Why does my mix sound unprofessional?

https://youtu.be/UcfIv-TPesI made in pro tools First

Cheap sounding drums, snare drum needs to be mixed higher in the 2K range. And the vocals sound like they're through a cheap mic.

Not criticizing, I think it's fine, but those are the things you're gonna wanna fix. Maybe master with more low end

Agree with gpbear. Snare needs to be louder. Hi Hats are too uniform in their sound - real drums would hit with varied attack position and pressures, and because they are isolated at the start of the track it is more obvious. The piano at the start could benefit from reverb treatment and to sit back in the mix, perhaps even played an octave lower the avoid the "tinky" toy piano sound. Behind the vocal is a guide track/ accompaniment which sounds like a synthesised plucked guitar. This needs to sit quieter, be removed or be hit with a treatment like a soft delay or a reverb because it stabs into the track and draws the ear. An acoustic guitar being lightly strummed in place of this would give a more rounded feel, again with reverb. It sounds like I am selling reverb here, but reverb will assist when recording in digital space because there are no natural acoustics in an electronic environment. Less is more and tiny hints tell more than flooding ever will. The vocal sounds like it was sung softly into a loud microphone. This gives the feel of a lot of air in the voice and not a lot of strength behind it. Again, reverb in moderation is your friend, but re record the vocal at about -12db stand about a foot away with a pop filter to calm the air you will be pushing and let the people listening hear that you are meaning what you are singing about... sing it loud... sing it proud.

ground up, rethink the arrangement... a great arrangement mixes itself adequately with just a balance and anything else you might do to it is icing. Analyze every part and rebuild it, then focus on more expressive performance/programming and then back track to any programmed sounds and work on SOUND DESIGN and DYNAMICS.... while you are at it maybe consider some rhythic shifts and maybe a key change to break the monotony without deviating from your basic melodic themes

when the track is surprising and exciting for even you to listen to after not listening to it for a day or two then you can consider polishing the mix. When you have the core material to that magic point post it here and we'll toss mix suggestions out there. There are a lot of tricks that even the recording rags don't cover that you only learn by hanging around guys who learned them by hanging around guys (or invented them in a moment of genius). But you aren't there yet. Pre-production. Make it shine without any tricks. Don't mix as you go until you've mixed a 100 more tracks. I know the computer age encourages people to start mixing while they are recording/programming, but if you don't have a concrete vision for the arrangement that's ass-spank-tacular and know how to execute it quickly with the gear and personnel at your disposal, then I suggest not muddying the waters while you are constructing the tune by trying to mix it while you are working out parts. Yu'll inevitably get a monotonous and often muddy end result and you will feel really tied to mix decisions made while arranging that would be ebst discarded....

anyway, you get it

but generally the other big weakness is the vocal.... not a fantastic performance and there's way too much lower midrange energy. Sometimes you want a boomy vocal, but not in the frequencies that are booming in yours.... it could also use more presence, the ESSes could use more sizzle high up and less hiss in the upper mids.... I could go on. Just pay attention when positioning your microphne and setting gain levels and when you EQ the vocal make sure to be DRASTIC. If there's a problem with how the vocal sounds in the mix go ahead and overcorrect until it sounds unnatural, then back off slowly until it sounds less like a telephone or space transmission. When you put a vocal on a song it needs to be an outstanding performance that is nice and clear unless you are doing garage rock or something... I also second all of tel-nobody's comments about your vocal. A great vocal performance that's well recorded sitting in the track properly can sell a mediocre song/arranement and liven up a dull mix just thru its human-voiciness, err humanity.

Thanks alot for your replies guys, I agree with all of you. I'm using pro-tools first as my DAW and the funny part is I don't have enough money to buy mic so I recorded the vocals on my laptop's mic...lol..XD It was my first time in pro-tools | First so was experimenting more of things I was mostly seeking online tutorials for help I could just find the basics I was not able to identify what's wrong and how can I correct it and then I found equipboard when I was search for what mainstream artists use in their production and this is very good place to start. Btw, I just have a lappy, M-Audio Keystation 61 and headphones, I'm beginner is music as well I just know how to play a piano that too basics, presently I'm making another song...I can only store 3 projects in pro tool first so I think I have to delete this song's file soon. Btw, I like free stuff because I'm not earning now I can't buy such great softwares, I'm from India so these prices would be too high for me...But anyhow with the help of people like you guys I think I can achieve good quality mixes further. Thank you so much everyone :)

I think you are in the wrong DAW for a guy programming MIDI with a USB controller and using all softsynths and samples. Read the EB article, its pretty decent:

http://equipboard.com/posts/best-daw

I will give you more info later. I was starting to type a longer response about DAW's, freeware synth plugins with links etc when my toddler came in and deleted it so he could watch YouTube on my PC that has the good sound systems (you will need speakers, I have 3 ets of different monitors hooked to my DAW to get a clear idea of what my stuff sounds like across different systems and it sometimes feels inadequate to me... but that's why my boy likes daddy's studio, the sound is great, better than what's in my living room). He's such a mischievious monkey!

but start out rethinking the song from scratch, working out tonal parts on your piano outside of the box and getting them down pat. Really think about which parts belong in what register and WHY. It wouldn't hurt you to jump behind a drum kit and screw around a little to come up with a more hypnotic groove to program later (write stuff down, musical notation is our friend). If there's not a good reason for an arrangement element don't do it unless it jumps out as total magic. Serve the song.... the mix will follow, grasshopper! Keep your hands off the PC until you are 100% on all your ideas. Delete the file you have if you need to. Let it go and begin again. A lot of professional engineers and producers have done this very thing working for name acts in top shelf studios. Sometimes the ebst thing to do is start over so that you aren't trying to bandaid problems that were generates early in the process. I think you are in that situation. There are so many thigns I would change in what you have from arrangement, to vocals performance to mix that (maybe even change the tempo) that it will be best to begin againa nd call this a learning experience.... because it was ;-)

EDIT: It gets easier... consider finding a collaborator. In early days having a co-writer and co-producer, even an equally inexperienced one, can really help you. Committee writing and production has generated a lot of classic records. Large groups of musicians are not just for 'bands'... you will find many electronic music duos, trios and quartetsdoing great stuff and pop music in all of its idioms and iterations has a long tradition of working by committee dating back to Motown and really earlier if you look at how the majors functioned viz-a-viz A&R, arrangement and production in the Sinatra era.... how many folks contributed good ideas to a Madonna hit in her heyday? more than you would expect.

I've read the post about the best DAW, I previously used to use FL Studio for learning electronic Music, it was a good experience. But now I want to do my Album and if possible I want to sell them. So I need to be free from the bondage of copyright and other pirated things. So I thought using Pro Tools First would be a good standard because it is industry standard and offers me good quality mix and sounds and some decent effects. Right now I don't have enough money to buy a $100 DAW or even spend $10 because I'm still a student. So I would mostly like to work on free DAWs which offer good plugins and flexibility. As for now I have Ableton Live Lite which I got free when I purchased M-Audio Keystation 61. It's very limited though. I've tried studio one Prime but it doesn't have good plugins for vocals..it has good instrument set though. It's doesn't support external plugins. My main aim goal is making songs and inspirational speeches like this one https://soundcloud.com/lifeleveler/lost-but-won but I will be speaking. My songs mostly are like folk and ambient music. I like to do just a piano and vocal thing but what stops me is my playing skill and mixing skill. I'm thinking to learn to read music sheet xD I just play keyboard by hearing or seeing chords...you know self-driven musician I don't know much about chord families...just telling. So which DAW do you advice for me because the DAW which I get into now...I will have a long relationship with it.

why don't you work on your songcraft and general musicianship for a bit first and worry about this other stuff when you have a year or two more in and a few hundred decent tunes under your belt. There's an English expression that applies here, 'putting the cart before the horse.' You are trying to overcome a host of learning curves at once, maybe stop multitasking and start at the beginning.

I am going to sound harsh and blunt here, but I am trying to impress an important concept of recording music into your head: in general you keep referring to mixing as some magical process that's the key to good recorded music when it simply is NOT. Even in purely electronic music the core material is the key. This starts with a good composition, continues through the arrangement and finishes up in getting great performance/sequences/sounds that flatter each part. Whether you are micing up an acoustic guitar, programming a synthesizer or manipulating samples, doing that in a way that flatters an already strong set of motifs that support the theme of the song is the most important thing. You can hire Bob Clearmountain to mix your track, but if the song ain't happenin', the arrangement elements fight eachother and the sounds are boring or inappropriate to convey the emotion then you will get a highly polished turd back. You place entirely too much emphasis on mixing. There's a lot you can do in that stage, but a mix is only as good as the sum of its parts and sometimes an adequate mix is more than enough on fantastic material whereas a phenomenally complex, polished mix will do little for material that needed a rewrite or more time in pre-production being thought out well. Its great when everything is top notch, but song first followed by arrangement and if there's live playing then performances and sympathetic capture of those instruments/voices.... without that you are wasting your time. The song's the thing.... without it there's nothing.

I'm not trying to sound mean or start a flame war, I am just saying that the trouble with a lot of mixes, yours included, begins earlier in the process and a 'fix it in the mix' attitude isn't going to solve the problems. A more polished mix has great clarity and often highlights the issues accrued while writing, arranging, recording, sequencing etc.... I recommend focusing on one thing at a time. Work on writing songs, playing the piano well, sound design, microphone technique or arranging and 'master' that aspect and then move on.

Yea, sure. I'm working on my musicianship right now and getting to know the essence of music. As for now my list of to-do is

1. Learn Full Music theory
2. Learn Arrangement
3. Learn to sing well
4. Selecting a DAW for long-term use
5. To learn professional quality mixing and mastering
6. Make music tracks
7. Start the Album

I recently made a song please look at it and tell me whether if it was better than previous. https://soundcloud.com/nikhiljoshua/what-a-friend-test-mix

new song.... do you want a ground up critique?

here's what I've been working on.... real rough mix but all the sequencing and recording done... take a listen to the openness, progression, dynamics by way of comparison with your new tune:

lol, probably not...i just did it in hurry. But if you have the patience just give me the main points and and more thing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjPuiabqFcc how can I achieve that music/arrangement?

nice music, mine looks crap in front of this tbh.

perform live in a huge, acoustically interesting but controlled theater with an ace sound reinforcement guy working closely with a 1st rate live broadcast audio engineer? live sound and studio sound have very little in common up until the final mix and even then it can be much different if you aren't working in great big studios using lots of antural room sound for ambiance.... in short you aren't going to achieve that live theater sound and if you want to focus on being a live performer and work your way up to the nice big theaters (there's nothing like playing really loud with a band in a big concert hall, man).

EDIT: from an arrangement context? nothing special.... listen carefully and try to pick out all the parts and learn to play them individually in the correct register by ear and then you will (hopefully) wrap your head around why they are doing what they are doing and why it appeals to you

and I was thinking to make it using virtual instruments and my midi keyboard xD

Edit: Is there any way to do that using virtual instruments like xpand2 in pro tools ??something like that?

Edit2: Will try one day, but for now I'm concentrating on how to read music sheet :D

learning to read a page of music and understanding how it got there and why are different things

didn't get you?

nice music, mine looks crap in front of this tbh.

I have been doing this FOREVER.... it takes a long time for most people to be decent at all aspects of it which is why most concentrate just on writing, playing, programming or engineering... I'm also classically trained which despite what a lot of the talented but untrained 'intuitive' musicians on this site will tell you, gives me a distinct advantage if only in discipline and ear training (though it gives me a lot more tools than that, but it took half a LIFETIME to know as much as I know now and understand how to apply it and I still can't make a living at it, LOL)

didn't get you?

right, you can't know what you don't know

I apologise if I sound snotty, I am just trying to impress upon you that finding the right DAW, hoarding gear and learning the 'secrets of the top 40 mix' or whatever you imagine is going on with big budget productions is not the bandaid you imagine it is. The stuff you want to emulate has just as much craft and skill involved in the early stages and all that skill piled up taking it from the writer's initial inspiration is what makes a first rate finished project. A lot of this stuff takes a lot more man hours than you think too... just as many for seasoned professionals as novices.

You mentioned 'learning full music theory', you're not going to. That shit's bigger than both of us, buddy. Bigger than Beethoven. Every aspect of music creation is a lifelong chore. The magical ratios of harmony and rhythm between sounds will never stop surprising you no matter what you think you know and the minute you think you know it all is the minute you can go ahead and quit. The fun is the process, not the result. If I run out of discoveries in the world of music that get me all excited I'll find a new hobby. I always wanted to learn to ski....

anyway, did you want a ground up critique with a lot of constructive ideas to develop your new song? Is it meant to have a vocal on it and what's it about, broadly? What's the mood MEANT to be?