I just can't get my dnb drums right

[Nine Volt]

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/95632350/Blorpx%20wip2.mp3

SO

This is a WIP of a semi-neuro song I started a few months ago, and I decided I wanted to keep going with it. But for the love of all that is good and holy, I cannot get my drums to sound right. I can't exactly tell if it's because of a lack of sound in a certain frequency spectrum that's making it sound so empty, or if it's the drums themselves.

I'm not sure why I'm having this problem, as I had no problem with my other neurofunk song (Solvent). Maybe the reese and various other sounds in that song just took up more of the frequency spectrum, because the two songs use basically the same drums just with different samples.

Here is Solvent by the way, for reference/shameless self promotion:

[Lavender_Harmony]

Well first I'll make a comment about the melody and chords, they're playing different chords, so they won't sound right together, Might want to check that. The airy pad in the background is playing something entirely different to the plucky synth.

I think the main problem here is lack of EQ and levelling. Your kick is also quite poppy, it doesn't have much weight to it, so you might want to try layering it with a heavy acoustic or processed kick.

Your cymbals and hats are also far too loud. You want to recess these in the mix, and cut space for your snare to sit. Make sure nothing is obscuring the main body of the snare around 200Hz, and the high end crack of the snare should be brought forward too.

Once you have a heavier kick in there, you'll likely want to pull the mix back in terms of low end, because that's going to take up a lot of space, but as long as you nest the two kicks together without muddying up the low end (Cut out the low subs of the acoustic kick) there shouldn't be a problem.

Aside from all that, I would bring your drums through three separate sub mixes. One for the kick, one for the snare and any rimshots you use later on, and one for all the metallic stuff. This should allow you the freedom of parallel compressing the snare if you need to give it a little more body, and you can EQ everything much simpler this way. Just make sure you don't squash all the dynamics out of the drums here.

[Nine Volt]

Well first I'll make a comment about the melody and chords, they're playing different chords, so they won't sound right together, Might want to check that. The airy pad in the background is playing something entirely different to the plucky synth.

I think the main problem here is lack of EQ and levelling. Your kick is also quite poppy, it doesn't have much weight to it, so you might want to try layering it with a heavy acoustic or processed kick.

Your cymbals and hats are also far too loud. You want to recess these in the mix, and cut space for your snare to sit. Make sure nothing is obscuring the main body of the snare around 200Hz, and the high end crack of the snare should be brought forward too.

Once you have a heavier kick in there, you'll likely want to pull the mix back in terms of low end, because that's going to take up a lot of space, but as long as you nest the two kicks together without muddying up the low end (Cut out the low subs of the acoustic kick) there shouldn't be a problem.

Aside from all that, I would bring your drums through three separate sub mixes. One for the kick, one for the snare and any rimshots you use later on, and one for all the metallic stuff. This should allow you the freedom of parallel compressing the snare if you need to give it a little more body, and you can EQ everything much simpler this way. Just make sure you don't squash all the dynamics out of the drums here.

To be honest Lavender I thought you were going to redirect me to an already-posted thread about this :3

But yeah, this is a really old song, back before I really cared about mixing (not trying to excuse mistakes, just saying).

I've never really thought about using separate submixes for different drum elements, I'll try that out (along with your other tips) and see how it goes. Also, why did I never think of parallel compression?