Hello everyone,
just finished my second track in Cubase. It´s a trance track @ 138bpm. I call it velocity.
Have a listen and tell me what you think about. If there is something I can improve, then I am happy when you leave a comment. 
Thank you.
Hey there @Tom_Tom
Nice track with a nice progression for this BPM style, just by the very end, the bass arpeggio synth sounds a bit out of sync to my listening 
, just a minor detail that catches my ears when listening.
Mixing wise, you’ve got plenty of room & dynamic range in there, so it could be interesting to push the track further to reach some commercial/mastering levels. Maybe the main lead synth a tiny bit too loud when some low end could be increase, but just minors adjustments I think.
Nice work for this genre
Cheers !
Hi Tekalight,
thank you very much for your positive comment on my track. 
Since then I have corrected the mistakes you mentioned. Many thanks for the hint. 
Furthermore I tried to optimize or replace the sounds of the individual tracks. I personally like the bassline much better now. The pads have also been reworked. I also optimized the volume of the individual tracks including the master track.
What do you think?
Here the new link:
Cheers!
Hi @Tom_Tom
Drastic change indeed 
Yep, I also prefer the bass now as well as the synths, the bass is much more present comparing to the first version and the synths are shining through the mix.
When you had plenty of room to play with in the first version, you pushed this one really hard watch out with levels, some elements start to saturate a bit too much now and the kick is much more “in your face” and loud now. It’s ok when all elements are playing together, but at the beginning of the track it’s sounds really loud. You could adjust the level again or filter the kick in and use some volume automation during the first bars of the track.
Always a tedious task to “self master” a track, in this case you really improved the final mix comparing to the previous version, just don’t push it too hard, remember that if you gonna upload this one outside of SoundCloud ( like Tidal, YT …etc ) they will squash it anyway with normalization process. Using LUFS metering next to standard dBFS metering can help in this case, there’s a interesting & good course from Kirk Degiorgio here about this Understanding Loudness and Metering with Kirk Degiorgio | Tutorial 01 - Plug-in Gain Staging Metering Device
Cheers !
cannot comment on the mixing as i’m listening on headphone. in general it has a very nice “classic” sound to it. reminds me of some records i owned in the late 90s. with regards to the melody it is not overly memorable. that’s not necessarily a problem. in its current state i would call it more a ‘build up song’, a song in a dj set that is preparing the crowd for another song, for a climax.
if you want to develop it further, the songs i would look into for inspiration:
- anna grace - the john luniz dub remix (somewhere on a discoboys sampler)
- chicane - saltwater (you can emulate that vocals with eastwest or cantus vst)
- and of course energy 52 - cafe del mar or born slippy… that would simply be a back and forth between this monotone dance movement and a very cheesy, memorable, chord based melody
Hi Tekalight and kuchenchef,
thank you very much for your comments and the link to the tutorial. That was very helpful. 
However, mixing a track is anything but easy. That cost me some nerves and I tried back and forth. 
There were also some setbacks. I have tried to master the track by streaming platforms. With the new result I am very curious about your opinion and I hope that the goal has come a little closer.
As far as the Melody is concerned, you can of course optimize further. At least that’s what I’ve planned for future tracks. I know all the mentioned tracks very well and I think that I can approach the whole thing step by step over time. 
I’m looking forward to your feedback.
Many greetings
TomTom
https://soundcloud.com/tom-lehmkuhl/tomtom-velocity-final-touches
Hey again @Tom_Tom
Sorry for the late reply, I’m in the middle of Home Studio & Computer + audio software new setup here
Still have to go through monitors calibration & a few things before jumping back into critical listening…LOL
Should be good to go before the week-end though, will catch up on this new version and update my today comment then.
Catching up later then
Cheers !
Hey again @Tom_Tom
So OK, got to listen to the new version
In my case, I prefer to raise the volume knob than to have to quickly put everything down, so the levels are better and I think this mix has gained some clarity. I was able to crank up the volume knob quite hard and didn’t get too much unwanted distortion during playback. I find the low end more pleasant now, the kick for example got rid of that extra “thump” low-end that was sucking a lot of dynamic out of the track in the previous version, now it sounds more short and let other transients coming through. I prefer this, that’s what I mean by clarity, you can now here more elements if you pay attention, the kick was masking some of them before I think.
But maybe people will prefer the previous loudest version, it’s often the case, make the test around you if you can and get people to do some A/B listening or leave the tracks on SndCld & compare the likes.
So now of course with this new version, you now have lower levels and some headroom to play with. You could try to raise the all mix or push it a bit harder with a limiter if you want to compete with a “commercial” track but it’s the point where things are getting difficult, also the point where you could ruin any track.
The story behind this ( since the beginning ) is that YES : it’s a very difficult task to try to master your track yourself and it will give you some hard time and even bring disappointment along the way. That’s why many artist don’t push themselves into this area and hang over their mixes to audio engineers. So yea, definitely a critical and hard step in the process that involves a lot of work & practice before you’ll feel confident about doing it, but don’t make yourself crazy with a perfect master as a goal to reach
Do not expect any of the online mastering platforms to give you a magical & perfect result and to replace an audio engineer work on your mix, there’s no any advanced AI science or best in the world algorithm to replace that.
Those tools can help to re-balanced a mix, in terms of tonal balance and levels and help you to make the track sit in a defined headroom & overall level range but they won’t do magical voodoo You can use them to kind of “normalize” an already well balanced mix with for example 6dBFS of headroom in mind, or you could perhaps benefit of some algorithm correction when targeting specific outputs levels such as online distribution like YT, Tidal, Spotify…ect. And again, your mix have to be already sounding good before. I don’t believe in using extreme settings and push a mix down to a master level track using those online platforms, it has to be done through incremental steps along the process IMHO.
Next to that, keep in mind that it’s all starting with how your mix-down sounds in the end, it’s really the key, and the most you’ve been able to achieve during mix-down, the less tedious the track should be to master.
So before even thinking to final master a track, you have to be happy with your mixing work and the same principle applies for those online mixing/mastering services : if what you upload on there is not already good, it won’t make magic.
I won’t dive into the melody & arrangement too much here, but @kuchenchef raised some good points in his comments. The only thing I would say in general about melody, arrangement & sounds is that if the track has got something appealing, it would work, even if the mastering isn’t perfect, because that’s the first essence of music : to catch people brain’s & souls and getting them to be hooked by a sound, a chord, a rhythm…
Take all of this easy, don’t push yourself too hard on one track to get it perfect, that’s where you’ll have a good chance to ruin your efforts, take breaks and learn at your own pace, don’t expect to have it sound perfect in first place and keep the creative side of music making separated from the technical one. It takes time to get there and along the way you need to keep the fun & passion of doing it & learning.
It’s a good idea to keep a copy of your work while your progressing to be able to A/B when you started and what you’ve done a few month, years after. Many people will through complete mixes into the trash because they are not happy with them but if you’re not referencing your own progress it can sometime be an endless cycle.
Sorry for the long writing & hope you found something useful in the comments
Cheers !