Stop the madness!!!
We love Taylor Larson because he just doesn’t give a fuck. He has a vision and does whatever it takes to get there, and he’s not afraid to bend (or break) the rules along the way (actually, we think he kind of enjoys it).
In this clip from his Nail The Mix session, Taylor walks through his approach to mixing the guitars on Jason Richardson’s song “Fragments,” which is (like just about everything Taylor does) a little unconventional. For example, there are THREE tones per side — high, mid and low gain — blended together in addition to some EQ and compression moves you probably aren’t used to seeing. The guitar tone on this album is definitely a little different from what you hear on most progressive metal albums, and that’s no accident – it’s because Taylor and Jason went back to the well again and again to find what they were looking for. They didn’t settle for “pretty cool” or “sounds good” – they pushed themselves to create something DIFFERENT.
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With a blend of *three* guitar tones per side (low gain, high gain and mid gain), this Jason Richardson song presents some pretty tricky metal guitar mixing challenges– here’s how Taylor tackles them! The session is Jason Richardson’s “Fragments,” ft Luke Holland, Mark Holcomb and Lukas Magyar.
The takeaway is this: if you want to hear something different from the usual metal rhythm tone, you’re going to need to do something different. It’s not gonna happen by magic. The usual Screamer, 5150 and Mesa cab/SM57 combo is great (we’ve used it dozens of times), but if it’s not getting you what you want then tear it down and start over from scratch. Don’t be afraid to try crazy shit like throwing out the overdrive pedal and instead layering in a crunchy low-gain tone on top for definition – and don’t let yourself get too stagnant by falling back on the same gear or settings again and again.
Always be pushing to add new stuff to your bag of tricks!
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