Hi Danny and Jeremy, I will give this another shot soon. I will have another shot at the rhythm guitars. I think I am a bit scared Danny! I do need to push those rhy gtrs a bit.

Hi Jeremy, I certainly did not add any reverb to the drums. I did do some parallel compression though and I think that has brought it up a bit. Studio One has added wet/dry mix controls to all their effects now so parallel compression is very easy to set up. That is why it is a good idea to minimise any reverb on drums during the export.

Are you getting the mix balance overall though that is what I am trying to get across. I think Danny is right and you will probably agree the rhythm guitars need some extra crunch. Although one positive thing about keeping them slightly clean is that the lead sound stands out a bit more maybe as a result.

The VST is called Headcase and it is made by the same guys that do Shred. Danny has had some involvement in its development and he kindly sent me a copy of it try on your track. I used it hard on your lead but nowhere near enough on the rhythm gtrs.

Fendicator, the important lesson here is NOT in the FX that were used..... it is in obtaining the correct balance in the levels.

The first thing I did when I opened the project was to pull all the levels down from the 0db starting point. 

Then I worked on the drums and the bass as a pair but also soloed the individuals so I could get them sounding right.... 

It was after the bass and drums were halfway sounding like the rhythm section they are supposed to be.... that I actually started to work on the 4 rhythm guitar tracks. 

Once they were in place, the lead came last. 

The FX were used more as EQ and to get some punch and sparkle in the tracks. HOWEVER, if I was to mute all the FX in the project it should sound very similar to what you hear. Maybe a little lower in volume and not with the sparkle and punch but very similar. 

This was a lesson on levels, and why they are important. The FX was a side issue. You may not have Ozone but remember that the rest of the plugs I used were all Cakewalk plugs and really..... using cakewalk plugs, you can come pretty close to the results obtained with Ozone. 

Herb, myself and Danny have all done good mixes on this and the thing that is common to all three is the clarity and punch with the drums and bass. Danny's is a great example of the how the rhythm guitars sound when they are pushed much harder. (Herb's mix has got pretty distorted rhythms gtrs too) Mine is obviously holding back with the rhythm gtrs. Too much I agree, now hearing Danny's mix for example. Danny makes a good point forgetting the rock mentality and thinking much more metal, something I do not do normally. I have recorded many great metal guitarists but the sound came right from them at the start so I did not have to create it myself so much.

Yes Danny we did find his levels were all pretty low for sure. But I think he has sorted that out. The waveforms did not even show up until I normalised the tracks as well. At first I thought I had imported flat line or silence in all the tracks.

This has been good for me too and what it has done is get me right into using distortion plugins and making good sounding distorted guitars from clean recordings. It has got me trying out all the various guitar effects that I have and really nailing it down to the ones that sound the best. It is interesting how different they can all sound and how some don't sound so great and others really sound great. (Headcase is very good I love it)

Distortion can add so much on other things like synths sounds and pads etc if used the right way. One can get a fair bit of colour and attitude when using distortion which I find very interesting. 

I think the OP has got some great mixes now to work with and can use as a reference. The way Herb approached it in his post above is pretty well how I did it too. I will have another shot at getting the rhythm gtrs happening a bit more and repost that up on Soundcloud as well. Danny really knows how to push something like Headcase around. I am still getting used to it's gain structure which I am finding slightly strange. There are several places where one can alter the gain at various points in the signal chain.

yeah... much better. I can hear the drums and the bass.