gain structure(i did read the money shot thread lol)

[louieb]

Ok so im working on alot tracks and trashing them at the moment just to get better at mixdowns eq ect. Anyway my issue is my drums always seem weak. Usually my kick sub leads midrange sounds ect come though fine but my snares and other percs seem to not have enough punch. Usually my snare hits at -8db and usually doesn't sound loud enough. Have this issue in all my tracks but primarily my house tracks.
Just incase it matters my kick hits at -8 usually sub -10 usually hats -6 usually midrange bass and other sounds all very depending on the sounds.

Anyway any tips rather it be on my mixdown or sidechaining whatever is appreciated.

[vertx]

Less numbers, more ears, if your snare doesn't sound loud enough then turn it up.
-6 for hats seems very loud to me, I have mine anywhere from -25 to -15db.
Notch out frequencies for certain instruments if they overlap others i.e if you have a big 200hz peak on a snare, notch out a high q (upwards of 4) of a few dbs in your midbass at 200hz or whatever you have in that same area.
Read as many books as you can, a few I like are:
The Mixing Engineers Handbook,
Mixing With Your Mind,
The Art of Mixing; A Visual Guide to Recording, Engineering & Production,
Mastering Audio: The Art and the Science.
Read them lots and then practice what you learn from them in your DAW so you can link the info to sound.

[blinx]

Yup sounds like Hats are sitting to loud (from numbers point of view) i also run hats lower like vertx mentioned. I could see hats masking the snare in your drum bus for sure.

[louieb]

i didn't mean to type -6 for my hats last night i ment -16 sorry about that. However thanks for the post i i will try takeing down other sounds that play at the same time as the snare in the same frequncies. Obvious advice but i honestly didn't think about it recently been focusing to much on boosting and filtering out frequencies. I have some tracks where the snare hits with no other sounds and its still low i guess ill just try takeing it from -8 to -6 i just don't like loseing headroom.