reached.
The best way to think of it is that slow releases are smooth and
more transparent, while fast releases create a more aggressive
sound (because the level is changing more rapidly and dramatically).
Like I said, compression is most basically understood as a level con-
trol. We use it to automatically control the volume of a track to a
certain degree. It’s important to limit the dynamic range of instru-
ments so that the listener can always hear them loudly enough.
You’ve probably had the experience of listening to a song or person
speaking on the radio and had to turn it up at times to hear it prop-
erly and then turn it down when it gets loud. Compression helps to
even this out.
But compression is much more powerful than that. In fact, once you
get a little bit more advanced in your mixing, you’ll start to see level
control as only the secondary function of a compressor. The more
interesting part is how it allows you to shape a sound using the at-
tack and release times.
LIMITING
Limiting is technically defined as any compression with a 10:1 ratio
or higher. While we just discussed how compression is useful way
beyond simple level control, limiting is more strictly about volume.
A brick wall limiter does exactly what the name implies - it doesn’t
let ANYTHING go above the set threshold. This is used for stopping
SATURATION / DISTORTION
Saturation is a subtle form of distortion. It gently distorts and com-
presses the source, creating harmonics around it and thus thicken-
ing or fattening it. Depending on the type and severity of saturation,
it can either warm up and smooth a track over, or it can add a little
more edge and aggression.
By emphasizing the harmonics, meaning the complimentary fre-
quencies above and below the dominant range, it makes a sound
bigger, fatter, thicker and louder. For example, it can help smooth
out harsh high frequencies by ‘padding’ them with complimentary
frequencies around it. Or it can add harmonics to a super low fre-
quency so that it’s easier to hear on small speakers.
Distortion is a more aggressive tool. We can use distortion creatively
to add aggression, bite and edge in unexpected ways. You can dupli-
cate a scream track, add distortion, and mix that in with the regular
scream very subtly to add extra intensity. You can distort the drums
for effect, or again as a blended track to add aggression. We often
don’t think of distortion for things other than guitar or bass, but
we should.
EFFECTS
Finally we have effects. I’m talking about things like delay, reverb,
chorus/flanger, and other wacky stuff we can do with the sound.
Effects help us to create space in the mix by mimicking the way we
hear things in the real world. Reverb works by simulating the way
sound bounces off of walls or the landscape around us. That’s how a
reverb plugin allows us to give the illusion that something was re-
corded in a club, a big wooden room or a cathedral.
Delay is similar, while chorus and flangers vary the pitch and time
up and down to create unique sonic effects.
For maximum effectiveness, these types of tools should be used
wisely and sparingly in a mix. To me, too much reverb is one of the
dead-giveaways of an amateur mix. It clouds everything over and
gives it a lo-fi vibe (in a bad way). Just listen to the top 10 rock and
pop songs right now. I’ll bet you there’s not much reverb going on in
most of those mixes.
It’s easy to fall into the reverb trap because when you’re listening
to a track in solo, putting some reverb on it usually makes it sound
instantly better. But it’s a crutch, and it adds up in your mix in a neg-
ative way. I hardly use any reverb in a mix, and when I do, it’s usual-
ly to make up for a missing drum room track or to create a special
effect. I find delays to be much more useful in creating depth and
space in a mix. I’ll get into some real examples of this later on.
I spent the first part of this book setting you up with a foundation
and a starting point from which to mix. Those ideas and princi-
ples will help you approach any mix in any genre of music with
confidence.
But this book is about mixing heavy music, and here’s where I’ll de-
liver on that title. The second part of this book is about how to apply
these tools, with specific tips and examples for heavy music that you
can try immediately in your DAW and hear the difference.
CHAPTER 4: DRUMS
There are essentially two different ways drums are approached in
heavy music. You can either go raw and real, or polished and larger-
than-life. Neither is better than the other, it just depends on what
the artist or producer is going for. As a mixer, in the rough balance
stage you should be able to discern which way they want to go (if
they haven’t told you already).
Regardless of the style you’re going for, a lot of the goals are still
the same. You want the drums to hit hard. They need to be punchy,
loud and intense. In more mellow rock and pop music, the drums
contribute to the rhythm and feel for a song, but in metal, we also
want to hear the detail of the drums and we want them to cut
through the mix, not just sit as a foundation underneath.
Personally, I prefer productions that sound “larger than life,” so the
ideal drum mix for heavy music consists of well-recorded live drums
augmented by samples. Programmed drums are also common
in the genre, which is okay, but I’m willing to bet that live drums
will never go away. As good as MIDI tools are these days, there’s
still a special energy and realism that you can only capture with a
real drummer.
I’ll walk you through each part of a live kit, and then touch
on samples.
KICK
Depending on the drum and mic used, a live kick track will either
sound dull and muddy or thin and plastic-y.
If you’re hearing a lot of bleed between kick hits, start by setting
up a gate. A simple gate plugin with a drum preset will be a good
starting point. Make sure the attack is as fast as possible, so that
the transient is allowed through. The release time can be medium
SNARE
Start by gating the snare similarly to how you gated the kick, with
the fastest attack possible and a medium to slow release. Make sure
you don’t get rid of the ring of the snare, as it will add character to
the drums.
You may need to make some narrow cuts with EQ to clean up a
honky midrange between 500 to 900Hz. Don’t make your midrange
cuts too extreme on the snare, or you’ll find it hard to hear in the
mix later on. Sometimes the ring or midrange that bothers you
when isolated will help define it in the mix (yet another reason to
avoid mixing in solo).
The key spots to boost on snare are 2-2.5kHz for smack that helps
cut through guitars. 3.5-4.5kHz will give some more bite and edge,
and the nice bright attack and crack is around 8kHz. Like the kick, I’ll
usually have a substantial boost at 8kHz.
The low end punch of a snare resides around 200Hz. Give it a
healthy boost to add weight and punch. You can also use a HPF
around 150Hz to clean up any unnecessary low end coming
through the mix.
Again, follow the EQ with compression using a slow attack and fast
release. You want to do enough gain reduction to emphasize the
punch and attack of the snare, but you can’t go too far or you’ll lose
the body of the snare or make it sound squashed and unnatural.
The sweet spot is usually between 3-6db with a ratio of 3:1 or 4:1.
Next, some distortion or saturation can do wonders on a snare to
help it cut through the mix. Just make sure your saturation isn’t
mellowing out the attack too much. This is why a more aggressive
saturation tending towards distortion can be better, because it cuts
down the peaks in an aggressive way that translates to our ears as
TOMS
Processing on the toms looks very similar to the kick. You’ll likely
need to make a big, wide cut in the midrange, sometimes in the
muddy 300Hz area or up around 800Hz. The low end will be in the
mid-100’s for a rack tom and below 100Hz for a floor tom. Attack
can be found around 4.5kHz and, like most drums, at 8kHz. Make
sure to gate the toms to eliminate ring and kit bleed between hits,
but maintain a natural decay. Compress toms the same way you
would kick or snare, but experiment with slightly faster attack if
you’re lacking some fatness in the tom.
HARDCORE TIP:
Drums can be tricky to gate accurately. Standard gates are prone
to mistriggers (opening the gate when it shouldn’t) and the more
EQ you do on your drums, the more you’ll hear an unnatural, nasty
cymbal bleed every time the gate opens up.
In the past I used a number of complicated workarounds to solve
this problem, until I finally ended up designing the perfect drum
gate myself. I highly recommend the Silencer plugin by my company
Black Salt Audio. It’s an accurate drum gate that kills cymbal bleed
while maintaining the character of the drum. This book is not about
promoting my own plugins, but in the case of Silencer, it really is
that much better than any other option. Do yourself a favor and pick
it up and never worry about gating & cymbal bleed again.
HI-HAT
Hi-hat is treated much the same as overheads. Cut out the low end
and midrange to isolate the hi-hats. Automate the volume down
when the drummer isn’t playing the hats. I rarely compress the hi-
hats, and pan them where they seem to fit naturally with the over-
heads, usually around 60% left (drummer perspective).
ROOM
If you’ve followed my advice up to this point, you’ve worked hard to
isolate each drum and maximize their impact and energy. Howev-
er, you might end up with a kit that sounds nice and clear but lacks
glue and sounds a bit unnaturally separated. This is where the room
track kicks in, and it’s important.
The room sound can vary so much that it’s hard to give specific EQ
points, but a lot of the main frequencies to look at are the same as
you worked with in the kick and snare. This time, though, make sure
not to cut too much in the midrange, because you want the room
track to fill in the gaps for the close mics. Usually my EQ moves on
a room track are pretty subtle. I might boost around 1kHz to get it
more audible in the mix and emphasize the character. A high end
boost around 5kHz helps to add energy, though I usually LPF the
DRUM SAMPLES
There’s no use beating around the bush. Even if you have a stel-
lar drum recording and do a killer job mixing it, you’ll probably still
need drum samples in this genre. There are definitely exceptions,
and if you feel the live drums sound special enough without sam-
ples, then by all means, don’t use them! But to a large extent, rock
and metal fans have come to expect a drum sound that is at least a
little larger than real life, and you want your mixes to compete with
what’s out there.
My favorite plugin for triggering drum samples is Slate Digital’s Trig-
DRUM BUS
If you followed the advice in Part 1, your drums should all be routed
to an aux track, which is your drum bus. This is where you can pro-
cess & treat the drums as a whole.
Start with a compressor (I like the SSL Bus Comp) doing only a few
dB of gain reduction with a 4:1 ratio, slow attack and fast-medium
release. You’ll be able to get a little extra punch from the drums, and
it will also help glue the kit and control the dynamics.
It’s sometimes necessary to EQ on the drum bus as well. You may
need to add in some low end that was reduced by the compres-
sor, or maybe halfway through your mix process the drums start
to sound a bit too dark. Rather than adjusting all of the individual
drum tracks, just do a nice smooth top end boost on the drum bus.
Keep in mind, however, that if you’re making big EQ moves on the
drum bus - over a few dB up or down - there’s probably a problem
PARALLEL COMPRESSION
I almost always have a 2nd aux input for drums that I use for par-
allel compression. Parallel compression means duplicating a track,
compressing it heavily for a certain effect, and then blending that
in with the original sound. This technique gives you the benefits
of heavy compression while maintaining the natural sound of the
instrument.
Parallel compression on drums is an old trick that pros have been
using for decades. Here’s what to do:
Duplicate your drum bus aux return. On this one, use heavy,
pumping compression. High ratio, fast attack and fast release with
gobs of gain reduction will get your drums slamming. Get the nee-
dle flying and don’t be shy. The goal is to end up with an insanely
punchy drum sound. Some compressors will add some distortion
with this heavy-handed use, or you can add a little bit yourself for
extra oomph.
Your parallel track should sound unnaturally, ridiculously intense.
When you’ve achieved that vibe, kill the track and go back to your
normal drum bus. Now slowly raise the parallel track until you get a
good balance of the two. You should be able to maintain the natural
sound of the kit, with the parallel track tucked in loud enough to add
some killer energy and punch without sounding obvious. It shouldn’t
draw too much attention to itself, but rather be something that is
missed if you mute it.
CLIPPING
Clipping on purpose has become a commonly used tool in modern
rock which allows mixers and mastering engineers to get super-loud
mixes without relying on brickwall limiters that destroy the punch
and attack of their drums.
While a limiter turns down the signal to keep it under the threshold,
thus reducing the transient impact, clipping does exactly what it
says - it clips off the peak of the signal.
Because we’re dealing with drum transients, the signal is only
clipped for an extremely brief time. As long as it hasn’t been pushed
too far, the clipping is too quick for our ears to notice the distortion.
The magic of this technique is that it allows us to reduce the peaks
of the drum transients without making them sound less punchy. And
when we can reduce those peaks, we get more potential loudness
for our mixes.
I use a simple clipper plugin on my drum bus and parallel drum bus,
just clipping between 1-4db on loud hits. Don’t go overboard here,
and try to avoid clipping much on kick hits, as the distortion is more
obvious on low frequencies.
REVERB
The main uses for reverb on your drums would be a short room
verb and a longer snare verb. If your room track is good enough,
you won’t need to use an artificial room reverb. However, if you
weren’t provided a room track or you can’t squeeze any good ambi-
ence from it, it helps to use a short room verb plugin on the drums
SCREAMS
When mixing screams, intensity is the most important thing. You
need to make it sound like the vocalist is giving it their all, screaming
as hard and loud as humanly possible. That may or may not be the
case, but you can use the tools at your disposal to emphasize the
energy that exists in the vocal track.
A HPF around 100Hz will clean up ‘pops’ and rumble in the low end,
and since the screamer will often record vocals right up against the
mic, there can be some excess low and low-mids. If so, I’ll use a low
shelf to cut again around 150Hz by 2-4db.
HARDCORE TIP:
If you feel that the scream is weak or lacking energy, distortion can
help a lot when used in parallel. Duplicate the scream track and
put on a distortion pedal plugin. You may need to filter out the low
and high end to clean it up, and compress this track as well to get
maximum intensity. Blend the distorted vocal in with the main, just
enough that you get the energy boost without the vocal actually
sounding like it’s going through a guitar pedal.
SINGING
A lot of the principles I wrote above apply the same to melodic
vocals, but they can be a bit trickier sometimes. You may need to
use slightly less EQ or work harder to find the right frequencies,
but start with all the same EQ tips I pointed out for screams. The
exception may be in the high end, depending on the vocalist and
mic chain used. Occasionally a singer will be too harsh in the 8k
range, so you’ll need to go up higher to 12 or 14k to get your bright-
ness and air.
You should approach compression in a similar fashion, though you
may need to do more level control before your ‘attitude’ compressor
due to the more dynamic nature of singing vs. screaming. The same
attack and release settings still apply. Level the vocal off and then
slam it with a slower attack to bring out the consonants. Then de-
ess and limit.
VOCAL LAYERS
Depending on the vibe that the artist/producer wants, you’ll prob-
ably get some vocal doubles and harmonies. You can generally
process doubles and harmonies very similarly to the lead vocal, but
without as much focus on cutting through the midrange. You’ll still
need to use heavy compression, but it will be more for level control
than vibe, so more limiting might be helpful.
Use a bit less low end on layers and avoid boosting in the 1-2.5k
range, so that it’s reserved for the lead vocal. You will often need to
de-ess the layers more than the lead, to make sure that all the s’s
aren’t adding up too much.
In my opinion and experience, the best use for vocal layers is when
they are spread out left and right. You can emphasize important
screams and make the vocal sound huge with a scream layered
center, left and right. The same approach works well for singing to
make choruses and harmonies fuller. Don’t be shy - pan them all
the way out.
VOCAL FX
In the second chapter, I alluded to the idea that effects like reverb
and delay need to be used wisely and sparingly for maximum effec-
tiveness. This goes for vocals too. You may be surprised to hear that
I almost never use reverb on my vocals, unless for a specific spe-
cial effect.
There tend to be trends that ebb and flow surrounding the wetness
of vocals in the mix (i.e. 80’s songs are dripping in reverb), and right
now we’re in a long era of dry vocals. Listen to top 40 radio and
you’ll hear what I mean. The same goes for heavy music.
HARDCORE TIP:
This one is pretty simple, but it’s something not many mixers ever
think about: you can automate your master fader! Think about it...
a great way to add excitement and contrast in the mix is to simply
turn it up or down depending on the section. This is not something
I do regularly, but every once in a while it’s perfect to make that
chorus pop just a bit more with a 0.5dB increase. Like using EQ on
your master fader, automating the volume here is just a final, subtle
touch when necessary, and shouldn’t be used as a shortcut or sub-
stitute for properly automating your mix!