tried something different and made almost every instrument mono. then a short room reverb, a long plate reverb and a delay as return effects to create the sensation of space. it sounds a bit unusual on headphones but at least for me it sounds clearer than the muddy mess of sound that i usually end up with. i also cut a lot between 200 and 600 hz. not sure if i cut too much.
Hey @kuchenchef
Just had a listen now and I think you ended up with a very good āPre-Masterā track, the clarity is excellent.
I do think that mono-ing instruments and cutting unwanted frequencies is a very good practice in general, if you now process the all track ( I would use a stereo tool expander, a reverb as well as some analog like glue tool and saturation ) you should end up with a āfullā sounding track that would translate well on headphones again.
Nice work !! 
hi, thank you for your answer. my āmastering chainā seems to have some of the things you suggested. itās at the moment:
- brainworx control: to mono everything below 240hz and widen the stereo field a bit. should i turn that knob even further?
- a brickwall highpass eq to cut everything below 30hz, because i canāt hear anything lower on my headphones
- izotope vintage limiter: to push the volume it a bit
- waves api 2500 compressor: long attack, short release, 1:2 ratio, gain reduction around 2db, to glue the song together (at least thatās my understanding why you add this compressor, saw it somewhere in a deadmau5 video)
- izotope vintage tape: to add some saturation. used a preset as, to be honest, i have no clue what iām looking to achieve here and what the plugin settings do.
- ultra maximizer: to reduce the distance between snares and the rest of the track (just lowering the snare volume makes them sound so weak)
what should i be looking for when adding a reverb? what kind of reverb, long, short, a predelay or not? with a gate?
Hi again,
I listen to the track on headphones only, so I founded it very great in terms of clarity but missing some space to sound full, thatās what you should looking for with a reverb & a stereo field expander.
Itās not about going into details with the type of reverb, gate and tweaks, and any reverb will do as long as it sounds good, just be sure of 2 things :
1 - cut all the low frequencies before they hit the reverb and if you have harsh or high peaking frequencies in the highest freq range ( 4 k & above ), cut some as well.
2 - be very gentle with the amount of reverb.
Therefore you maybe want to take care of the stereo field before the reverb, tools like te free Flux Stereo Tools or Izotope Ozone Imager ( also free ) are great for controlling Stereo field of your mixes.
Give it a try just with the stereo tool & a short amount of filtered reverb and see where it brings the track, be gentle with the effects, you have quite a lot going on your mastering chain already. 
thanks a lot. iāll play around and see what happens.
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