Percussion getting in the way of a loud mix

[lookwhaticando]

I'm sure this has been covered before in the depths of some super-long thread, but seeing as how my question is somewhat specific, and the search words for my question are somewhat broad, i though I'd just apologize and start a new thread.

First off, and probably most importantly, the music I produce is strictly electronic, and the drums/percussion are mostly comprised of my own recorded beats (ie me playing my kit in a studio), and very little is sampled/taken from old drum machines.

That being said, here's my problem:

Most of the time, when I get working on a track, everything is pretty good... level-wise. I can get the mix loud without clipping on the Master track, and without the use of a limiter on the Master track.

However, there are times when, using the same samples (the ones I have recorded in a professional studio), I cannot seem to get my mix loud enough, solely because the percussion, namely the snare hits, pop the level up so high that it clips. So that means I have to turn the rest of the mix down.

I'm no professional engineer, but I've diddled around for a million years with compression settings... Compression on the whole drum bus, compression only on some drum tracks, turning the drum bus down, turning the rest of the mix down... EQing... you know..

But with the track I am currently working on, I cannot seem to get the drums squashed so they sound good AND are loud enough in the mix.

I feel like there has to be a simple thing I'm missing. Although my track is obviously different than others out there, I feel like this must be a pretty common problem. I also realize that this probably is pretty hard to figure out over the web without hearing the track, so I hope that maybe some answers will come my way. I dunno. It's frustrating. Heh. Thanks.

[contakt321]

Two thoughts:

1. It's probably transient spikes, so work hard on getting your compression settings right, or even use a limiter on the individual offensive tracks to tame and/or squash those.
2. Just mix the track with everything at the volume that sounds "right" and at the end lower all the faders at once (an equal amount) so that your master channel is peaking around -3db to -6db and just let your mastering engineer sort out this problem, as he is much better equipped.

[Serra]

maybe your snare is too loud in the mix. you've mentioned compression, but you can get a away with low snare volumes if you mix it well, not just compression but eq is your friend here too :)

http://youtu.be/YKyR_enFuis