[Emersion] EP Recently Remastered in X1 Producer Expanded

Difficult to be totally objective without your previous versions to compare to, but to my ears, these tracks still sound a bit over compressed.

There's no doubt you've got some good sounds & ideas going on here Jason, I think you just need to back off with your compression a bit. This feeling is also reinforced by looking at your waveforms. Whilst not exactly Brick-shaped, there's not an awful lot of dynamics going on.

You're nearly there! Just let your tracks breathe a little more.

Thanks for the listen. Compared to modern rock tracks, I actually laid off the compression what I thought was a lot. I was going for the loud factor and still trying to keep some dynamics, especially with the rhythm section. I definitely wanted to avoid the brick shape waveforms (can somebody say Metallica's Death Magnetic?). Thanks again. I've worked on these songs for awhile now trying to "learn the craft". I'm currently wrapping up recording on 11 new songs that I've written the last couple of years and will hopefully get those up soon. Thanks again!
P.S. Listen to tracks 5, 6, and 8 for some more dynamics.

You know, I wasn't initially going to reply to this, but I decided to go ahead and do it after a day of thinking about it.
I asked for opinions and I got them, thank you. But where does it sound brittle and harsh? Is it a certain guitar? A certain part of the song? Did you listen to the other songs and is it there too? Did you consider the genre? If you do not like loud guitars and rock n' roll, then a distorted guitar is going to sound a little harsh. That is what I like and that was what I was trying to emulate - I just wanted to eq out a lot of the harshness from the digital recording. I'll take constructive criticism, but to say it is still harsh and not elaborate?
I recorded these songs 3-4 years ago on some very primitive equipment. I probably still have primitive equipment compared to what most of you have. Alas, I recorded these OLD songs on an old 2001 Dell computer with hardly any RAM and only 80 GB of storage. I had an M-Audio USB interface and recorded everything onto an late 90's / early 2000 version of Cubase. The drum tracks were done on Fruityloops and since I've upgraded all I have are single stereo.wav files of the drums and I made the mistake of not even humanizing them so they still sound a little robotic.
Two years ago I upgraded to a Dell Studio XPS 8100 with an Intel Core i5 processor, 6 GB of RAM, 1 TB of storage. I also bought Sonar 8.5 Producer and a Cakewalk UA250EX. I had my son and took a break for awhile and never really worked a whole lot in 8.5, but when I did I loved it and could tell a huge improvement in the recorded sound. I started re-mixing these OLD songs and upgraded to X1 just very recently.
My set-up and experience are probably nothing compared to yours, but I am eager and willing to learn. I also desire to put these songs in my head "to tape" and make them sound good with what I had/have. I am now working on several new songs and just wanted to use these old songs as practice to hone the craft. I want to learn! Again, I will probably never have the equipment you do. I just wanted to make what I had recorded several years ago sound as good as I can with what I had to work with. I'm done with this project and want to take some ideas and lessons and move on.
Oh, and I have learned a lot since I recorded these songs. I realized I was still going too far with the amp distortion on my guitar parts. I've since rolled that back. I was also recording leads through an additional gain pedal - which I will never do again. I also learned tenfold in mixing and even mastering.
Sorry for the rant, just wanted you to know where I was coming from. I appreciate feedback, so let me know where you're coming from. Jonesy had great comments and elaborated. Lynn felt as though they did not hear any harshness - I appreciate those comments very much. Lynn was also taking the genre into account. I listen to a lot of Pearl Jam, Alice In Chains, Godsmack, Staind, Soundgarden, Nine Inch Nails, etc, so that is where my sound is coming from.
Thanks everybody, I hope you enjoy my music as much as I've enjoyed creating it. We're all creative people; let's just support each other.

Are you trying to clean up a wav. file that has already been mixed together or do you have the individual tracks? If you have the individual tracks, then there is hope for some individual panning and other mixing like limiting, compression and mastering of each track. But, if you are trying to just clean up an older wav. file then you could be over compensating the entire mix altogether. I have tried this myself (fix a wav . mixed file) and have made them worst than the original mix and had to replay the entire piece altogether again. The folks above are just giving their Professional opinion, because you asked for them, so listen and learn. We have all been through many trials and tribulations with our editing skill and most of us still have a long way to go, especially learning software and using what ever equipment we have to work with. Some have more than others, some are college and professionally educated. Patients is a virtue and all things come together with time. I have ruined many guitar pieces trying things on my own, instead of listening to those who do this for a living or have many more years of experience. Keep working on your piece, trying new and exciting things, and it will all come together for you. Peace be with you. Blessings, John

PS, By the way, you have a great start to something even better. Peace! John

So, after digesting some of the comments it sounds as though it's an EQ mixing issue. I need to go in and sweep out the harsh frequencies (something I did not do), roll 'em out, and then it should sound even better? I can't just fix it in the shrink wrap?!!? Is it just electric guitar. Lead, Rhythm, all? Do I need to revisit the mixing EQ altogether? But overall, panning, volume, effects, etc are okay? One mistake I did make which I cannot go back and correct is in the late 90's when I was recording stuff with bands, I saw an inexperienced (didn't realize it at the time) engineer normalizing a lot of the tracks (and if I remember correctly the final wav file) to bring up the volume. I did that with the drum tracks and bass in this project. Next time I should just use a limiter, right? Any input appreciated. Thanks!