I have a confession to make.

For the longest time, I was that guy who would spend ** hours** E Qing electric guitars. Like, seriously obs essing over every frequency. Boo sting here , cutting there, adding more saturation, trying different comp ressors...

And you know what? They still s ounded terrible in the mix.

Then one day it hit me: I was solving the wrong problem.

The Light bulb Moment

I was working on this worship song with like 3- 4 electric guitars going at once ( yeah, I know, ambitious ). No matter what I di d, they just s ounded like m ush when everything was playing together.

That 's when I realized something that completely changed how I approach electric guitar mixing:

It's just not that hard to get a good electric guitar sound anymore.

Seriously. If you have a Helix, Kemper, Quad Cortex, or AX Effects - literally all of them sound good. There are so many presets out there built for your style of playing.

The Tool That Change d Everything

These days, I barely touch E Q on electric guitars. An d it 's not because I'm lazy - it's because I foun d this one plugin that does most of the work for me.

BX Shred Spread is honestly the coolest plugin on electric guitars. And it's only for the shred knob. I just turn it to about 40-60%, and suddenly the guitars sit perfectly in the mix. It pulls out any annoying high-end frequencies and adds this low mid saturation that just sounds nice.

Oh, and I'm pretty sure it's still a free plugin. Somebody correct me in the comments if I'm wrong.

My Go-To Method

After Shred Spread works its magic, I only do whatever needs to fit in the mix:

1. Take away low end under 100 Hz - leave room for that bass and kick
2. Cut somewhere in the 250-600 range where it gets muddy with all the synths and keys
3. If you need the guitars to stick out more, a little boost between 1K and 2.5K will push them out in the mix

That's it. Most of the time I don't do a ton of reshaping because I get pretty good electric guitars sent to me, or I use my Quad Cortex which just makes it easy and simple to get a good electric tone.

The Real Question

It's always down to preference with electrics. But my ultimate thought is: how can I get the electrics to sound big and bitey, but also fit in with the keys and synths and everything?

You need to make the decision - do the electrics need to stick out more, or do they need to make room for acoustics, percussion, and everything else?

Watch The Whole Thing

I recorded the entire process so you can hear exactly what I mean. I show you what Shred Spread does with a tone generator and pink noise - it's very, very, very crazy. Plus the before/after comparison in the full mix context.

Watch me break down the entire approach here →

Start With Good Tone

Here's what I want you to take away: start with good tone. Work on your tone first, please. Every time. Then you'll get great mixes.

Once you start thinking about electric guitars as part of the team instead of the star, mixing becomes so much easier and way more enjoyable.