Anthemic EDM Instrumental - Mix check

[Samwinski]

hi there,
as most of us I'm only inspired by the challenge of making a good track and certainly not to make good money
anyway: I tried it and now I would be thankful to get some special advices:

has this track dance style beats?
has it an animated (what does animated means in this context?), styled arrangement?
does it sound like an real-deal act (what does this mean?)
does the latest production techniques function (buildups, risers, drops) are there too many?
what about the sounds?
is the riser from 0:00 to 0:10 a trademark EDM riser?
does the melody starting at 0:38 fits to EDM style?
something else?

The track is called: Thirsty crowd
https://soundcloud.com/samwinski/thirsty-crowd

[Russell Landwehr]

Heya Sam.

Sounds like you are on the right track.

Now imma give the most important pointers... don't be discouraged, there is potential here or I wouldn't bother commenting.

Kick is King. In any EDM stuff, Kick is King. You've got to get that kick thumping and coming through at zero-db-ish constantly (except if you roll the bottom end off for a section for effect)
Listen to the kick in this https://soundcloud.com/tiesto/allofmeremix

The whole mix needs to be in-your-face loud. Take a look at your soundcloud waveform.... way too much quietness there. Check this one out https://soundcloud.com/tiesto/zedd-stay ... ght-tiesto there is some quiet stuff there, but the waveform is pretty hot.

Another thing that is VERY important is that everything needs to sound BIG. and that means BIG BIG. Check out how big this sounds at 2:00 https://soundcloud.com/tiesto/zedd-clar ... sto#t=2:03 Yeah I know this isn't actually anthemic, but EVERY synth is in-your-face huge. This is done by using really HOT synth sounds and mixing in the right amount of reverb and delay PLUS really smashing things with compressors/limiters, yet doing so in a dynamic manner.

There are some really interesting technical ways to do this... Hopefully Gavin (The Element) jumps in here. He's one of the kings around here at this.

Best Regards
Russell Landwehr

[Samwinski]

Thank you Russel,
you're right, I tried to change some of your suggestions, specially the Kick,
it's not that easy to get it right, but I think the sound is now better.

[Muledog]

I like it! Very nice biting texture in the main synth. You might try more sidechaining. They went into that in detail on the last episode of Taxi TV and it really makes a difference in the sound of EDM.

Thomas Leary