Tracks sound distant

[Deakar]

Hello everyone my name is Dave and I am brand new to the forums. I have been making music for about 6 months, so please be gentle with the criticism. I use FL studio. Now for my question. When I decide I'm finished with the track I do the normal routine consisting of exporting .wav normalizing, adding a little compression (which I am not great at using) and making the song's volume louder. When I do the mixdown I try to keep the highest peaks at no more than -6db. When I listen to the files in mp3 form, they usually sound better and louder (not overcompressed loud just generally louder) but I started to notice something today. The mixes seem sort of distant, as if they were being played in a large room. They don't seem to be as in your face as I would like. I put my kicks and bass in mono but I don't usually change the stereo separation on most tracks. This is why I specified that I use FL studio. Included in my signature is my latest arrangement, one I think I did fairly well with. I could include a link to another track called Freakshow, that is one that I am particularly concerned with.

So I guess to sum up: Could anyone share some tips on what can I do to bring the songs a little more forward? The only reverb or delay I usually use is on the drums (on a send channel) to fill them out a bit. Or do they sound alright and it's perhaps it's just the fact that I don't have them mastered?

Any input or links to information would be greatly appreciated. Again please be gentle with the criticism, constructive is welcome though.

[wormcode]

The drums are too buried under all those digital whirring synth sounds.
Why are you normalizing and then compressing?

It just sounds like you need to work on your mixes and learn more about EQ. Those synth sounds are just too loud and are taking up all the frequencies making it unpleasant to listen to. They are constantly in the forefront, let them have a breather (and some filtering). A lot of the time people will reach for compressors/limiters to try to make things louder in the mix, but something that is far too overlooked is to simply turn the other things down instead.

If you are sending your drums to reverb or delay, don't overdo it. It should barely be noticeable, and you also want to EQ them because delay and especially reverb will add more unwanted frequencies that contribute to things sounding muddy or buried.

[mthrfnk]

Try EQ'ing out some things on your pads, the mids sound muddy which means they sound too thick in the mix. they also cover the drums too much. You also seem to have a little too much midrange and not enough top or low end imo. Exciters/saturators may help brighten up some things in your track.

Reworking your mix may help too - although bear in mind if you're not mixing in a good environment (treated room w/ monitors) this will have an effect on the clarity of your mix. Make room for your drums and concentrate on thickening up the low end bass.

I wouldn't really mess with the stereo seperation knob in FL tbh, I've come to the conclusion it can make some things sound weird in the mix without meaning too, I rarely use it now - I only actually use it often to force kicks & subs to mono (turn the knob to the right completely).

I'd also recommend bussing elements, I find it makes things easier to manage and allocate within a mix.

[Triphosphate]

For 6 months the track in your sig is pretty damn good, I like the drum arrangement a lot, but not so much the drum sounds... This is something you can work on. As far as your track sounding distant, I think there are 2 factors at play here.

One, your mix in general. The bass/midrange sounds might be too loud with relation with the drums. It sounds to me like all the synths are in your face, but the drums are not. This might be easily fixed by lowering the everything but the kick and snare.

The second thing, instead of compressing your finished track, try raising the volume till your almost clipping and see if it still sounds distant. Maybe your attack on your compressor is too fast and removing all the impact of the attack of things? Or you're compressing too hard? Or you're compressing the signal but not making up the lost gain?

As far as your reverb on the drums is concerned, perhaps the ratio of the dry/wet levels is too wet? Maybe use a HPF to remove the lower end of the reverb send to make it sound brighter? Maybe just EQ boost more of the upper frequencies of things that sound distant? When things get farther away they lose the higher frequency because higher frequencies expend their energy over distances faster than lower ones. Picture thunder... thunder in the distance sound low and rumbley... thunder from a lightning strike close to you sounds like a whip cracking, sometimes.

Just my 2 cents. Hope this helps.

lawl we all posted about the same response in paraphrase within 10 minutes.

[mtl6]

please don't be offended by what i'm about to say as you're pretty decent for only producing for 6 months... but there are a few problems here. first, don't normalize anything ever.

next, you can use even more compression but you need to use it differently. read up some more on compression. in addition, your bass noises and intro synth noises need way more dynamics and variations because at some points i thought i was listening to an america online dial up connection. silence is your friend in music so if you want your drums to stand out more, then your bass noises need to breathe a bit and give your drums space to really punch through. this isn't just about compression- it's about changing the release and attack settings on your bass noises.

everything sounds distant because everything is the same volume all the time. music is kind of an illusion and you can only bring things to the forefront by first placing them in the distance. you do this by slowly raising volumes over several bars, and also by clever filtering. just keep practicing and you'll get it.

[Deakar]

All excellent points. Thank you all for your input. The reverb and delay is use is very sparingly, same with compression. I use the multiband compressor to raise the overall volume but I believe the compressors are bypassed. I use a mastering preset and tweak from there, as I don't completely understand compression yet. Again thank you all for your input, I really appreciate it. I now have some starting points to work with.

[Deakar]

They are constantly in the forefront, let them have a breather (and some filtering). A lot of the time people will reach for compressors/limiters to try to make things louder in the mix, but something that is far too overlooked is to simply turn the other things down instead.

I'm still kind of a lamen when it comes to these things, what do you mean by let them have a breather? Maybe cut the frequencies a little?
EDIT: I think I get it, you mean what was said about changing volumes so everything isn't all going at once, right?

I normalize then compress because it's a technique I learned on another site, it's an unorthodox way of somewhat "mastering" a track. I read it on forbidden fruity. Trust me, I do know that my tracks are in no way mastered. I would consider it a trick to increase overall volume.

Most EQing I do, I start with cutting the low frequencies to give the kick and bass a little room, usually anywhere from 100hz to 200hz.

[JBE]

You definitely shouldn't be normalizing anything until you get better at mixdowns. Mixing your track is so much more important in most cases and it's something you should learn or at least try. I'm still trying myself and I've been doing this for awhile now. When you normalize your track you're already bringing the highest peaks to 0db. Then adding compression on top of that as well as other things to raise the volume is just making a bad problem worse.

Don't worry about making your tracks loud. First figure out how to make them sound good when they are quiet. That's is your overall goal. If you can make it sound good when it's still peaking at around -6 to -5db then mastering is so much easier and so much more effective. Remember, every sound system has a volume control. No sound system has a "make this song sound better" control.

[outbound]

As said before synth taking up too much room.

Butttt the problem isn't just with the mix, arrangement wise it's all happening too much at once. Try taking bits out, don't have the synth hitting all the time. Make space in certain bits (e.g in between the first kick and the snare) so that when it does appear it can be loud and obnoxious but then take it away when it's the kick and snares turn to 'speak' (gotta look at this like a conversation, everyone talking at once is just noise)

[__________]

reverb or delay, don't overdo it