Kick Drum and Snare Drum Levels

[haarisa]

Hey guys! I got a quick question. I was wondering what a lot of you guys that do your own mixing set volume of the Kick Drum and Snare Drum at (solo and mixed)? I seem to be missing this aspect of my mixing. The kick drum is too soft, but is taking up A LOT of room in the mix (-4 db on VU Meter). That forces me to reduce the overall volume of the mix and I cannot even mix the bl properly since most of the mix is being eaten up by the kick drum to begin with. I am aiming to get that sound that is non acoustic 808 drum feel [sort of like This is how we do produced by Dr. Dre]. I know his stuff is mastered, so I cannot accurately tell how he mixed it since his stuff clips on a standard CD[meaning it shows up as clipping in say Sound Forge, but you do not hear any distortion of any sort in the mix]. Can anyone help me out? Maybe I can post a clip up by Sunday if that would help.

[2lim]

Put a hi pass filter on your kick drum. Start it low, and just start moving it up until it affects the tone of it. You shoudl gain a fair bit of heradroom by cutting out useless frequencies.


Simon

[TuoKaerf]

Putting a high pass filter on it will get rid of a lot of the garbage down in the 30-40hz range. Also, you might get a bump at about 60-70hz to bring the clarity of the bottom end out a bit more.

Your bassline is mostly likely fighting with the kick as well. Try muting the bassline in the full mix. Does the kick pop out more?

Also, how much compression do you have going on?