Hey Brandon, thank you for your mix. I like the overall balance and the tonality, but there are several decisions that didn't really let me enjoy this mix. And sorry if this comment sounds harsh, I do not want to criticize you personally. I just noticed right away that drum hits are missing and somehow all the nuances on the snare have completely disappeared. Dirk had asked me before the recordings to preserve his performance as much as possible, and therefore I pay special attention to it.
So with this in mind, the biggest problem was the decision to use samples, or to be more precise, how you are using them. Most professional metal mixers go a long way to make sure the drums still sound natural and that ghost notes and other small details are still there when they add samples to the mix. They also make sure to keep most of the dynamics and the intensity of the original performance. If you watch a video of Joey Sturgis replacing each drum hit manually and with different velocity layers, then you know that this attention to detail is necessary not to destroy a drum performance like Dirks on this song.
My guess is that you used Trigger to replace the original drums, but you didn't double-check the real performance with the resampled one. If you do this, you will notice that almost all of the ghost notes are gone in your mix and that some snare and kick hits are also not present, probably because they weren't loud enough to get over the internal threshold of Trigger (or whatever Plugin you are using).
So with this in mind, the biggest problem was the decision to use samples, or to be more precise, how you are using them. Most professional metal mixers go a long way to make sure the drums still sound natural and that ghost notes and other small details are still there when they add samples to the mix. They also make sure to keep most of the dynamics and the intensity of the original performance. If you watch a video of Joey Sturgis replacing each drum hit manually and with different velocity layers, then you know that this attention to detail is necessary not to destroy a drum performance like Dirks on this song.
My guess is that you used Trigger to replace the original drums, but you didn't double-check the real performance with the resampled one. If you do this, you will notice that almost all of the ghost notes are gone in your mix and that some snare and kick hits are also not present, probably because they weren't loud enough to get over the internal threshold of Trigger (or whatever Plugin you are using).