As I’ve said so many times, playing with your lead sounds that loud against the backing tends to swamp out the drums to the point of it being extremely hard to play in rhythm. If you can’t hear the drums, you can’t play in time, simple as that…

As always, my advice is to do a short recording first (one verse and chorus usually is fine), listen to the mix, adjust your lead sounds down, try one more short test run, see if you got it right, then go for the full take only when you are sure you aren’t putting a lot of effort into something that is going to have a fatal flaw no matter how well you play!

And, because turning down your leads and comps in effect brings up the drums, you will find yourself playing WITH, not on top of, your backing, and the temptation to rush is a lot easier to resist..!