Critique Needed On Track for Contest!!

[Vice//Versa]

Just finished mixing this track for a contest, the deadline is in two days and any input would be great.

 

[abaga129]

Sounds really cool man! The main thing I would say is that it doesnt have the loudness that a lot of other competitors might have. If you master it carefully you could get more loudness out of it and when it comes to electronic type music, it makes a huge difference to the listeners. Not sure if it will affect your competition though.

 

[Vice//Versa]

Thanks bro! Mastering seems like a scary territory for me because I'm fairly new to the craft. This is my second "full" mix and I dont know how loud I should go into the limiter and how much i should push it. I've read around a little and I know i shouldn't have a loud mix because that comes from my mastering chain but couldn't I just lower the volume when going into my limiter if that is the case? and how do I know that my RMS level is around 9-10? sorry if it's a lot

 

[abaga129]

There's a lot to mastering, and I only know the basics. It's important to compress in stages though and a good Maximizer or brickwall limiter is usually the last stage.
Bringing the threshold down on the limiter/Maximizer brings the volume up. Once it starts compressing the audio is when distortion and pumping can start to happen.

Sonalksis FreeG is a free meter that displays RMS.

Loudness is only a small part of mastering though and yes it's pretty scary. It's so easy to destroy your mix at this stage in its life and I'm an expert at just that we all have to learn somehow though.

 

[Vice//Versa]

This is my first mix ever and I made it when some stems from this forums, I attempted some simple mastering on it (to come close to the original loudness). Does it sound completely lifeless? any other advice is welcomed