Well I used a sampled drum-kit for my band's demo (I used Nuendo and Reason). The whole kit sounds great on it's own but when I add the guitar tracks (distorted tone) I lose the body of the crash/ride I used and all I'm left with is a ping. I played around with the attack and I managed to lose most of the ping. Then I add the guitars and the whole cymbal is almost lost. How can I keep just the body of the cymbal? Thanks in advance.
You need to carve a space for it using pan and/or multi band EQ on each track.
The problem is .... once you add more and more instruments, they start fighting over certain frequencies, specially when they want to "sing" in the same frequency as other instrument/s.
Pan the guitar a little off of where the cymbal is or vice versa.
Use a spectrum analyzer on each track to determine what frequencies the the instrument occupies. Then cut and boost accordingly to carve out ranges for each instrument. Make use of high and low pass filters on instruments that only occupy certain frequencies.
Here are two good EQ primers .... EQ Primer and EQ Primer .
Panning helps also by spreading out the instruments within the stereo image, giving everyone their own little space to play in the stereo game.
Thanks in advance.