A New Song! But....I have dynamic range concerns :(

[reverbdk]

I'm excited that I've finally finished up a track on my own with some new equipment; the song is called "Valley Song," and it's on my soundcloud account below:

Valley Song by brobront on SoundCloud - Create, record and share your sounds for free

I finished up giving this track a rough, at-home, "mastering" job. Upon listening to it in the car I noticed the dynamic range is almost too much for me. There are parts where I found myself turning the volume up, and then it got too loud so I had to turn it down. I'm looking for any tips you guys may have on taking care of this issue from a homerecording perspective: should I go back to the mix and alter levels of the tracks? Do you think it is a compression issue? Or maybe my ears are just fooling me into thinking it's an issue. Either way, feedback would be appreciated.

(I used Reaper for this track, and the master had a compressor (ReaComp), EQ (ReaFir), and a limiter (masterlimiter) when I rendered it. )

 

[Stratomaster]

Sounds pretty good to me. The vocal is so dry! It sounds detached from the music which sounds ethereal. I think the vocal could be blended into the music better which might give you some more dynamic range to work with overall. The sounds you chose and the mix overall sound good to me.

Strat

 

[BryanMoore]

I really quite enjoyed this tune. It is a very dynamic song, but that's not neccesarily bad. It's not the kind of song I would listen to in my car, anyway. It's the kind of song I would listen to while working on my computer at home or in the office. In those environments, the dynamic range is welcomed. I thought it sounded great. Personally, I really liked the dry vocals juxtaposed with the "ethereal" instrementation.

 

[reverbdk]

haha yeah the vocals are pretty dry in this one. i've tended to put my vocals pretty far back in the mix alongside the instruments (don't get me wrong, it's something that I've always enjoyed doing and have always thought sounded better than a focus on the vocals) but this time around I was feeling a little braver with them and decided to see what they felt like upfront.