Re: drums…filters and percussion
I hope I can be of help here CUV…
Trance is ALOT trickery to produce then it sounds.
Reason being: Trying to get everything to work together without mudding up your mix.
Can someone give me some hints on how to filter the drums to give my tracks a more dynamic feel.
]Firstly which plugins are the best for doing this
and should i even use pluging or just alter the sound in battery?
Batery 3 has nearly all the tools you will need you get your bassdrums dynamic (compressors, EQs, Lo-fi, etc.) you can use these just perfectly.
but if you’re looking for alternatives let me make a couple suggestions...
There is NO OTHER plugin on earth that will produce punchier drums than Psp Vintage Warmer.
I use it multiples times in my songs. It makes everything sound Fat and Scrumptious.
You will also want to EQ most of your bass drums. I use the Sonitus effect suite that comes with Cakewalk Sonar,
but there are THOUSANDs of equalizer plugins all over the internet. (some of them free too!)
Depending on the bassline and other instuments you will want to cut some of the “muddy low frequencies” out of your bassdrum. What are these “muddy low frequencies”? I can’t tell you. It depends on the bassdrum. You will want to take a single band, and add a high “q” to it (somewhere around 12?) and set the gain to +12. Sweep the low frequencies untill you hear a god awful noise. Thats the frequency you’ll want to reduce. But this isn’t always the case! You have to experiments and play around with it till it sounds right. Its important that your bassline and bassdrum have a good “synergy” in the lower frequencies. You don’t want them clashing and making “mud”.
A fine example of this is Ott. Take a listen to his tracks. He has a dub bass AND a deep bass drum playing at the same time. How can this be?
Its because he is a master of EQing. 
What is the best way to do this. I dread doing the percussion because i find it a bit boring, i just love doing the synth sounds, so i leave the percussion till the end and then its too late.
I feel you on this one. Back in my “trance days” (before I went on to Psy ambient dub)
I used to dread doing percussion because in trance, it just so monotonous.
How muc extra percussion do you need to add?
This is the million dollar question. It totally depends on what kind of feel you’re going for.
For deep progressive trance (my favorite) you will want some low pitched hand drums modulating on and off the beat. For mainstream “dance trance” go crazy on the cymbals.
Really, theres no easy answer. Its all trial and error.
I checked out your songs.
They’re actually quite nice.
The synth work is stellar.
The drums and perc could use work…. 
I hope that helps.
Maybe someone else can answer and give you a second opinion.
Good luck.
-Cloudwalker
