Musics wich sounds "muddy"

[NotreDame]

Hi ! Sometimes, while listening to some tracks, especially Trance ones, I really feel that there is something "muddy" in it.

For example, this track :
The fact that there is many elements played at the same time, the big reverb ambience, the loud lead, and the sound being very compressed made it very dynamic, but at the same time the sound loose clarity.

For example, if I want to hear of the bassline sounds during the drop, I have to concentrate myself on it, it is not easy.
Same thing for the kick, it is very subby, there is a lot of low content, it is dynamic and punchy but not clear.

Do you feel the same thing about this track ?

And does it happen to you to hear some tracks with this "muddy" feeling ?

[SampleScience]

The track sounds very clear to me. I wouldn't like a clean mix similar to what we used to hear in the early 90s were everything sounded super clean but lifeless. A little bit of grit in this genre of music makes it more interesting imo. Of course, it's all very subjective.

[NotreDame]

What do you mean by clear ?
Do you agree with me that it is very compressed ?
This is probably what make the track a bit fatiguing.

Same thing for the kick ? Can you hear the kick really clearly ?...

[NotreDame]

I made a vocabular mistake. Yes I inverted clear and clean.
So yes I agree the track is clear (This is very important in trance...), but is voluntarily (I don't Say That the mixdown is bad) not clean, due to compression I think.

It's look like a multiband compressor have been applied to make low end punchy also, but it result in unclean kick and bass.

Do You agree ?

[Vortifex]

..

[Daimonicon]

The track sounds very clear to me.

Indeed

[Lotuzia]

It's just drenched in reverb. This triggers the muddy thing feel

[dark water]

Arrangement wise it's fine for the genre: there's enough space between the separate elements to allow everything to do its job.
It's a staple trance tune. Not my cup of tea, but I've heard enough of them to know that this fits nicely into the ballpark.

Yes, it is over-compressed, as is a LOT of club music nowadays.
Maybe it was intended to be so, and/or maybe the additional compression of Youtube and mp3 issue has also had an effect?

Doesn't sound 'muddy' to me - but adjectives are often useless here, as we're dealing with such subjective opinions.

[JJ_Jettflow]

It's just drenched in reverb. This triggers the muddy thing feel

Using some pre-delay on large reverb will help create separation between the source and the reverb and will add clarity.

[wickfut]

I made a vocabular mistake. Yes I inverted clear and clean.
So yes I agree the track is clear (This is very important in trance...), but is voluntarily (I don't Say That the mixdown is bad) not clean, due to compression I think.

It's look like a multiband compressor have been applied to make low end punchy also, but it result in unclean kick and bass.

Do You agree ?

Yes. It's as if the drums are some lo-fi sample incorrectly EQ'd and placed over the music. They sound like they're from different songs but merged together.

edit:

listened again. The whole track sounds like a low bit rate mp3.

[cron]

It sounds like there's a huge chunk of the spectrum EQed out. You've got this (IMO) massively overhyped top end that's boosted to a ludicrous degree, and a kick drum with the pitch/spectral focus surprisingly high, and there's very little inbetween. The massively boosted high end is the main problem from my perspective though.

Not sure if the mastering engineer or mix is to blame there. Or hey, maybe that's just how trance is mixed these days. I really wouldn't know