I think it sounds good sonically, mixed well. The clap/snare could use more bottom around 180-250hz (I just got done picking apart the track in my sig and realized my claps had no weight after listening to a bunch of other tracks).

Arrangement wise I really like the intro and how smooth it is, however I feel the Riser and the drop come in kind of abruptly, like it switches from the ambient style right into the hard style out of nowhere.  It would be nice to have some subtle cues in the intro to let you know something heavy might be coming.  It just seemed like it didnt develop enough into that transition.  The drop however, I do like.  It is just the transition I think.

Even if someone could just tell me how this sounds loudness/ rms wise, I self-mastered this track and even just 1 or 2 more sets of ears would help a bunch to let me know if this sounds loud enough while still being listenable. I am definitely not a pro mastering engineer lol - but I would at least like my tracks to be listenable.

Thanks in advance if you take the time

that mirror is like the perfect hi freq reflector, where on the other side you have shades with many seperate blades that are at an angle and help diffuse the sound.  This could cause high end comb filtering.

pretty cool ideas you've got here! It is definitely mixed well with what you've got going on. That being said, I think it could use some more layers. It feels a bit thin to me. I think that main lead feels a bit pre-set ish to me, if you know what I mean. I think it is a little too simple to be the "Main" sound in your song.

Keep up the good work dude!

Thanks for the positive words!

I get what you mean, it is a pretty cookie cutter sounding old school house lead.  Im working on either processing the existing sounds to sound more full or adding/swapping a different low mid layer, this specific sound has some resonances that clash with almost all other sounds... hard to layer with it.  May have to change everything lol.  Everything else sounds good to me though. Good problem to have.

I am also working on brightening it up a bit as well.

Will post an update soon.

Thanks again for any other feedbacK!

Quote from: IKIS on March 18, 2016, 06:54:10 pm

Take it easy on the compressors / limiters / clipping. There are literally no dynamics.

You don't alwasy need to compress absolutely everything, and when you do a master compression / clipping / limiting the compression will just multiply and fuck shit up.

Ask yourself if a sound needs compressing, more than often some sounds do not need any compressing necessarily.

you're absolutely right, i need to think in a more coherent way when i mix, thanks for the advice!

Its good you fix it now, about a year or so ago I started to only use compressors on my busses or on a specific sound that really needed it.   My premasters have gone up in quality a lot, try to fix sounds at the source and then if you need to EQ do it.

This is really good man!
Mixdown sounds really clean to me too, great job on this, really have nothing to criticize here at all.

Just one question, what'd you use for those violins that come 1:46?

Thanks man, the violins are Kontakt factory Library -> orchestral ->strings ->violin. In fortepiano mode.  However no matter what you do the attacks are kind of slow in this library, so I put on a waves multiband transient shaper to try and pop some more attack out of them.  One thing I also do is turn off the factory reverb on them and use waves rverb instead with the wet automated.

Quote from: Johann Stone on January 07, 2016, 02:54:25 pm

Hey guys and gals!
I was wondering if you were ballsy enough to share some of the plugins that define your sound or you use frequently to get some specific sounds .
Ill start

Maserati gti guitar compressor

This is my mothership.
I use this on leads and basses in almost all of my productions (i later found out that eric prydz is really fond of it aswell) this really makes my sounds come alive and makes them stand out nicely in the mix

Bbe sonic maximizer

Mostly use this on my leads to makem them crispier and more powerfull. This can make tinny plucks really stand on their own and heavy synths really shine.

Static phasers

I often use this to make sawy basses get a unique character and even stabby synths to sound experimental

Now what do you guys use ?

My complaint with the Maserati Waves GTi and other Maserati plugs is that they make it near impossible to level match bypass vs processed. The only way you can evaluate wether processing is helping a sound is to compare level matched before and after. Our brains always fool us into thinking louder is better, but without level matching we're potentially just fooling ourselves.

 On certain source material with even moderate "sensitivity" and "tame" settings  the GTi boosts the level +12db or more, but the output control only has a small attenuation range making it impossible to properly level match within the plugin itself. It sounds pretty good otherwise, but that quirk is annoying.

Yea that is definitely annoying, you should be able to do it within the plugin.  Quick workaround is to put the plugin in a rack with a utility/gain nob and match with that then turn the rack on and off (if you are in ableton).  However I'm sure you already knew that  love your music btw. Just  saying it for others.