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Trivium are part of the new wave of American heavy metal bands.

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12. Bass drums in metal often have a high click to their sound. Bring this frequency out by boosting the EQ in the 2.5–5KHz range.

13. Metal guitar solos are usually fairly technical, so make sure the guitarist has theirs worked out, otherwise you'll spend hours recording seconds of music.

14. If the vocal levels change drastically between song sections, record them separately onto different tracks. This will enable you to set specific levels for each part of the song.

15. Bear in mind that the drummer will still need to be able to actually play their kit after you've placed all your mics, so you may have to compromise on your positioning.

16. As well as the standard two rhythm guitars panned hard left and hard right, some metal bands like to add a 'thickener' panned dead centre. Thickener by name, thickener by nature…

17. In order to get the feel of two separate takes when artificially double-tracking your guitar tracks, swap the sections (eg, Chorus 1 to Chorus 2) from one take so that you get two different performances playing at the same time. Using this method also helps to reduce phasing problems.

18. If you don't have a drum ROMpler with an 'anti-machine gun' setting, try slightly lowering the volume of every other note. You should also make sure that these notes are positioned ever so slightly behind the beat.

19. Muddy mixes can be cleaned up by removing the lower frequencies from your reverb channel(s). You might also like to add a little air to the mix by slightly boosting the top end.

20. Remember that you don't have to use all of these production tips in all of your metal tracks. If you get a sound that you're happy with, don't feel that you have to keep on messing with it.

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