OK, one more try:
It's getting to the point, though, that I'm driving myself crazy, wondering if the little tweaks here and there 1) have the effect I want them to, and 2) are even making a difference.
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Bubba wrote: βWed May 17, 2017 3:42 am
the overall level of the guitars has crept up again and the good level you had on the drums is being drowned out I think 2dB off the supporting guitars at least is needed That might mean the vocal will need to come down a touch, too. Get that driving rhythm of the drumkit back again, then I think you'll be good..
The changes I attempted to make in this mix were exactly what you suggested. I dropped the rhythm guitar bus down by about 2.5db. I lowered the vocals a touch too. Then I made a bunch of tiny eq moves here and there. (See below)
JD01 wrote: βWed May 17, 2017 11:37 am
There's also kind of a weird, almost "white noise" type sound across the whole thing? Can you work out where that's coming from? Might be something to do with your drums, but I don't think so. It sounds really far forward in the mix, likes its just a noise coming from somewhere.
It may have been too high a boost in the 7K+ range I had added across the entire mix, as well as a similar boost in the same range for the rhythm guitars bus (including the acoustic). That's gone now, having been replaced with more careful EQ tweaks to individual guitars and just the slightest hint of "air"-frequencies boost to the entire mix. One of the new rhythm guitar tracks in particular had a lot of fizz, which I lessened with a high-cut around 6k IIRC on that guitar.
I lowered the electric bass a smidge too, less than 1dB. I had already notched out around 55hz, where the meters said the most prominent frequency of the bass drum sat; I deepened that notch a little more as well, to give the bass drum more effect there.
There were other small EQ changes too - slightly deepening the cut in the lead vocal in the nasal-y area, give the drums a dB-or-so of "air" (7k+) to make up for not having so much air on the master volume track, etc. One other perhaps significant thing was to send a few dB less of the drum kit to the group reverb; my thinking that having too much of the kit affected by verb could also have made them sound less present.
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(EDIT) So, with all that, I think I got the bass drum back. But like I said, it's getting to the "crazy" time where I'm not sure...diminishing returns and all that.