One of the fastest ways to screw a good sound up is to EQ and compress it incorrectly, and how many of us consider ourselves experts in the field of sound engineering? (well, OK, how many of us actually ARE experts in that field?
probably a MUCH smaller number!
)
Let us not forget that in all likelihood, the sounds and styles (and DEFINITELY the samples) were developed without the mastering tools on. Switch them off, and the styles don't go all out of balance, do they? If they do, that's generally the sign of a mix done through a fair amount of compression and EQ...
The trick is to make the mix as balanced as you can at FIRST, and then put on the sheen (if you even need it) with the Finalizer tools.
Also, another point of the Finalizer Tools is, if you are playing out, to adjust for room acoustics and crowd level. Playing quietly to a few people needs a completely different set of EQ and compression (if any!) to playing loudly to a noisy room. But if you make the Finalizer tools as part of the basic sound, you have far fewer options to correct your sound.
Premium speakers are, of course, the answer... If you are playing through anything less than a well balanced, adequately powered system, you are going to end up doing some pretty drastic things to the sound to compensate... the trouble is, of course, whatever you do to one sound with a mastering EQ will affect ALL the sounds, probably to great detriment. Don't spend $3500 on a TOTL arranger, and play it through some crappy $300 monitors or a system designed for the compressed sound of either TV sound or computer sound. Neither of those have any dynamic range...
Bottom line is that these things were voiced at the factory to sound pretty good as is.. by guys with exceptional audio chops. Alter their settings at your peril. Learn what you are doing, always make recordings before and after, so you can judge what you did objectively (rather than making your mind up WHILE you are playing), and always remember that if you are comparing to a CD's sound, ask yourself do you WANT to sound like a CD?
Because the guys playing the music and mixing it did NOT hear it that way (the mastering is put on afterwards) and would not play it or mix it that way if they were playing live. If you want to sound like a real band, you have to PLAY like a real band, and mix and master like a real band...
If you want to MAKE CD's, fine, go for it, but if you are playing to people live, even yourself, give your arranger a chance to be dynamic and turn OFF the damn compressors, and flatten out the EQ's