Original subtitles

hey what's up Jordan here in this video

I'm gonna show you how to clean up the

metal guitar tone in your mix

specifically how to get rid of the

low-end months not adding anything

control the high-end phys and then notch

out the harsh frequencies in between so

let's jump into it

ok let's check out these guitar tracks

in Seoul oh by the way this is a band

called mandroid echo star

so the first plugin in the chain when it

comes to heavy distorted guitars like

this for me is 99% of the time an EQ

like this I'm using the waves are EQ you

can use anything similar that allows you

to do filters and allows you to do

narrow boosts or cuts like this I'm

going to a be this first you can hear

the difference that this plug-in is

making

[Music]

here how it's just really focusing and

cleaning up the guitar tone I'm going to

show you exactly all the steps that go

into this one-by-one so let's turn these

off by the way the left and right

guitars here it's the same tone and I've

got these plugins linked so that

whatever I do on one it's gonna do on

the other as well as you can see here so

we're just gonna be it's gonna look like

I'm only processing one side here but in

fact I am processing both alright so

let's dive into it I always start by

putting a high-pass filter on which is

cleaning up the low end so I ended up

with that 135 here let's go back to how

I would normally start a mix so I'll

bring it all the way down turn it on and

play back

[Music]

and I'm gonna sweep it up to the point

where I feel like I'm losing too much of

the low-end and then back it off just a

little bit

so somewhere around 1:30 is working for

me in this mix there's no set rule like

I guess as a general rule of thumb you

could start about a hundred Hertz it's

usually somewhere around there maybe

from 80 to you on the high end 130 150

so this is where we end up here so now

listen on the a B again just to the sub

frequencies just the low end of Rumble

that's actually not adding anything to

the tone that contributes to this song

it's just eating up space on the low end

that we should leave for the bass

instead

[Music]

okay so that's step one now step two

we're gonna do the same thing on the

other end of the frequency range we're

going to filter out some of the high end

so same kind of idea here we're gonna

start with a low-pass filter right up

near the top and then sweep it back

until we feel like we're losing too much

of the high end energy and then stop

right around there

[Music]

a little too dark there

[Music]

sometimes you can notice this kind

of chord strumming parts

[Music]

you don't want to go too far on this

because you can kind of that's where a

lot of the energy for the guitars lives

up there so don't you know cut way too

far down to like the five six K range

you know usually with somewhere around

the nine to twelve K ranges where I end

up having a filter here or even a bit

lower than that around the 8 K range in

this particular mix so even with just

the filters here listen to how much

cleaner this tone sends

[Music]

and you know what speakers are listening

on that's gonna be more or less obvious

to you

so that's already a big improvement the

tone is way more focused for us there's

two more things I'm gonna do here though

and it's going to be too narrow cuts in

the high amid frequencies so as we're

listening to the tone

there's a couple areas between like 3k

to 6 7 K that are just nasty they're

just poking out too much so what we're

gonna do is try to sweep find those

frequencies and then dip them out so

let's start basically I'm just going to

want to grab a narrow band of your EQ

boost it up again make sure you're using

a pretty narrow width here start

sweeping around

[Music]

until you find the range where it's

really jumping out and that frequency

that was bothering you just listening to

the normal tone there's really jumping

out of the speakers and that's where

you're gonna want to cut so for me it's

right around 3100 Hertz here so then

we're gonna take that and then dip it

just a little bit

[Music]

so that's helping a bit and usually

there's there's two spots that I found

and this is like again after mixing

hundreds of songs with tone like this

this is what I've discovered it's

usually one kind of lower in the 3k

range and then higher in the five to six

K range so let's do another one here

[Music]

it's not too bad but listen when I get

further down to like five and a half K

or 5,300

see how that's just jumping out in a

really nasty way so again we're gonna

dip that out a little bit

[Music]

so again let's let's do both of these

together

[Music]

now the key here is not to dip out too

far I mean I'm not one of these guys who

says like just take 4k and just

completely take it out of your pics I

think that kills a lot of the energy and

the definition of like the pic attack on

heavy guitars like this so I only dip

out maybe one to two DBS with a narrow

band like this but I think it makes a

big difference so now with the filters

and both of these narrow cuts engaged

let's a be the guitars now

[Music]

check it out on the course

[Music]

it's almost like we've taken kind of a

good tone but it's just like that has

all of these kind of out-of-control

elements and then we just come in and we

just clean those up we trim off the

low-end that's just Wolfie and rumbly

that we don't need it's not contributing

to the tone get rid of it same thing on

the high end with the the harsh fizz

that's again not contributing to the

tone filter it out and then dip out some

of the harshness but leaving it enough

so that you still have some definition

and honestly guys I've done records out

there like fairly big releases where

this kind of EQ is the only thing I've

done like no boost no other big cuts or

anything like that this is the only EQ

that's on the guitars at all so if

you're finding yourself struggling with

guitar tone like doing tons of crazy EQ

boosts and cuts and all these different

processing tricks to your heavy guitars

maybe go back and start with this just

make sure you get your filters right on

the low-end high-end to just clean up

those extreme frequencies that we don't

need in the guitar tome cut out some of

the harshness and the high mids again

usually for me I found it it's around 3k

and then somewhere around five or six K

sweep it find those harsh frequencies

dip it out a bit but leave some

definition and it really makes a huge

difference

[Music]

we've got way more space for our bass to

fill in the low-end now we've got more

space in the high-end for the air of the

vocals the cymbals even lead guitars to

cut through things that we want brighter

again we're just making space in the mix

leaving the good parts of the tone

intact getting rid of everything that's

not serving us in the mix and again I've

done records where this is the only

thing that's necessary all right I hope

this helps you get a better metal guitar

tone in your mixes if you want more tips

like this and make sure you're

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