Hi isildur :) I like the intro and how it opens after. It seems to me that everything is in its place. Maybe the stereo image is slightly closed, but I'm listening with headphones and I could be wrong. It seems to me that you are at around -11/12 Lufs, if you can bring the track to around -9/10 Lufs you could be more competitive, while trying not to destroy the dynamics of the piece too much. Nice track!!!

@Vittorio Di Rocco thank you very much. This means alot. You are right on the stereo image part, it is one thing i'm working on to improve on and thankfully Sound Gym has helped me a lot in that area. Now concerning the LUFS, i was under the impression that it should be around -14, so i didn't want it to be too much beyond it, but now i'm starting to realize that -9/10 is where it needs to be. Thanks again!!

Really nice track! The trumpet totally adds some magic to it.
Regarding the -14 LUFS level, that's the Spotify standard / target. In my opinion, the LUFS level of your song should be completely dependent on genre and personal taste. Loud genres like metal or drum 'n' bass benefit from higher LUFS levels (I like somewhere between -9 and -12 for metal, but I generally prefer more space in my music than the kids these days 😄 ), whereas soft rock or jazz can be anywhere between -14 and -21.
I think your tune sounds great at -11/12 but that's my taste. I suppose that -9/10 is not much louder, but it would be a shame to squash those delicious reverb tails on the percussion. If you can make it louder and that is something you want (personally... it's *your* song!), go ahead.
Keep creating great music!

@Dylan Neal thank you, yeah i don't know how i feel into the trap of thinking -14LUFS is the absolute standard for all songs. It had dictated how i mastered songs i worked on. I will definitely keep your advice in mind. And thanks for listening to the song. much appreciated

Guys, regarding LUFS, you don't have to rely on -14 platforms! This doesn't mean you have to master at -14... no professional producer masters at -14! Some go as low as -6 -7 -8. Obviously it depends on the style (jazz or classical music certainly doesn't reach these standards). Having said that, it's obvious that if your song at -7/8/9 Lufs sounds squashed, it's not good... first of all it's important that it sounds good if it sounds good at -14 it's ok. But you should know that on Beatport, for example, the tracks are loaded at the original LUFS and when a DJ listens to buy the music and comes to your track which sounds very low (-14 for example) he moves on to the next one. It's sad, but this is the reality of the facts. I'm not saying I agree with this, I'm just saying it's true.

Yes Vittorio, that is one of the issues. How people consume music definitely makes a difference. Thankfully, not everyone is a DJ!
I guess that what a musician wants to do with their music dictates the required loudness. The LUFS level of their song can be tailored to where they want to share it.
Personally, I don't care if a DJ ever plays my songs in a nightclub and I don't share on Beatport, so I'm good with keeping the space in my music :)
Besides, doesn't most modern DJ software have a loudness-matching function? Even if there is no automatic loudness-matching function, it's very easy to do it manually anyway. In that case, if a DJ ignores a banging tune because it is too quiet then he's an idiot, or maybe just too lazy!

I like the style a lot:

now everybody has different perspective, here are few thing i would adjust IMO :

i would apply a little bit of paralell compression on this Drums.
boost the transient with transient master on on some of the drums.
i would auto Pan the Hats to have Movement so they arent sitting behind in the middle of the Mix so you can hear them better.

and i would add a little bit of Fresh Air on High end Drums to have the drums sound brighter.

the first synth Coord i would like clean and tame frequencies around 200 to 350hz to let the bass really own that region.
and the Automation at the begining, to open it slightly louder.

other than that,

great sound design, great arrangement, nice ear Candies.

Overall Good job man

@antho plaza thanks for the feed back, great pointers. I see what you mean by the hats. Now concerning the Fresh Air on the High Drums, what tool do you usually use to achieve that?

i usually use fresh air by Slate Digital, it does wonder

https://slatedigital.com/fresh-air/

Hi @isildur green, overall, very nice mix. I think the toms are a little loud and could also use a little saturation and perhaps some more compression. In general, it seems like there's a lot of buildup in the mids, especially in the intro and the breakdown. Some of this is an arrangement issue, I think, and if I understand correctly, you just mixed and mastered this, so that may be out of your hands. Maybe you could play a little with the dynamics of the instruments and their eqs, perhaps even automating some of this to allow different elements to take center stage at different times. I really like the way the latin style percussion sounds!

@antho plaza, thank you for the recommendation. Will have to add to my subscription. It does add more life to the sounds.

@Doctor MojoTrip thanks for the feedback. You are right on the mids, they can be stubborn, the quality of the instruments supplied to me made it challenging to properly address them, and also i'm getting hand of recognizing frequencies, thanks to this platform. 😊. and i didn't want to deviate too much from the producer's vision. Also can you elaborate on the arrangement issue ?

@isildur green, I totally hear you. I think you've made the right call in not deviating from what they sent you too much. What I mean about the arrangement is that a lot of the instruments are playing in the same mid-frequency range at the same time, so it's hard to make a space for all of them while not also making them sound wimpy. If they were playing in different octaves, or fewer instruments at one time, your job would be easier! I'm not sure what DAW you're using, but in Bitwig, which is my main DAW, it's very easy to sidechain specific frequencies in the eq to another track, so you can cut some frequencies only when necessary. I'm sure there's a way to do this in other DAWs too. Maybe that could help a little.

Hi Dylan :) I agree with everything you say. I also think like you. But there is always a psychoacoustic factor to take into account; the brain always thinks that what sounds louder sounds better. It is not an irrelevant factor, it must always be taken into account. But having said that, I repeat: I also don't go crazy for turning up the volume. If I can give a little more DB, without destroying the sound, I'm happy, otherwise I'm just as happy when I can make one of my productions sound almost good... which is already a difficult thing :)

@Vittorio Di Rocco: Yeah man, I hear you :) Your music tends to be quite tasteful!

I've heard that psychoacoustic factor mentioned quite frequently by a lot of people, but I think it is slightly wrong. It should be ''the brain gets tricked into believing that louder is better''.
The excitement of loud music comes from the evolutionary hack that loud sounds in nature are danger signals, e.g. the rumble of a strong earthquake or a lion's roar or something like that. That danger signal triggers our fight-or-flight response so we get excited, but then our brains consciously realise that loud music is not dangerous (except for hearing damage!) so the excitement is a mixture of pleasure of the music and agitation from the loud volume.
My point is: if we realise that ''louder is better'' is a trick not a fact, then we realise that -6 or -7 LUFS is not actually better-sounding, it's just causing us agitation that our brains mistake as extra excitement.

OK, I just went down the rabbit hole of internet searching... apparently Michael Jackson's Thriller is around -15 LUFS and that's the title track from the biggest selling album of all time.
So I think pushing things as loud as -6 or -7 is just a trend, and mostly people master their songs that loud to hide the fact that the song sucks, and then they justify that loudness by using that psychoacoustic principle that we've been discussing... HAHA!

You are right! The trick of deceiving the brain dates back to ancient times. Exact! And it is also true that many years ago music was not as loud as it is today. And it was much better, I agree with you! However, it is also true that trains once ran on steam ahahhaa ;) However, I agree with your opinion... I, after all, really struggle to crush and make -6-7 LUFS sound good: in fact I try to stay at -10 -9... at -8 I already feel that the dynamics are no longer the same. However, there are good producers who succeed and it even sounds good. But this must not be the rule nor even a goal to be achieved!
P.s My English is terrible...sorry :(