Featuring Mike Mangini on Drums
Learn how Grammy-nominated mixer Dan Malsch turns a dense, aggressive live-band production into a powerful modern rock mix.
Inside this Pro Mix Academy course, Dan opens the actual mix session for Monolith’s “Mother Martyr” and walks through the real decisions behind the final mix.
This is not theory.
This is a real-world session breakdown from one of modern rock’s top mixers.
Includes Multitracks.
Learn How Modern Rock Mixes Are Built
“Mother Martyr” is a massive modern rock production featuring:
- Live drums from Mike Mangini
- Distorted bass
- Layered guitars
- Powerful vocals
- Heavy automation
- Hybrid analogue mix processing
Dan starts from the loudest section of the song and builds the mix outward, showing exactly how he creates impact, width, energy, and control without losing the feel of the performance.
You’ll see how he approaches:
- Drum mixing and sample blending
- Bass control and aggression
- Guitar width and clarity
- Vocal processing and automation
- Mix bus processing
- Hybrid analogue workflow
- Section-to-section energy management
What You’ll Learn
Drum Mixing With Live Drums
Dan breaks down his complete drum workflow, including:
- Kick, snare, toms, overheads, cymbals, and hi-hats
- Parallel compression and drum crush processing
- Sample blending without replacing the live feel
- Bleed control and gating
- Building room ambience when room mics are limited
- Snare shaping and low-end weight
- Automation between verses and choruses
- Keeping Mike Mangini’s natural tom movement intact
You’ll also see how Dan uses tools like Black Salt Audio Silencer, filtering, compression, saturation, and automation to keep the drums powerful while preserving the performance.
Bass That Sounds Huge Without Losing Control
The bass in “Mother Martyr” is aggressive, distorted, and intentionally nasty.
Dan shows how he keeps the bass heavy and exciting while making it fit cleanly inside the mix.
Topics include:
- LA-2A style compression
- Dynamic EQ control
- Distressor-style bus compression
- Saturation and harmonic enhancement
- Filtering and low-end management
- Presence and attack shaping
- Limiting and metering
One of the biggest lessons in this section is understanding that sounds do not always need to be pretty in solo. Sometimes ugly in isolation is exactly what works in the full mix.
Vocals That Cut Through Heavy Productions
The vocals in “Mother Martyr” need to sit in front of a wall of guitars, drums, and bass without sounding crushed or lifeless.
Dan walks through his complete vocal workflow, including:
- Saturation and vocal thickness
- Compression and heavy limiting
- EQ and de-essing
- Delay and reverb processing
- Vocal widening and doubles
- Harmony bus treatment
- Sidechain-compressed effects
- Detailed automation rides
You’ll see his use of:
- Decapitator
- Waves L1
- FabFilter Pro-Q3
- Soothe 2
- Seventh Heaven
- 480L-style reverbs
- MicroShift-style widening
Dan is very open about using aggressive vocal processing when the song demands it. The goal is not conservative settings. The goal is making the vocal feel exciting and present inside the track.
Layered Guitars That Stay Wide And Clear
Dense guitar arrangements can quickly turn into mud.
Dan explains how he keeps multiple guitar layers wide, aggressive, and controlled without fighting the vocals, bass, or drums.
You’ll learn how he:
- Checks whether stereo files actually contain usable width
- Uses creative panning techniques
- Filters unnecessary low end
- Shapes upper mids for clarity and aggression
- Separates rhythm, lead, and overdub buses
- Uses SSL-style EQ approaches
- Automates guitars to lift choruses
Dan also explains why filtering is one of the most important parts of modern rock mixing. Across large sessions, small EQ moves add up fast.
Automation That Makes The Mix Feel Alive
A huge part of Dan’s workflow comes from automation.
Throughout the course, you’ll see how he rides:
- Drums
- Vocals
- Guitars
- Effects
- Hi-hats
- Buses
- Song transitions
You’ll learn how he creates contrast between verses and choruses, builds intensity into transitions, and makes the final chorus hit harder than everything before it.
This course makes it clear that modern rock mixes are not static. They move constantly.
Dan’s Hybrid Mix Bus Workflow
Dan also breaks down the hybrid analogue side of his workflow and explains how he mixes into compression and limiting from the beginning.
You’ll learn about his use of:
- Neve Orbit summing
- SSL Bus Plus
- Bettermaker EQ
- DW Fearn VT-7
- Burl B2 Bomber
- Metric Halo MixHead
- SSL Fusion
- The God Particle
- Loudness metering
- Reference mixes
- Mastering preparation
Dan explains how he balances loud client playback mixes while still leaving room for mastering.
About Monolith
Monolith is a modern rock and metal trio featuring:
- Mike Mangini
- Hernán “Motley” Rodríguez
- Andy Barrow
While Mangini is best known for his work with Dream Theater, Monolith blends contemporary groove-driven rock and metal with Afro-Cuban and Latin rhythmic influences.
The band’s music is also highly conceptual, exploring themes of power, faith, media, control, and dystopian sci-fi storytelling through releases like:
- “Mother Martyr”
- “Oligarchs”
- “Gooru”
- “Farmer”
- “Starchild”
The result is a dense, modern production packed with energy, atmosphere, and dynamic performances.
Featuring Mike Mangini On Drums
“Mother Martyr” features live drums from Mike Mangini, one of the most respected and technically accomplished drummers in modern rock and metal.
Known for his work with Dream Theater, Extreme, Steve Vai, and Annihilator, Mike brings an incredibly detailed and dynamic performance to the session.
One of the biggest takeaways from the course is hearing how Dan enhances and controls a world-class live drum performance without replacing what makes it special.
Who This Course Is For
This course is built for rock and metal mixers who want to understand how professional modern mixes are actually made.
Whether you work fully in the box or with analogue hardware, Dan’s workflow applies directly to real-world productions involving:
- Dense guitar arrangements
- Live drums
- Aggressive bass tones
- Heavy vocal productions
- Hybrid workflows
- Detailed automation
- Modern mix bus processing
More importantly, this course explains why the decisions matter.
Heavy rock mixes are not just about making everything louder. They are about contrast, energy, width, low-end control, vocal presence, and knowing when to make bold mix decisions.
Throughout the session, Dan shows how professional mixes are built from hundreds of small but important choices:
- Cleaning bleed without killing feel
- Adding samples without replacing the drummer
- Filtering guitars without weakening them
- Compressing vocals without losing emotion
- Automating sections for maximum impact
This is the kind of practical, real-world knowledge that rarely gets explained clearly in short tutorials or preset packs.
Mentors
Dan Malsch
Dan Malsch is a producer, mixer, engineer, and immersive mixer whose work spans some of the most exciting rock and metal releases of recent years. With more than 850 credited tracks, Dan has built a wide-ranging body of work across stereo mixing, engineering, and immersive audio. He is perhaps best known for his extensive association with Ghost, contributing to multiple eras of the band’s catalogue. His credits include mixing and engineering work connected to Skeletá, Impera, Rite Here Rite Now, and Phantomime, as well as immersive mixing across celebrated Ghost catalogue releases including material from Prequelle, Meliora, and Infestissumam. Dan’s credits also extend to other major names in heavy music, including Gojira and Avenged Sevenfold. Whether working on massive modern rock productions, detailed immersive mixes, or hard-hitting metal records, his work is marked by clarity, scale, impact, and a strong sense of musicality. From crushing guitars and commanding drums to cinematic Atmos-style presentation, Dan Malsch has established himself as a trusted creative force in contemporary rock and metal production.
Learn MoreEndorsed by Legends and Pros Alike
Issac Slade
Jack Douglas
Joe Perry
John Krivit
100% Satisfaction Guarantee
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Frequently Asked Questions
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