Metal GUITARS Sound BIGGER in a Mix | 8 Tricks

In today's guitar mixing tutorial, here are 8 tricks to make low tuned, distorted djent amp sims cut through the mix. With deathcore and technical music, mixing 7 and 8 string guitars can be quite difficult, but by using these tips and techniques, you'll be able to make the guitars pop out from the drums, bass and screaming vocals. From recording and layering guitars to actual amplifiers and cab choices, we'll cover everything you need to know in this lesson, that the professionals do.
I'm Brendon Padjasek of the band Structures from Toronto, Canada and welcome to my channel based on modern metal, djent, and deathcore music, production, mixing and song writing.
Hardcore Music Studio video:
• Magic Frequencies for ...
BEATSTARS full song:
www.beatstars.com/beat/no-cab...
0:00 Intro
0:29 1. Recording
1:29 2. Layering
2:29 3. Choose the Amp/ Cab
4:29 4. Amp Volume
5:10 5. No Cab
7:10 6. EQ Cut / Boost
11:21 7. Multiband
15:08 8. Auxiliaries
17:23 9. Bonus
19:02 THE MOST IMPORTANT
Thanks for watching!
#guitar #metal #tone

[@BrendonKPadjasek]

Thanks for watching! Let me know if you have any tips I didn't mention in here.

[@beanpastekabana]

I still can't believe my favourite music-maker does this kind of videos, this is very helpful. Thank you for your videos, i have no clue why such good content in terms of advices and techniques has too few people watching.

[@beanpastekabana]

BTW the kshsh technique while picking and hitting the bridge closer to pickup is damn fun to play with :P

[@BrendonKPadjasek]

Haha I appreciate both of those comments a lot! I just have to keep at it and see where the channel gets to. I’m stoked to have raised to 1,500 in 8 months so we’ll see !

[@BrendonKPadjasek]

And that’s awesome. Have you got a chance to make it work in any of your songs ?

[@beanpastekabana]

Haha, i record demos like 95% of time, its quite hard to make good desicions while recording solo, and yes kshksh sometimes makes a guest appearance :D

[@beanpastekabana]

There was a quite funny night dream moment, in the sleep you taught me how to scream properly(LOL), i tried it when i woke up, it fucken works man!

[@6oundStudio]

great tricks friend! no amp thing is definitely the one that I'm gonna try on my Drop E stuff to cut the mix more

[@BrendonKPadjasek]

Thanks for watching and tuning into the premiere. Had a good time sharing plugins and tips and thank you! That's why I started doing that technique. Using the second half of it with a clean or slightly gritty amp sim might help with note definition as well

[@gabrielnowacki]

Thanks so much for that video..! I have to test no cab and adding more layers with the panning you've shown. I believe that'll help me with my problem we have talked about in the pool.

[@BrendonKPadjasek]

I’m stoked to hear that. And yeah the quading and adding different guitar amp tones on top of being a different performance make a huge difference Thanks for watching and let me know how the tips work for you!

[@SurrendertheEctypeofficial]

Excellent!

[@BrendonKPadjasek]

Thank you! Which one stood out the most ?

[@markcannell9339]

Loved this!🤘🖤🦇💀🦇🖤🤘

[@BrendonKPadjasek]

Thanks Mark! Figured a condensed version of all my tips would be nice in one package thanks for checking it out

[@louistremblay1218]

i was always hesitant of doing the sidechain multiband trick because a long time ago some guy in NTM was really against it and i just took that for a definite no to ever trying it, but that really opened my mind to try new methods and break my habits, really cool stuff dude ! Side note, a cool thing i saw buster from HLB and vildhjarta do was duplicating the guitars and add some type of bass amp, i think he used the sansamp in protools and mixed in really quietly, its really situational but it brings alot of the stringny percussive sound to the guitars

[@BrendonKPadjasek]

Yeah I saw that as one with Buster as well! You can really do anything. I was mentioning to someone else that you can even throw a clean amp or a slightly distorted amp or with bass, a lot of people use just the DI compressed. The options are endless haha. And yeah I wouldn’t be too afraid of The side chain trick. I also saw a Will Putney NTM where he used the side chain trick

[@omynel]

Nice one. Learned some cool things here. I don’t have track spacer but I learned that Soothe can do a similar thing if you side chain kick to bass or snare to guitars. Not sure if it’s as effective but it does make a difference. Regarding the Kohle video, I know the one you are referring to and I couldn’t find it either. I think it might have originally been posted on the URM KZbin account back when Kohle was doing content for them. All those videos seem to be gone now though. Cheers!

[@BrendonKPadjasek]

Oh damn, it's unfortunate cause that was a great video. Thanks for watching! and yeah, someone had mentioned in the premiere that you can also sidechain using soothe which is awesome. I wonder if there's a difference in quality between the two, but I doubt there is as the MB plug in sounds basically the same as Track Spacer try out the technique and let me know how it works for you!

[@adriengonzalesmusic]

I always have a hard time mixing guitars, definitely need to train my ears and spot the issues. Thanks again for these useful tips man :)

[@BrendonKPadjasek]

No worries at all, thanks for view and comment. Did you mix the last track you put out? I feel like I learned way more about mixing guitars when there’s vocals on the track. To make sure it stands out but doesn’t interfere with the vocals

[@adriengonzalesmusic]

@@BrendonKPadjasek No I didn't, my friend Headquarter Corp. take care of my solo project mixes, he's a way better mixer than me :) The last mix I did is the "premix" version of Eric's 6th song I sent you a few months ago. I understand, mixing a track including all the band members must be very formative !

[@BrendonKPadjasek]

Oh okay, I was gonna say that mix sounded great and I wasn’t sure if that was you or not. Either way keep up the great work and hopefully Eric will be ready in the next while

[@adriengonzalesmusic]

@@BrendonKPadjasek thanks Brendon ! Looking forward to work again on this record.

[@CJZDAMAN32]

Instead of sends for parallel processing (in Ableton) I make an effect rack with one signal being dry/main processing, and the others with plugins on wet that I can essentially use the audio effect rack as an individual send. Can copy paste it to other tracks.

[@BrendonKPadjasek]

Oh that’s cool. I never thought of doing it that way! I actually never use effect racks in Ableton

[@JacobraRecords]

Lore you left out: Jordan from Hardcore Music Studio did the first Structures record "All of the Above"!

[@BrendonKPadjasek]

I thought I mentioned it in at least one of these videos. Maybe I edited it out haha. But 100% he did

[@Elevada]

Excellent video! Really love the explanation of side chaining the frequencies. I need to do that in my mixes so they don't sound like of a box of cereal. 😆

[@BrendonKPadjasek]

HAHAH thanks for checking it out Matt! The boxiness might also be too many of the wrong mid frequencies

[@Elevada]

@Brendon K Padjasek you're definitely right about that lol. I don't scoop as much as I probably should. It's just a battle of "what do I want to hear most?" and I think I struggle with that cause I want to hear everything all the time 🤣

[@BrendonKPadjasek]

Yeah that’s 100% the issue with adding so many layers. And more of a composition aspect of things rather than mixing. If there’s 4 interesting things happening at once, it’s hard to choose a thing to focus on

[@Elevada]

@Brendon K Padjasek you nailed it on the head 👏 if there's too many elements, it's like you just have to pick one to focus on and the have everything else follow it, otherwise you'll go through EQ/Balance hell for the next 10 hours lol

[@BrendonKPadjasek]

And then still have a focusing issue haha. There’s only so much eq can do until you have to start cutting things. Either rhythmic cuts or completely

[@DielectricFailure]

*I’m fighting with my 8-string!!!! 😡 I lowered the bass, lowered gain and double tracked the right way. It sounds like a bass! I’ll try to use what’s in this video. If I can make the guitar sound like a guitar… I plan to mix the sound with a synth to create music that I have no idea what type it is.*

[@BrendonKPadjasek]

Hmmm. What is your guitar tuned to also, which amp sim are you using? Might help me to get you in the right direction

[@DielectricFailure]

@@BrendonKPadjasek I have a drop E tuning so I use my regular 4 string to carry the low end. I’m using BiasFX 2 on a crunch channel. I’ve raised my mids, lowered my bass and kept the treble around noon. Gain is around noon too but I think it’s the plug-in. I usually use STL Tones but on my PC but I’m using my iPad currently cuz I have better specs on it.

[@DielectricFailure]

@@BrendonKPadjasek STL Tones hasn’t got any iOS friendly plugins or I’d be all over them.

[@BrendonKPadjasek]

@MurderSkillz hmm I unfortunately don’t have any experience with BiasFX but it shouldn’t sound like a bass if it’s on a guitar amp and cab. What gauge strings are you using? That can also contribute to the bass sound

[@thisisflojo]

Really love these mixing tutorials. What’s the reason behind channel strip instead of separate parametric eq, compressor, etc. I’m kinda new to mixing and curious why many producers, mixing engineer do that

[@BrendonKPadjasek]

I like using a channel strip for the slight tone and glue you get especially with the compressor, as well as pushing the preamp if you want. And I also like it because sometimes I rely on looking at the parametric eq to see what frequencies are high and low. It’s nice to just use your ears and not eyes with a Channel strip

[@thisisflojo]

@@BrendonKPadjasek cool, thanks for replying! Gonna try those out. Do you have any recommendations?

[@BrendonKPadjasek]

Fuse Audio sent me their plugins to try out for free and their channel strip is pretty sick and relatively affordable. There’s 3 preamp options as well that are quite subtle within the plugin. I also suggest Plugin Alliance if you’re cool with doing a subscription. They have 3 channel strip options (I like the tone the compressor of the J style, but prefer the E channel much more eq wise) I split it with 2 friends and it comes to $11 CAD a month each and they have over 100 plugins. I don’t think I could live without Plugin Alliance tbh Bass Mint, Black Box, Indent2 and the SSL channel strips are amazing. They also have Neve channel strips and API but they’re called something else

[@BrendonKPadjasek]

And PA also has a tone of amp sims in the bundle the Diezel, and ENGL on snare cool, but you have to use a separate plugin for a gain / distortion pedal. My favourite SSL channel is the UAD E Channel one but it’s mad expensive

[@thisisflojo]

@@BrendonKPadjasek cool! Thanks man, I’ll trial them. Always want to try out those diezel vh4 and Herbert too

[@benstanfill363]

Just bought trackspacer. I hate the multiband compressor in logic. This seems like it'll be way easier and work better than me trying to use that thing.

[@BrendonKPadjasek]

I used logic for a couple months and reverted back to protools so I’m not too familiar but I love trackspacer. It’s on every mix I do

[@benstanfill363]

@@BrendonKPadjasek I'm super excited to use it. I've been watching tons of mixing videos and literally nobody else has mentioned it. Also I watched about 6 of your videos tonight and they're all great! Keep up the good work.

[@BrendonKPadjasek]

@benstanfill363 thanks so much Ben! Yeah it’s mostly used in like pop and hip hop mixes from what I’ve seen but it’s a wonderful plugin. Do you mix artists or your own stuff? Thanks so much for checking out the videos. Very much appreciated

[@CollapseWithin]

When having no cab layers, do i have to record another 2 takes? Or with any kind of layering, like blending clean-ish kind of tone with heavy guitars. No copy paste right?

[@BrendonKPadjasek]

With the no cap option I do just copy and paste it so you don’t have to re record a new performance. If you’re quading a part, like a chorus or a breakdown to make it sound bigger than the other parts, then you would record a new guitar track

[@r3ya919]

why do you use the vocal effect on 2:40... it makes that I remember the vid but its also really annoying. Other than that (I am at 3 min) you make a really professional impression.

[@BrendonKPadjasek]

Lmao to each their own. I have to entertain myself while making these videos. I’ll keep it in mind for next time lmao

[@r3ya919]

:) Thats understandable. Sorry for being a little rude. I admire your patience for quad tracking and using even 6 tracks in some of your Songs. It sounds really good. I am definelty to lazy for stuff like that. Thats my big weakness. But I have yet to figure out an effective process for recording and editing where I might have not to edit every note. Idk. I am going to watch your recording vid now maybe it spreads light on the subject :D@@BrendonKPadjasek​

[@BrendonKPadjasek]

@@r3ya919 No problem at all. I can go more in depth if you'd like

[@LunatiqueRob]

Good info in the video, but personally, I think for these types of instructional videos, the attempt at humor through the pointless insert shots only makes it annoying. Your audience is not 12-year olds with ADHD that needs constant stimulation and endless memes to keep their attention, and even if they were, the insert shot were poorly chosen and annoyed more than they entertained. Same with that vocal effect.

[@BrendonKPadjasek]

lol yeah the only issue is I’M the twelve year old and is willing to share what I know. I’ve learned a lot since this video about how to show that properly lmao. My bad. Unfortunately it’s already in there

[@LunatiqueRob]

@@BrendonKPadjasek lol fair enough. We live and learn.

[@BrendonKPadjasek]

@LunatiqueRob haha absolutely. I’ve only been on here about a year and a half so the channel is still in its infancy I’d say. Thanks for checking it out