Mixing metal guitars using Jens' rhythm IR pack (video)

Products used:

Jens Bogren Rhythm IR Pack

Hi, Jens here. Today I want to take you on a journey and show you how I mix rhythm metal guitars to make them shine and be heard while drums are pounding away.

We will use Sepultura's 'Isolation' track off of their 'Quadra' album that I produced. It's a very fast, heavy song that is perfect for this demonstration.

What Happens After The Amp

When you’re recording guitars in the studio, it is pretty easy to underestimate the importance of the cabinet and the microphone configuration.  I think that people spend too much time thinking about the amp and the head, while I would say 80-85% of the sound is in what happens after the amp.

Creating Sepultura's Tone

Here we have the DI’s clean signal recorded straight from the guitars.  This is a pretty thrashy song, written in D.  Let's see what's under the hood here:

I pre-treated the DI’s a little bit with a pedal emulation, called the Green screamer.  This is a Tubescreamer emulation made by Brainworx/Plugin Alliance.  I used it to tame the low end a little bit, and to make it a little bit more mid focused.

After that, I used the Diezel VH4 plugin, also by Plugin Alliance.  I am however bypassing the IR section, by choosing "No Recording Chain" inside the plugin. This disables the cab section and lets me use my own impulse responses to give me a sounds I would dial in myself on a real cab.

Next, I used Libra from STL tones, where I loaded up one IR for the right side and a different IR for the left side.  You can mix large number of IRs in it, but I chose to just one IR per side, very straightforward with no additional processing.

And that is really it. A pedal, an amp, and a good IR is all you need to create a album worthy metal guitar tone.

Finding the right IR

One really good trick to mixing metal guitars with impulse responses, is to simply play back the song and step through the available options. That way you can easily audition your options and find something that really fits the track. 

I like to use a slightly different tone on left and right side to widen the stereo field and make rooms for vocals and drums in the middle.

Summary

I really hope that you will enjoy this IR pack for rhythm guitars.  If you're not using it like I did with an IR loader in your DAW, it is also compatible with Kemper, Axe-FX and Helix.

Now go out there and riff yourself a new one! 🤘