How to Create a Heavy Metal Tone in CrossWire

Heavy Metal signal chain at a glance

1. 1
   INPUTkeep the IN meter out of the red — clipping before the GATE defeats it
2. 2
   GATEengaged at −44 dB: silence between stops
3. 3
   TIGHTat 6.5 — hard low-end trim before any gain stage
4. 4
   COMPlimiter-style squash that hardens every palm-mute to the same attack
5. 5
   OVERDRIVElow-mid drive, high level: the classic boost-into-high-gain move
6. 6
   AMP — Bogner - Uberschallthe flagship model: four cascaded stages, saturated lows, aggressive upper mids
7. 7
   CAB — Celestion - V30 4x12 Closedtight lows, present upper-mid bite
8. 8
   EQthe pultec-eqp1a curve — warmth and air, not a scoop
9. 9
   REVERBnearly dry room
10. 10
    OUTPUTleave mix-bus headroom

Guitar setup: Use a bridge humbucker and mute unwanted strings aggressively. This starting point assumes standard or lower tuning; drag CAB LOWCUT upward if a down-tuned guitar gets loose.

What this Rig Seed sets for you

Recall the seed and every node arrives set exactly as below — the rendered graph above shows the same values, so zoom in to cross-check any knob. Controls run 0–10 unless a unit is shown. To adjust: drag a knob up or down, hold Shift while dragging for fine steps, and note that double-clicking resets a knob to its factory default — not the seed’s value — so recall the seed again if you want the published baseline back.

Listen for: Palm mutes should start immediately and stop cleanly; open chords should retain midrange shape instead of becoming a white-noise wash.

Build this heavy metal tone in CrossWire

1. Set the GATE with your hands off the strings

After recalling this tutorial’s Rig Seed, mute the strings and listen. THRESH sits at −44 dB; drag it down and the readout walks toward −90 (below that it reads "off"), drag it up and idle hiss dies earlier. Then hold a chord and check the tail: if the gate clips it, drag RELEASE up from 6.0. Do this before touching any gain knob — a gate set against the wrong noise floor poisons every later judgment.

2. Prove the chug comes from the front end

Palm-mute a low chug and drag TIGHT down from 6.5 to 2.0: the thump blooms and the attack goes soft, with the amp untouched. Back to 6.5, then drag COMP RATIO from 9.2 down to 3.0: the machine-gun consistency relaxes. This front end — TIGHT plus the limiter-style COMP plus OVERDRIVE LEVEL 5.4 — is the chug; the Uberschall model at GAIN 7.8 just amplifies the decision.

3. Judge the EQ against drums, not silence

Loop a riff against a kick-and-snare reference. If the guitar masks the kick, hover the EQ’s 60 Hz handle (readout: "1: low shelf 60 Hz +5.0 dB Q 0.70") and drag it down toward +2 dB. If the guitar vanishes, drag the 8 kHz bell up from −2.0 instead of adding amp TREBLE. Keep AMP GAIN still while you make mix decisions — moving two things at once hides which one worked.

How to adapt the recipe

• For less fizz, drag CAB HICUT down from 20.0 toward 7.0 kHz before touching AMP TREBLE.
• For more pick attack, drag OVERDRIVE LEVEL up from 5.4 — the amp is already deep in saturation, so attack comes from in front of it.

Modeling note: The amp gain is high but not maximal, and the EQ is deliberately not a mid scoop. The gate, TIGHT node, limiter-style compressor and cabinet do the stop-start work that makes a metal rhythm part feel finished.

Troubleshooting the tone

The gate cuts sustained notes

drag GATE THRESH down from −44 toward −55, or RELEASE up from 6.0.

The tone is flubby

drag CAB LOWCUT up from 20 Hz toward 90 Hz before reducing AMP BASS.