Tips and Tricks for Recording Massive Metal Guitar.

What’s new at Zystrix? Read on… February 16, 2026 Tips and Tricks for Recording Massive Metal Guitar (part one of two) In the last episode we went over part two of the intermediate to advanced guitarist ways to invent or create metal riffs (click here for a refresher). This time we’re going to go over Tips and Tricks for Recording Massive Metal Guitar. We need a bigger sound. So sit back and relax. Welcome to Zystrix, the heartbeat of the universe. Where creativity and free-thinking have more value than conformity. Background Artwork The colorful artwork that surrounds the edges of this website is invisible to many cell phone users. It’s included here (with others) for your enjoyment. Multiple copies are tiled together for a cohesive and seamless background seen all around this page. Enjoy. Sponsors wanted it. Journalists debated it. Opponents invoked it. Tips and Tricks For Recording Massive Metal Guitar Introduction I am going at this assuming you already have a basic understanding of recording, you know what a DAW (digital audio workstation) is, you’ve purchased your chosen DAW (Reaper is excellent for the price), you know the basics of your DAW, the necessary buffer size for your CPU, input gain settings, sample rate, etc. The higher the computer CPU power you have the better off you are going to be for recording. Hopefully you understand how to record mono or stereo guitar tracks, bass tracks, synth tacks (if needed), and can record and/or splice MIDI data for your drums. Head phones are nice for stereo placement but they are not an end all solution -- air is the best mixer. A pair of portable speakers with a wired input (not Bluetooth) is great as is a boombox (jambox) for a way to hear what you’re doing. If you do not understand all of this simply follow along for future reference. The Metal Gear Rabbit Hole I’m a big fan of using my stage gear as my recording gear. I hate buying gear twice. If a piece of gear can do double or triple duty that’s excellent, at least to me. I also try to use free NAM modeler plugins. Use them if you use the Valeton GP5 or the GP- 50 pedal (these need conversion) or the NUX Amp Acadamy Stomp, or the Blackstar Beam ain’t bad either. And the Valeton and others work for bass, guitar, synth, etc. The plugins for these pedals are the free open source NAM plugins or files for your guitar tones, although you can also use the free NAM plugin software in your DAW if you use Windows 10. There’s no reason (unless you don’t care) to purchase NAM plugins because there are so many that are free. Check out the website called TONE3000 (formerly ToneHunt). There are thousands of profiles that range from superior to horrible, but a few are noteworthy. The Mesa Boogie JP-2C by Emil Rohbe / Paul Jacovino is excellent. The Revv Generator 120 MK III by noamp is another great choice. Also give a listen to the 6505 (2004, USA) by Arlington Audio. I also try to use my own drum sounds (free), or my own reverbs (free), or my own speaker IRs (free). Even synthesizers. I even use all free studio effects plugins for my DAW, and if you need a list of the ones I prefer or I think are the best check out the free studio plugin issue. I also use free mastering tools. For a list of great plugins go to the mastering plugins issue. Basic Tips First, The Easy Stuff Recitation: Make sure your guitar is good enough to play and record without too many issues. Make sure your intonation is as close as you can get. Track down and eliminate all buzzes that shouldn’t be there. I’m a raw type of guitarist so I prefer some guitar issues. But most guitarists don’t. Take your guitar to a guitar tech if you don’t know how to do it yourself. Use fresh strings that have been worked in so they stay in tune. Use as many takes as you need to record it being played correctly. It always sounds more real. Tune often I never hurts my feelings if you tune before every take or so. And I hope you feel the same for me. It’s better to be in tune in the tuning of your choice and make a few digital repairs than it is to notice it later and have to re-do a track. Signal Level If you are recording by yourself then you’ll need to check your levels. Make sure your signal is high enough to print a good track, not so loud it digitally distorts, and not so low that the signal to noise ratio is annoying. Test it with a loud chord or a forceful palm mute so your level is correct for the loudest parts of your playing. Don’t use a compressor here to cheat the volume because you are looking for dynamics. Although I am guilty of using a limiter for level insurance, it’s generally not a good idea for conserving dynamics. However, it’s fine to use a compressor on the guitar after the tracks are done. Bare Bones Record using a bare-bones setup (for now). By this I mean use the least amount of computer CPU-taxing plugins as possible to get the best guitar signal recorded. Record guitar while playing along with drums (and bass if you’ve got it) and also the metronome to help stay in the groove and help with the feel of the tune. Your drum module (or drum tracks), tuner (or one in your pedal board), amp sim (or external module or pedal and a clean signal). Add your compressors, reverb, effects and so on later to conserve computer CPU use. Note Definition Play with definition so your individual guitar notes pop out of the mix. Avoid slop – clarity is the keyword here. Use a hard pick – soft picks have too much give. Try to practice amplified (or at least an emulation or modeler) and learn how to control the gain for clarity. Clamp Down the Extra Noise Some guitarists use a way to dampen the headstock strings behind the nut or under the wang or whammy bar springs in the back of the guitar. Many guitarists also dampen the strings that are not being played while recording a musical section by physically muting or taping strings not being used. Try a sock, some spare fabric, a hair-tie, a head band, or a piece of foam rubber. You can also purchase a professional model for dampening, but I always like things home-made. And it’s cheaper. I don’t like dampening for myself because, once again, I prefer the raw sound of the guitar. But many guitarists use it to make the quiet parts dead silent. Fair enough. On this topic I agree to disagree. Two Tracks per Take Always record a dry track along with the external amp or distorted track. If you make a mistake simply repair the clean track and re-amp the external amp sound. Don’t forget to get a high-to-low impedance box, or a spit signal using a high-to-low tuner like the TC Electronic Polytune. If you are using the internal computer sounds from a plugin then recording two tracks simultaneously isn’t necessary. Use the guitar amp plugin post live signal or on a separate track. My Compliments to the Chef -- That’s A Tasty Blend Use complimentary guitar tones to sum to mono for a bigger single guitar tone. For instance, a take-off of the double microphone placement where one is zeros degrees to the speaker and one is 45 degrees and they are mixed to mono. A good choice of two of your favorite complimentary sounding cab IR’s can also get you there. When you sum the two signals to mono use your ear for phasing issues because mono is always phase correct. When using two different versions panned hard left and right check the two guitars for phase issues using a plugin designed for that. Nobody likes a mosquito sounding guitar. Quantizing Your Clean Guitar Signals Try guitar track quantizing for even more perfect massive tracks. Use stretch markers in your DAW on guitar tracks that are not quite perfect but pretty darn close to on the beat. Nobody’s perfect, so it might as well be perfect for your audience. Using this trick can be very time consuming but extremely helpful. Some say it’s cheating, but there are other choices: either play the whole track again, or punch-in to repair small parts of what you’ve got, or keep practicing the part(s) and come back later. Repairing the offending track using stretch markers is often a great choice if it just needs a little tempo fixing. Symbiosis The bass and guitar tones usually have a symbiotic relationship and they can benefit each other. That’s not to say two different tone types wont mix. Hell, I’m sure with a clever engineer Lawrence Welk and Black Sabbath sounds could be mixed successfully. But they must work together as a unit so the bass guitar low end works in the guitar mix, and the guitar doesn’t overshadow the bass mix. For them to work together a little better simply notch out the bass frequencies between 230-500 cycles so the guitar has room in the lower mids. This can be done a few ways. Split the bass signal in half and make the lower frequencies a more defined low end grunt, and use some kind of tube distortion for the upper half. Another way is similar but the bass is split into three frequency ranges using the same method for the lower frequencies and mid-frequencies, and the top end is distorted to taste to cut through the band. Yet another way (although not quite as good) is to simply use an old fashion multi-band EQ to lower frequencies on the bass in the 230- 500Hz range. It’s possible to make the EQ settings complimentary. EQ The Guitar The Super Fine Tuning Sometimes the guitar needs an EQ haircut. If the truth be known, it always does unless your modeler sound is very refined. To do this, start with a high pass and low pass EQ to clean up the guitar, or low cut and high cut. It doesn’t have to be a brick-wall type filter, but it has to be enough on either end of the EQ spectrum to tame down the signal. Use roughly 48dB or so per octave, or a relatively steep slope, but not quite a brick-wall. When I do mine it looks sort of like an upside down paper cup. I usually start my low end roll-off at about 120Hz and my high-end roll-off at about 5KHz, but use your ears for your likely spots. Many people start the high-end roll-off a little higher at about 6KHz to 7KHz, so again, use your ears for the precise point. Your initial EQ curve may look like this… Repairing the upper mid-range comes next at about 700hz to 3KHz. Sweep to find problem frequencies and notch out the ear fatigue noise areas. Use a narrow band setting on you EQ and start your cut at about 2dB. Then at around 400Hz scan to find any low end problems. Cut the EQ offenders a couple dB to fix the problem but not so much the guitar sound suffers and loses body. All these cuts are done with a narrow Q so frequencies that are pleasant on either side of the problem area are conserved and not effected. So as a quick overview… 1. Start with your near brick-wall filtering. 2. Find and fix upper mids problems. 3. Find and fix low mids and any middle mids. 4. Listen for problem resonances and kill them. 5. Voila, you are done. Your finished guitar EQ job may look something like this… Conclusion Tips and Tricks For Recording Massive Metal Guitar We’ve covered the basics of getting a massive metal guitar sound. And without using the basics the rest of the guitar mix doesn’t matter. I hope this first of two sections has given you food for thought and consideration, and maybe one of the ideas has given you a new approach. Don’t touch that dial… Stay tuned next time… In the coming second part of making recorded metal guitars sound bigger we’re going to examine some advanced tips and tricks for making your riffs sound bigger and beefier. Routine things like double and quad tracking, but also multi-tap delay, track splitting, EQ, compression, and others. And we’ll also hear another solo piano tune from Dangerous Neighbors called Vanishing Dream. Maybe I’ll see you then. I’ve been told I’m street smart, but mostly Sesame Street smart.

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