Hi Cardinal, cool track. Lovely sense of space and dynamics! I'd like to hear your drop/dive noise a bit louder just before the second half kicks in (the dive at around 2:33). I think it would give the transition a bit more anticipation and create a better lead-in for when the beat comes back.
Nice vibes!

Hi Dylan thanks for the feedback :)
What you say makes sense, I'm still not completely satisfied with the drop as it is.
I wanted to make it sound big so I tried lowering the riser to add contrast but it's maybe too much now.
I'll try tweaking the riser to keep it in focus while maintaining a powerful drop.
Cheers !

Hi Cardinal, Here's my input. For my feeling the main synth theme is very wide and therefore something triggers a bit too much attention certainly in the beginning of the track. It feels that the kick and bass are a bit on the background how ever in this kind of music it must take the lead, unless this was your intention of course. In total I would do a bit more glue compression to give it more a combined feeling in general. And I would look in the frequency spectrum if some instruments are clashing with each other to give it a bit more space. Or maybe play a bit with positioning and use some more elements in the mid section.
I just hear it once and this is the first thing that pops up in my mind, believing that's te best approach of giving feedback to somebody. I hope this is helpful. With that said only take advise from someone if you feel the same after reading it.
Thanks!

Hi Leon, thanks for the detailed feedback ! First feedback is always the best. I'll look into what you just said but it sounds to the point, regarding the style / my intentions. Thanks again for taking the time :)

Hey Cardinal, great vibe I really like it. The only comment I have would be echoing what Dylan said. The drop tails off a bit too much I think.

Thanks for the feedback I def agreee I'll change that !

Really dope track! I love the breakdown, really nicely done. The mixing's really nice too, and once the track fully gets going I'm not sure I would change much on the mixing front. However the one thing that stuck out to me was in the intro and as the song is building, the bleep bloop sounds sound a bit plane and too simple. They work really well in the main part of the mix just as they are,, but when stripped back they feel like they need something more to the body of the sound - the verb/delay etc. on them is really nice though (I'm assuming you wrote the main part of the song first, and then removed parts to make the into and gradually added them back in?).

I used to have the same issue in some of my old tracks when I first got into producing. There's many ways you can go about avoiding it. One of the easiest for a track already wrritten is you can add some kind of more complex modulation as well as filter modulation (low pass filter or two maybe) etc. to choke off the sounds slightly so they arn't fully there, but adds a ton of movement to them (as well as movement over time if you have one activating and moving as an envalope for the sound, and one as a longer sweeping filter .. have a play about and see what you like as there's so many ways you could do it) and the changes you do will bring interest to the more simple sounds when they are on their own, then when you get to the main part of the song where everything blends and no longer feels so bare, open the filters up and have the full sound playing. It also doubles up as a way to add a feeling of forward motion in the track and adds a tiny amount of tention before the releace when the filters open up if done a certain way, a resonant filter works really well for that with automation on both the filter cut off and the resonant peak (if that makes sense? I feel I explained that really badly lol).

Also the EQ on them first few sounds sounds like it was set when mixing the bulk of the track, and not revisited and automated when the intro was stripped back so there's a better balence in the intro. I can notice it quite a lot on the kick high-mid/top end. It's the right amount of mid/high for the main part of the song, but feels like a tad too much for hte intro. I would deffo look at automating an EQ for a couple of items in the intro, even if just to automate them turning off as the song builds up after adding a single shelf on a few items (I can't really say what EQ move you should do, but as the main part of the song works really well, I feel some slight change to the EQ on certain things in just the intro would really help).. as well as possibly just backing off the compression on the kick for the first 16-32 bars via automation (just back off the threshold by a couple of dB automated to go back to how you set it at one of the mini drops in the build up where it sounds best). It had just a tiny bit too much pop to it for them first few bars whilst the track was more sparse.

They're litterally the only things that stood out to me though, and as this track is designed to be mixed in a DJ set (I'm assuming), it's unlikely the first few bars would even get played in a club setting anyway. Other than that it's mixed really well and produced really well. 👍

Hey Josh, thanks for the in depth reaction ! I love it when people take the time to go deep in a specific point, I do that too when I give feedback ^^
I agree with your point. As a matter of fact a good friend already told me this intro sounded a bit cheaper than the rest of the track. I need to say I don't feel it that much myself. I kinda like the simplicity of it and I think the fact that the eq opens up in two steps, first a 16s and then 32s somehow works on the speakers because of the loudness going up.
On the headphones I need to say I quite agree it sounds a bit cheapish haha. I'll try stuffing some more automation and sound design into it ! And also taking into account what you said with the kick feeling a bit strong in the intro. Feels a bit EMDish starting hot that way but I mean some big productions have strong kicks from the start.. Maybe it's a bit old school to do this now ? Idk :p I'll touch it again for sure, I didn't make the final adjustments yet.
Thanks anyway for the time man !

Some of it is for sure a matter of taste. And I know some really highly regarded artist like chicken lips in similar generas will start simple and build on it, and there's nothing wrong with that. However it might sound like a simple sound on the face, but I assure you there are many very subtle layers giving it the 3D yet simple feel. It's actually harder writting (and designing sound for) simple music well, than complex music not so well heh. You have to remeber, not always, but as a rule of thumb, the simpler and sparser the music, the more air you need to fill, and ofc the subtler of things you must fill it with to feel right as otherwise it will no longer sound simple (I wasn't talking about crazy modulation, but real subtle stuff just to add an extra something, so it can sound simple but interesting, rather than simple and still missing something - at least to my ear) ✌️ .

This is why minimal techno and similar have the most over produced simple sound you will ever hear, because to make such simple music sound really interesting they have to go over everything with a microscope to make it perfect, there's no hiding any mistakes with only 1 sound or 2 at a time heh and each sound has to be super interesting, even though they are all super simple sounds at their face, it's not easy, but a listener would be forgiven for thinking it was, as it's just such simple sounds. 😁

I still make 90's style dance tracks if I get a chance, so it's deffo not about it being too oldskool for me, but maybe a good way to bring an oldschool sound into a modern era of prduction 🤙.

I used to also mix tracks just for club and loud enviroments too, but then I thought to myself, why am I intentionally not making it good for people who want to listen at home too? I mean no one is going to buy your track at a club (except the DJ maybe lol), they will buy it to hear when they are home, so catering to both started to make sense to me after some time. As I said before, no one at the club will really hear the intro (unless you write an epic intro and the DJ wants to play it), but people at home will. 🤷 Just my thoughts, nothing saying I'm correct in thinking it. 😊

Yeah that's interesting what you are saying ! nice way to put it. It's true the more minimalist you go the more each detail matters. At the same time it's usually easier to make it sound big with little elements but neither can you hide behind a nice chord progression or melodic idea. Especially in the beginning of a track it's good to show people you're a boss at mixing and sound designing haha

Hi Cardinal, nice track! I don't listen to much melodic techno, so I may be way off in my comments here. Let me know if so!

Very cool vocals (both of them)
All of the sound design is pretty cool. The following are some thoughts on how to help it shine a little more.

I feel like this needs some more bass, and sounds perhaps a little harsh in general. If you're using a sub you could turn it up. I feel like the kick needs some more authority too. I'm wondering if you mixed this on closed back headphones? I always find that they tend to amplify low frequencies and we can tend to mix them too low as a result.

There an arp that feels a little out of place (happens at 50 seconds, 1 minute, maybe one or two more times throughout the song). I think it's a timing issue more than it not belonging in the song.

I think some of the delays feel a little out of time, but that could be an artistic choice. If so, maybe pulling them down could help.
At the end of the break, I feel like it needs more of a build, or a clearer drop of all sounds As it is, it feels like the energy builds and then just cuts out. I was thinking the song was about to end.

I think the main drop needs some variation in energy, it starts to feel a little static both times, though it is cool. You could try adding and dropping some elements throughout, and I think it benefit from some dynamic variation as well.

Lastly, thanks for sharing this with us! It's always cool when people are willing to put themselves out there, and I think that this is a cool track that will sound even cooler once you've put some time in.

Hey Andrew, thanks for all the ideas you've shared ! It might be I was a bit shy on bass I have a tendency to like light bass tracks but this one should feel deep though. Thanks for the other comments I'll keep them handy when I work again on the track :) Agree with the drop thing it doesn't feel yet like a pro drop ^^. Cheers !