ref tracks for bass balance

I never actually listened to Death Magnetic, but the quality of its mix is definitely something that seemed to be universally hated across the internets...I probably wouldn't use it. Gojira has an EXCELLENT mix for the low end, I prefer The Way of All Flesh (anything off the album, really) Meshuggah is another go-to for me. The Koloss album or Obzen. Neuraxis - The Thin Line Between is a good one, 'The All and the Nothing' has some good tom tone in the first few beats. Opeth - Blackwater Park & newer (up to Watershed) is good if you're looking at a less extreme sound. Lamb of God usually have pretty great mixes. As The Palaces Burn is a great raw sounding album Bloodbath - Devouring the Feeble is a pretty good track for it, especially the intro Amon Amarth - Twilight of the Thunder God is a good one, try Tattered Banners and Bloody Flags Evergrey - Recreation Day (the whole album and that song in particular) Since you mentioned Tool, A Perfect Circle might be another you could look at, 13th Step is a good album. Those are some of the ones I use anyways.

Metal itself is too broad a term, as the bass mix can be anything from Les Claypool or Lemmy to Steve Diorgio on individual thought patterns. What role is the bass playing ? Is it clean or distorted ? Picked or finger ? Is the song super fast ( death, black , grind ),mid paced, groove / nu metal / funk metal etc or ect ect ? All cases and combinatiosn thereof will require different references. From the reference tracks you mentioned it looks like its a mid paced song with clean finger bass in a secondary / supporting role, but again the RATM example has a different mix from that.

Thanks for the responses. The tempo is about 120bpm, moderate with style of recent Metallica such as the Day that Never Comes. Bass is clean electric finger picked, support role. The main challenge is a pentatonic groove in E minor where the bass and dist guitars are playing together. The groove actually drops down to a D; could the low E string be detuned down to a D ? I'm most interested in refs for this type of groove. Some of those Rage Against...Machine tracks have similar grooves which is one reason I chose them.

I guess 'Tallica's black album stuff like sandman etc is a good reference. Also if you like slightly more modern, thicker bass tones ( still supporting role though ) latter Helmet stuff like songs off Size matters are a very good reference for bass AND drums mix.

I find as a part time home studio hacker, having good reference tracks is very helpful particularly for balancing frequencies. One thing that helped me a lot has been just spending time listening to and analyzing ref tracks through my various monitoring equipment.

You can detune the low E to a D. You might have to raise the action a smidgen to avoid rattles. We generally tune down half a step to Eb, without problems.