Adam Nolly Getgood
Interactive Stem Mixer
Experiment with Stems: Drums, Bass, Guitars, and Vocals
The stem mixer lets you rebalance key elements of the production. This is not a full DAW, but a way to explore how relative levels and textures influence heaviness.
Move the faders to increase or decrease the contribution of each stem. Listen to how:
- raising distorted guitars changes mid-range hardness,
- adjusting drum levels alters punch and groove,
- bass integration affects low-end solidity,
- vocal level and treatment influence clarity without necessarily reducing heaviness.
Try This
- Start with a balanced mix, then exaggerate drum level while keeping guitars constant. Does the mix feel heavier, more aggressive, or simply more cluttered?
- Reduce vocal level in the chorus. Does heaviness increase, or does the mix lose focus?
- Toggle between producers at a fixed fader configuration to hear how underlying sound design still shapes hardness and punch.
Mix Presets
💡 Why This Matters
Acoustic Hardness & Perceptual Heaviness
In our studies, acoustic hardness (spectral-textural density) was the primary predictor of perceptual heaviness (r ≈ .775, R² ≈ .60). As you boost guitars and bass while reducing drums, you increase spectral saturation: the "wall-of-sound" profile strongly associated with heaviness perception.
The Acoustic Hardness/Punch Trade-Off
Notice how punch and acoustic hardness are inversely related in dense metal mixes. Maximizing spectral density (acoustic hardness) typically requires compression that reduces transient headroom (punch). This production trade-off explains why PM95 (acoustic punch) didn't add unique explanatory power for perceptual heaviness in our regression (β ≈ .22, non-significant).
Perceptual Disconnect
While listeners perceive "punch" as salient and associate it with perceptual heaviness subjectively, acoustic PM95 fails to track this perception in dense mixes. The punch you hear is likely more about textural impact and low-frequency weight than transient peaks, which are saturated away in maximally hard productions.