This are my two new tracks. What do you think?
Hey @niklasp
Dynamic track, liked the break section, found the overall track a bit saturated but I do believe it’s on purpose 
- Would like to see other’s listeners feedback as well !!
Thanks @Tekalight for your comment. Maybe someone else wants to provide a comment too. The saturation is not my purpose. I hope it is better now.
“The saturation is not my purpose. I hope it is better now.”
Well, I thought you use a bit crusher or cranked up a compressor/limiter to do that It’s mainly audible on your pluck synth sounds & the higher freq. synths parts. If using a limiter on your master then check some levels of your highs if they hit the limiter without being filtered, that can help as well as de-essing sometimes.
But again, it’s not a major issue, I haven’t try to crank up the listening volume like crazy tough… 
no bitcrusher and no heavy compression on the master channel. maybe the high frequencies are a bit too harsh? i don’t know. can’t figure it out. and when i compare to different commercial tracks, each one tells another story. david guetta’s music has very loud high frequencies, while avicii has moderat or calm highs. can’t say.
Yes, like I wrote in the first post, I thought it was done on purpose, so it’s a question of taste and listening habits, you’re right saying that it’s hard to tell. I love clarity & dynamics in music, that’s probably a reason for me being catch by those details when I pay attention to a track…
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Still expecting to see others comment here, I’m sure everyone could benefit of other’s advise & point of view, would like to see more feedback & exchange on the SA forums !
Returning the favour for listening to my track
Although not normally my cup of tea the overall vibe of this track is quite good. I liked the breakdown and drop. My ears arent as well trained to give technical feedback but the mixdown is good and the dynamics are quite good. (the bassline reminded me of the public domain remix of yves deryter back to earth which cant be all bad). Keep up the good work.
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@Tekalight I remember that I have a multiband stereo widener by Melda on the master channel. the band for the highs I activated an integrated exciter (very slightly). do you think it is to much?
It’s hard to tell if it’s too much, what I was trying to point at before is that you may want to filter some of the highs, using a 12 dB High-Pass filter to get rid of the high frequencies above 10K before they pass through your master channel effects.
Listening to the track again and playing with the volume this time, I noticed that you have a lot of white noises fx sounds and you add something to the kick to give it a very bright/noisy tail, it could be those frequencies as well.
You can use a trusty frequency analyzer to see if you have very prominent peaks and try to use a mid-side EQ accordingly then, but give a try to High-Pass filtering above the 10K range to start.
Levels hitting a regular 3dB here when listening, with some peaks above reaching almost 2dB, it’s the volume of a mastered track, you don’t want to crank it up more and if your nasty frequencies are not filtered before being pushed to that level, they will sound really harsh & noisy and could screw up your mix.
But again, it’s based on my own listening ( and let’s not talk about room acoustic issues & differences, but it also affect the listening experience of course ) so, it’s just common practice that you could try to see where it brings the mix. At the end is what comes out of the speakers that matters, if you feel that the mix sounds right & that there nothing you could do to improve it, then it means it’s ready to go to the outside world and meet criticism !!
Hallo. Yes, I use a ride on the kick. White noise is very much. Not shure if it is too loud?
But I reduced the high frequencies above 12 kHz. I think it is better now. Do you want to listen again?
Listening right now ( can already tell that you lower down your final master volume 
) and you can see that it’s still punchy & that it now distort less when you crank up the volume no ??
So yes, find more clarity now when listening, you probably reduced the ride level as well, and the filtering is also improving the track, for sure you had to much of the noise frequencies. Still some little grey areas with that, you can here it at around 1:50 time ( on the radio edit for timing ref. ) reaching the end of the break and bringing tension back ( noise fx & clap tail + reverb effect causing the same effect I suppose ).
But I find it much more nice now, you’re now peaking a bit under -6dB, which is not a mastered level anymore but the mix is still punchy & dynamic and with more clarity.
Now the real question is : What do YOU think about it now ??
So as a conclusion : I think it’s really important to have a correct gain staged mix and to work at low levels, to filter unwanted frequencies ( especially if you send them to effects ), many people think about filtering the low end, but the highs can really harm a mix as well, especially when using white noise kind of sounds ), you can EQ a lot per track prior to your Mix-Bus or Master Channel. There are many ways to do it, find tools & workflow that works for you : the goal is to have a clean mix reaching your master chain effects, if it’s clean and if you are using a decent limiter and a good mastering EQ, you can push up a mix from -14 dB to -3 / - 2 db without too many artifacts. If you leave nasty frequencies in there, you will end up with problems when trying to do the same.
Hope that makes sense and could help !
Cheers !
Mastering levels are quite different label by label. Compared to radio mastered tracks like the music of Avicii my track ‘Decent’ can compete quite well. But compared to releases on Spinnin’ Records it can’t. Their tracks are very loud and full. So the question is: What do you want to compete with?
Thanks for your detailed answer. Regarding your advice to the harsh frequencies with fuller sections in the song (end of break for instance) I use a compressor on a group channel where all tracks with reverb are sent to. The compressor’s treshhold is automated and reduced in this sections to reduce the overall volume of the song loudness, which becomes quite loud in these sections.
That’s were it comes in handy to filter the frequencies before hitting the effects, in this case before the reverb and the comp, the automation threshold will works against levels only, you could use a multi-band comp to have more control over frequencies but the story is always the same : if you let your nasty/unwanted freq. passing through your effects they will be in there, what ever you do !!