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Joel Wanasek: metalcore producer, URM co-founder, crossover mix engineer

Joel Wanasek produced Blessthefall, Hawthorne Heights, and Machine Gun Kelly crossover records, plus co-founded URM Academy. What strings fit his rhythm-guitar lane.

Reviewed by the Change Your Strings editorial team ·

Joel Wanasek produces crossover metalcore, pop-punk, and rock records, Blessthefall, Hawthorne Heights, Machine Gun Kelly, Issues, and co-founded URM Academy with Joey Sturgis and Eyal Levi. His rhythm-guitar lane sits in Drop C and Drop D on 25.5-inch-scale 6-strings, with nickel-plated-steel gauges in the .011–.054 range. His published mixing content emphasizes fresh strings, tight gate discipline, and consistent pick attack over exotic gauges.

Sourcing3 citations · reviewed 2026-04-20· by Change Your Strings editorial team

Who Joel Wanasek is

Joel Wanasek is a Chicago-area producer, mixer, and educator whose catalog bridges 2008-era metalcore and the pop-punk / radio-rock crossover that followed it. Credits include Blessthefall, Hawthorne Heights, Issues, Memphis May Fire, Monuments, Shadows Fall, and a notable run of mix work on Machine Gun Kelly's rock-crossover material. If Joey Sturgis's catalog defines the scene-era metalcore sound, Wanasek's defines what happened when those producers were asked to mix records that needed radio placement alongside heavy-rotation rock bands.

He is one of the three founders of URM Academy (Unstoppable Recording Machine), the subscription education platform for metal and metalcore producers, the other two being Joey Sturgis and Eyal Levi. That context matters for this page: Wanasek's publicly available gear discussions live primarily in URM content and on his personal YouTube, where the focus is mixing technique rather than specific string brand preference.

This page is the guitar-string context for his production lane. We describe the strings that fit his production style; nothing here is a direct "Wanasek recommends" claim absent sourced citation.

Production signatures

Four things identify a Wanasek-era production:

  1. Cleaner low-end management than peer-era metalcore. His low-frequency mix work is notably less cluttered than the 2010-era metalcore standard, the bass guitar and kick drum occupy clear pockets rather than fighting. This shows up in tracking decisions too: guitar gauges that keep the low string musical rather than thuddy.
  2. Mid-scoop discipline. His rhythm guitar tones rarely carry the extreme mid-scoop that characterized peer producers' work. The midrange sits present, which means string choice needs to support that, dead or worn strings collapse the upper-midrange content his mixes build around.
  3. Pop-punk and radio-rock crossover lane. When a metalcore band wanted to cut a pop-punk record or a radio single, Wanasek was one of a small number of mix engineers who could handle both tonalities without one sounding like a compromise. His tracking approach for the crossover work reads as more conventional rock, lighter gauges, less aggressive gate, Strat and Tele in addition to the LP / superstrat metal guitars.
  4. Educational output as signal. His public YouTube content and URM Nail the Mix sessions are one of the clearest windows into how these mixes come together. He explains his decisions in detail, which is why producer-lane pages for him can confidently describe his approach even without direct endorsement relationships.

Gauges that fit the Wanasek-era metalcore lane

Drop C / Drop C# (6-string, 25.5" scale)

.011–.054 nickel-plated steel is the anchor gauge. Brand is player preference, not producer preference; Wanasek has not publicly named a specific string brand for his own use, so the recommendation is gauge-math, not endorsement.

Ernie Ball Beefy Slinky (.011–.054) strings
Ernie Ball

Beefy Slinky (.011–.054)

Price tier: $

Why this one: Editorial pick for Drop C metalcore on a 25.5-inch scale. The .011–.054 gauge supports the upper-midrange attack a Wanasek-style mix gates on. Gauge-fit, not a Joel Wanasek endorsement.

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Drop D / Eb standard (6-string, 25.5" scale)

.010–.052 (Skinny Top Heavy Bottom configuration) or .011–.048. Lighter on the top strings for lead clarity, heavier on the bottom for Drop D punch.

Pop-punk / crossover lane (6-string, 25.5" scale, E standard / Eb standard)

.010–.046 standard rock gauge. The crossover work doesn't need the heavier gauges; it needs the bend feel and top-end clarity that the .010 gauge supports.

Coated for session work

Multi-day tracking schedules are standard for the records in his catalog. Coated sets (Elixir Nanoweb, Ernie Ball Paradigm, D'Addario XT) hold tone long enough to cut a full album's rhythm passes without a string change disrupting the engineer's reference.

Why his lane rewards clean tracking technique

Wanasek's published mix content repeatedly makes the same point Joey Sturgis does: gauge choice is a floor condition (heavy enough to hold the tuning without flab), not a quality condition. The variables that actually determine how his mixes come together are:

  1. Picking discipline, firm consistent attack, palm-mute anchor hand relaxed.
  2. Gate calibration, set to trigger on the attack transient, not the sustain. Requires fresh strings whose upper-midrange content is clean.
  3. Low-end separation, kick, bass, and low guitar tuned and EQ'd to not occupy the same 80–120 Hz pocket. Heavier gauges that produce more 60–80 Hz content actually make this harder, not easier.

The takeaway is the same across URM's three founding voices: the tracking choices support the mix, and the mix is where the sound lives.

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