Any lossy compression with bitrate too low will sound worse. So yes, loseless formats are good to have.

But as far as higher bitdepths or samplerates go, imho it's totall bullcrap. It does matter when producing, so you don't have to worry about headroom too much (ability to record quiet with all the details preserved while using higher bitdepths), you don't have to worry about aliasing too much (when operating higher samplerates), but as far as distribution format goes? Total bullcrap.

Until we stop using brickwall limiters, bithdepts over 16bit will be always irrelevant for distribution. All your dynamics are happening at like upper 20% of headroom. ...with quiet parts not being quiet enough to suffer. ...may be when listening like a classic music with huge dynamic range, but otherwise no point in this. 
And as far as samplerate goes, two signals with same source in different samplerates will cancel each other out as far as your interpolation processing doesn't suck.

...imho it's just marketing.

^ Oh this is good one. I might be kinda guilty of this too.

*Cheesy topic alert!*
Similar to "top tips" topic, but that's about current advice. I'm more interested in your own reflection. If you could make a phone call to your few years younger self, what would you tel him/her? What advices would you give? Let's reflect a bit, so new guys can learn from our own flaws.

Mine would be:

Find likeminded people.
...as soon as you can. I mean truly likeminded. They are hard to find. You can have hundred friends. ...supportive ones even. But usually they don't see inside your damn brain when it comes to music. You need people that do. And when you find them, keep them close as much as you can. Chances are they'll bacome your frineds anyway.

Go local.
Learn that damn decks and get yourself out there. Not your damn SC account, yourself. Otherwise a point comes when you get affraid to do it.

Take chances.
Failure is a good thing. It will happen a lot. You really do need to learn from it, but don't be scared of it. Chances you won't fail are actually really thin, but you'll never find if you run away from it.

Forget your past.
Focus on who you want to become. On a lot of levels, including your music taste. It all shows in your music, trust me.

Don't listen to every advice.
Getting obsessed by a detail is much easier when you have tons of contradicting advice hanging over it. Throw it away and filter only stuff you feel applies to your kind of music.

Share.
When you are happy about something, get it out. When you can't crack something, get it out too. It's easier not to, but it leads to "nobody would care" doubt ... which is a killer.

I'm still battling with few of these, but it might have been easier if I realized them much sooner.
Yours?

Classically-trained pianist Mitis is giving me the feelz today:
The whole EP is pretty solid too. Pretty. and solid.

+1

I'm on Rameses B medication today.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ea7SbE9hzS8

Totally. In my case even on the most micro level you can find. Need topline melody? I'll jamm ten good ones, but once the record button is on, little doubt sneaks in:
"Would this actually work? Is that right? *...there goes first mistake.* Don't worry about it, you can fix that, it's midi. So, would it work?
Wouldn't d# be better? *...now I'm playing total bullshit.* ...wait a moment, how that melody went?" ...aaaand the idea is over.

I wonder if for example getting drunk or stoned would actually help with this.

Thanks man! Tension. Noted. Tbh I keep forgetting that. Thanks for listen!

My guess was the playback system too. Quickest way to show us what you're talking about is to render a bit of it out and post it here.

Work Ethic topic: https://theproducersforum.com/index.php?topic=3252.0

In that case I'd say consider yourself lucky. My damn body has no problem to stay in this "half-asleep" state whole night. When that happens, the next day is pretty much sh*t.  ...on so many levels.