How do I get my song to sound more “real”?

I wrote a song in the late 99s that I just decided to record last week. If I had to say what song it should sound similar to production-wise, it would be Hey Jealousy by the Gin Blossoms.

I recorded everything one track at a time. Everything is real except the kick drum. No matter how I tweak the eq, I cannot get it to sound like the Gin Blossoms song, either the kick has too much low end or not enough. Their song has each instrument in their distinct space. Mine is just a load of crap. I like my song though it would go nowhere these days. I am just in the process of making acceptable versions of all my poorly recorded songs from years past

Here. Is a link to 10 seconds of each song, I would love to hear what I am in doing wrong sonically. Thanks.

YouTube
 
If you want help I would post the full track. 10 seconds on the end of a youtube video isn't enough. You don't need to post 10 seconds of a reference track, just mention it - people can just pull it up on youtube.
 
The master bus has a compressor at 2:1 and then a limiter set to 0.7 output. The rest of the tracks have minimal eq on everything and compressor on bass, snare and kick. Like I said, I have not done anything to it yet. However, in my car, it sounds bass heavy. But when I listen in my room, it is nowhere as fat as the Gin Blossoms song. If I fatten it up to sound like that, it will be really bassy in my car. My guitars sound like brittle and theirs sounds defined. Not looking for pro advice. I guess I am asking people to use their ears and pick out what sounds offensive or so different from the real song and maybe a few tips on how to get to the desired sound.

I hear a major difference in the 10 seconds. The rest of the song sounds the same overall. I put them together so users wouldn't need to search the original.
 
The biggest thing that leaps out at me is that you have a single guitar track going down the middle.

The GB song has two guitars panned opposite each other. A lot of the "fullness" you're hearing comes from that. It also means that less is happening in the middle, so that sounds clearer.
 
Oddly, I have two separate guitars each slightly panned left and right, around 10 and 2. Not sure why it sounds like one down the middle. I played two parts, albeit the same guitar through the same Marshall amp. Maybe they are two similar? They aren’t exact though.
 
Oddly, I have two separate guitars each slightly panned left and right, around 10 and 2. Not sure why it sounds like one down the middle. I played two parts, albeit the same guitar through the same Marshall amp. Maybe they are two similar? They aren’t exact though.

Oh. You probably want them much farther out then. If you listen to hey jealousy on headphones, you can hear that they're completely hard-panned.
 
As said above, pan the guitars harder and maybe put them a bit further up in the mix. The bass is currently overpowering it a bit.
 
Yeah, the panning is very wide in the reference track. Bass is too woofy and needs some cuts. Snare is tighter in the reference. Maybe just swap in a triggered sample to get closer.

I'd probably work on getting the drums and bass a lot closer and check back with that, then bring the guitars in.
 
Thanks. I can pan the guitars further but I don’t think that will fix the boominess. I will teak around and see what happens. Are we sure it is the bass and not the kick that is too boomy? I’ll adjust the bas and post. Thanks for any and all suggestions.

My goal is to just get a good mix of every song and not keep all of the projects for the future. I’m. To the Beatles so no one is going to begging for a remix or bonus tracks many years for now. Just want them mixed and done with no original tracks left behind. These songs aren’t going anywhere other than my own collection.
 
Put a high pass filter on the bass and kick. Too much low end, and too loud. The guitar tone seemed too thin. Did you cut a bunch of low frequencies? Also as was said before, hard pan the guitars both far left and far right and bring up in the mix. You'll want to separate the EQ on each, maybe put a 3dB cut at one freq on one guitar and add that freq on the other, and vice versa. Ideally when recording you want the two guitars to be as different as possible, with different amps/guitars/effects/tones, etc. to get a better stereo sound.
 
as said before, i think panning guitars is really important if you want a fuller/realler sound. I would also up the mid frequencies on those guitars, to make them "pop" a bit more in your mix. otherwise the track doesnt a sound bad at all.
 
I just re-recirded the two guitars direct today instead of mic’d with a Marshall. I’ll throw up a rough mix and more of the song.
 
Hi,,, saw you mention how it sounds in your car, vs the mixing environment.

Treating the room is what will help with that. usually... Improve. or upgrade might help if you already have treatment.

So your guessing what to set things to. You may be better off with headphones, but I'd suggest Sonarworks or Arc 2, to help with the translation issues you hear.
THen you'll actually be mixing with more of a permanent mindset.
 
My room is 12' by 24' (basically, a rectangle). I have my desk on in the middle of the 12' wall. I am set back about 2' so that my monitors are more than 1' away. I have 3" foam behind the speakers. I don't have anything over my head other than the ceiling tile (which is a soft fiberglass). I don't think that putting anything on the walls behind me will help because they are 22'behind my speakers and I listen at a low volume, so I am not so sure that there is much reflection at all. I think the biggest problem could be the corners where I sit. Maybe bass traps will help. I haven't tried headphones yet because I would think they would color the sound too much with excessive bass.

I never heard of sonar works but I looked at the website. I may try that. Thanks. I will post another mix in the next day or so to see if I am closer to what I want to hear.
 
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