Getting that "bright", "loud" sound

[schwinginbatman]

I've been having trouble nailing down exactly what's wrong with my mixes recently. They always seem kind of dull and flat. I'm thinking it may have something to do with the bass. I'm not sure, but I've noticed the songs I've mixed that had less bass in them were brighter than the ones that did.

Some audio examples:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/36797911/Goddamn.mp3 (thanks to Ola for this, also, please excuse the drops in volume, I'm using the demo version of Ozone 4 right now)

^What I'm talking about. It feels a little dull to me, I did do a decent bit of bass boosting.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/36797911/Accept.mp3

^One that isn't so bass heavy. Hopefully you can see a difference here.

I'm not sure about it, but this is just what I'm guessing, from what you all said here. The low frequencies in the first one were boosted by EQ, slightly touched up by the Harmonic Exciter, and put up a bit by the Multi-Band Compressor. I get the feeling that such boosting of the bass may make it duller too. I'm not sure though.

 

[drew_drummer]

Seems a little muddy in the lows to me. The kick and bass seem like they're fighting for space a little. Your kick has a lot of low-end... could be the problem??

I'd try notching out some of the lows on the bass - around 110hz, but slightly boost around 70hz. Notch out around 100hz on your kick, adjust the Q factor to taste ... then high-pass your kick drum at about 80hz, with a gentle slope, 6db or 12db.

Tis an idea anyway.

 

[Terminus]

Sounds like pumping on the master bus. Pushing the mix too hard before the master bus and ease up on the bass guitar.

 

[schwinginbatman]

I did find something wrong with the master. Turns out I accidentally had the expander set pretty high up in the mids. Oops.