This video reviews the assignment of one student that felt frustrated because no matter what mixing techniques he would apply, his music did not sound like the modern contemporary big epic orchestral trailer music.

This is the track he had trouble with. He sent in the stems so we could have a deeper look at his music.

Topics that were discussed with the student and my point of view, after the arrow –> 

“My DAW doesn’t sound good, it changes the sound” –> No sequencer is going to color or change the sound of your sample libraries or music, unless you're applying some specific effects or you're overloading your tracks or the busses/master output.

“Because my computer doesn’t have many resources and I easily overload it, does it affect to the sound quality?” –> No. CPU overload does not affect to audio quality. You may get clicks, pops, and dropouts during playback but the final offline export is going to sound fine.

“My DAW sounds muffled. When I use a plug-in, it sounds immediately muffled. For example I composed a copy of Bach strings quartet, and the sound in the end was very muffled” –> No plugin or DAW is going to affect the sound quality or muffle the sound of the samples, unless you’re deliberately cutting some frequencies with EQ or applying some warmth type of plugin.

Thoughts about music sounding muffled.

1) The final sound of your music comes down to the sound of your sample libraries

2) Also, arrangement plays a major role in how your music sound. Small orchestration details such us subtle high percussion, high woodwinds dubbing the strings, etc. can add a considerable amount of brightness and definition to your music

3) It is a common technique to apply some brightest during the mastering process by adding a frequency exciter and also boosting the high frequencies with a subtle high shelf. That adds brightness and gets rid of the muffled sound. Be careful not to add too much of it!

This video review the whole track and comments on the potential arrangement problems that make it not to have a finished, polished and compact sound.