First mix needs serious help

[RedChord]

Hey I posted this in the beginner forums originally, where it is now slowly dying a lonely quiet death. So I figured this one may get more exposure.

For all intents and purposes, this is my first at home recording, and I'm wondering why it sounds so weak. And by weak, I mean I have to crank the volume much higher to hear this than the mix of others, even though the levels in Reaper are telling me it is about to clip. Is it that I'm recording directly into reaper through the pod x3 live? I've heard this can give less than desirable results. Or is it just that my guitar tone is balls?

The drums are the latest version of Superior 2.0. I'm mapping them in fruity loops 8, and then exporting them to a .wav file, which I then record over in reaper. I don't record in FL8 because I get some nasty latency for some reason.

Any tips would be awesome, not necessarily just the issue with volume. I've got a bunch of song and riff ideas that I want to be able to put into at least a decent, listenable format that I can be somewhat proud of, but I'm not there yet.

 

[faaip]

When you say crank the volume, do you mean the master volume or the individual volume of each track?

 

[RedChord]

Well the levels on the master track are pretty high. They would clip constantly if they were any higher. I mean I have to listen to my complete mix at significantly higher volumes through whatever speakers it is playing through, versus most any other mix. Example, if I'm listening on my pc, I have to turn up the volume on the speakers much higher than if I listen to a cd, or a different mix posted on this site.

 

[Kurkkuviipale]

It's not maximized. Send the mix over and I'll do my best on mastering.

E: Be sure to leave -3db of headroom MINIMUM. (set the master track volume so that the highest peak is @ -3db)