Byron Dickens

I don't think I would really want to open any of my old projects.  😁

Ummm....

Why in God's name would you downgrade a Focusrite to a SoundBlaster? 

That would be like those idiots who take an $80K Mercedes S Class to the home, home, home of the $1 install to have some bootleg, BS  car stereo scotchlocked in when the dang car COMES FROM THE FACTORY  with a $2600 surround sound system that is custom designed for it.

FWIW, I  have no problems whatsoever with my 18i20.

If you gave some information as to the nature of your issues,  someone here might be able to help.  Could be something as simple as a flaky USB cable.

Two words:

Turbo Tax. 

And to make this thread music related:

Volume knob?

Not to be an ass, but using 10 year old, obsolete,  unsupported software for starters. 

Aside from that, without more Information and possibly an example,  we are all really left guessing.  

I don't understand what in God's name makes a guitar worth 7 grand in the first place. 

Record executives make lawyers and politicians look absolutely  saintly by comparison. 

Two words: room treatment. 

I'm  surprised no one mentioned that yet.  Until you have an at least somewhat accurate listening environment to mix in, it's like starting the marathon an hour after every one else does.

8.5?!?

Whenever I am gonna buy something new (I prefer to get most things used),  they are my first choice. 

Reiterating what has been said more than once already,  having an audio example would be  real helpful. 

It's about like calling up your mechanic and saying " My check engine light is on. What's wrong with my car?"   Oh, any one or more of about a thousand different things. 

What does "treated" mean?  Broadband bass traps and a combination of HF absorption and diffusion  or just some foam stuck on the wall?

I can't really speak to the vocals so much;  what I'm most familiar with tends to have them kind of buried anyway. 

Try this: go back to your drum track.  Lower the velocity of the hi hat  on every other eighth note a very small amount.  Then raise it just a tiny bit on the one of every measure.  Then select all the snare hits and nudge them just barely to the right so they are just behind the beat. Now, take the bass part and nudge it slightly to the left so it is right on the leading edge of the beat.   Try it and see how that sounds. 

2 hours ago, Michael Martinez said:

By the way, there's no guitar on this song. It's all vst synths.

You're missing the point.  It's  a figure of speech.  See,  what separates Eric Clapton's guitar  playing  from mine is not that he has his own Fender Custom Shop signature model and I only have a Made in Mexico Strat. No, what separates Eric Clapton's guitar  playing  from mine is that he's  Eric Clapton and I'm not. 

1 hour ago, Michael Martinez said:

Byron: Would you like to contribute $430 to me so I can buy Philmarmonik 2, Fairchild, and Mixbus and run my Midi files through them? I'll bet you're gonna say "that won't help", but I'm betting it would.

Send me your MIDI file.  I'll prove to you that it ain't the guitar,  it's the guitarist. 

Here:

Not a single  "real" instrument.  Nor a single real performance.   Whatever you might think of the piece,  I don't think the words "sterile" or "lifeless" apply.  Like it or hate it, it breathes and moves.

40 minutes ago, Michael Martinez said:

yeah man, real instruments. no way to compare it, real instruments played live breathe life into a song.... So you're hinting you'd like to contribute vocals/instruments on my song?

regarding previous comment on vocal melody, I'm fine with the melody, it's how I intended it. I'm fine with the cheapness of the reverb, I'm just using free vst plugins, after all.

I'm not trying to start a fight or anything. 

You asked  how to breathe life into a dull and lifeless mix.  The only way to do that is to -  well, to breathe some life into it.  There ain't a VST  in the world - free or paid - that will do that. No one makes a "soul" plugin. 

There's not a whole lot of movement in this vocal melody:

But when you hear Rob singing

There I was completely wasting, out of work and down
All inside it's so frustrating as I drift from town to town
Feel as though nobody cares if I live or die
So I might as well begin to put some action in my life
Breaking the law, breaking the law....

He's got you absolutely convinced. You can feel the frustration.  

The lyrics 

"...We fly through this godless endeavor
We try to explain the black forever

I feel helpless and alone, trapped on the third stone

I feel permanently stoned, this godless endeavor the only cage I've known

Our organic equation has shown it's flaw
Can we agree to disagree on the concept of god?
As I lifted up my brother he said to me
"Abandon naive realism, surrender thought in cold precision"

I feel empty and deranged, denied one last epiphany and ushered from the stage..."

sound pretty ethereal to me

But the delivery is full of existential angst. 

Yeah,  I  know it is a totally different style & genre, but my examples demonstrate  a lack of movement in the melody or deeply  introspective, existential lyrics are no excuse for a  dead and lifeless vocal.

Nor is playing all (or most) of the instruments yourself any excuse for a lack of  soul:

Actually,  the mix itself  is pretty good .  Everything is clearly heard and nothing clashes or gets obscured.  Mostly it is a matter of performance and arrangement. 

The song doesn't really go anywhere.  Despite the interesting little ear candy bits, it sort of just sits there.  Static. 

The reason the vocals sound dead and lifeless is because,  well, they're dead and lifeless.  The whole performance seems kinda phoned in. Her pitch timing and diction are right on, but she just ain't convincing me. No passion.  She is good, but needs some coaching to bring out a PERFORMANCE. It sounds like it was recorded in a very dead space. That's not bad,  it is often a technical necessity.  I Have to do the same thing. So do many others.  It sure beats having all those nasty flutter echoes and comb filtering flying around,  but yeah, you have to add the room in later during the mixing stage. 

Also, all the instruments sound like they were step sequenced or quantized rigidly to the grid.   Totally lacks human feel and that is the number one thing making the song sound lifeless.  See, in the '80s - when your reference song was done - everything was recorded onto 2" tape being played in real time by humans. That's the key difference,  not the right  VSTs. 

Oh, those bas....

I noticed they all made a major mistake about a minute in.

Trying again to make this music related:

So is that artistic  geniuses or autistic?

Muse Score is great! To get anything that does more costs hundreds.