I am hoping for some honest feedback... I have tried every piece of production knowledge I have gained through reading and experimenting with this track. I am curious what you think? Have I gone deaf yet?

i have tried all sorts of saturation, compression, eq, automated envelopes, VST "sound gooder" plugins, headphone and speaker monitoring, tried to be mindful of dynamics, phase alignment, side chaining, gating, filter sweeps, tension & release, stereo manipulation, linear phase, oversampling, etc.

Any thoughts? Suggestions? Feelings?

I am exhausted. If it sucks, please just say it so i can move on. My feeling is that I really over did it trying to get an "analog" feelings, but not sure.

Please

https://soundcloud.com/vaisnava/vaisnava-reversing-my-though ts

Sounds great. Give it a break if you're exhausted. Stop gilding the lily.

yeah man...its sounds good over here. dont drive yourself nuts.

It sounds very good. It does have an analog feel in part due to the lack of high frequencies. My only suggestion is to trim the 25 seconds of silence at the end. Nice job on this.

Not my kind of music at all, but I think it sounds silky smooth and warm. Good job!

You just got a new SoundCloud follower...

I don't want to be the dissenting voice here, but I listened to the original mix as well as the new uber-tweaked version. While the new one has more 'level' and punch, it feels like it's trying too hard compared to the original.

The original has this sweet floating vibe, the new one feels a little forced in comparison. Too much limiter/compression/saturation action? Dunno. The vocal gets smothered a bit in the new bigger mix which hurts the piece for me. Maybe a little more selective frequency sculpting (there's too much mid-freq energy from the synths in the same range as the voice). Maybe tweak the arrangement to bring back a bit more space and a little less compression. I prefer the original's feel, but I hear where you wanted some more punch and impact. Sorry, if I'm sounding like your producer. But, since I'm pontificating, I say F*** the analog crap - Arrangement is king! Maybe give it a week off and then return with fresh ears and make the Goldilocks mix. Great work, either way, so don't stop yet. My 2 cents.

love the singing!

the mix sounds solid.

I'm not really a fan of the singing but the track as a whole sounds great! I don't think more of an analog sound would make this better, it's a modern sounding track so why bother?
The mix sounds fine... have you tried handing it to a good mastering engineer for the finishing touch you're after?
Keep up the good work!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYLAy9hbzLU

The production is good and the track is chilling and has a nice vibe. I hate these overcompressed EDM tracks, but yours has great dynamics and are a pleasure to listen! And the singing are exactly my kind of club vocals!

My only concern would be this stereo rounding pad, but it really doesn't hurt the experience. A less obvious FX could be better, but it's just me...

I'm listening to it for the 3rd time and can't stop!

I haven't listened to the original, but this sounds nice to me. It has a smooth and "well rounded" sound.

I missed out on the original too, but this has a polished sound to it. I like the vocals.

thank you all for the feedback. I will take the suggestions to heart. I was really trying for "analog" sound ITB, because another audio friend of mine said there is no way I could even get close to his hardware gear... so I tried and tried and tried.

I will still make quite a few changes to keep the flow... trying to learn compressors the best i can. They can do a lot to "shape" a sound... or kill it.

Well what are you aiming for? It's a nice mix, but it depends what your target audience is, what your reference is.

I think the kick is too blurred and uninteresting, so is the bass.

Some parts feel out of time, it feels off to me, but maybe that was what you wanted. It doesn't click with every person though, to me it reminds me of something SASH! would have made, but not as high energy. But that slightly off timing reminds me of older tracks where they had midi-timing issues and I don't like it much unless it's done in a certain way.

I like the track as music, it's clean too in the mixing. It's definitely not up to modern dance track standards, it's all to quiet and simple. Which may or may not matter to you.

It's nice though honestly, like I said just depends on what you were going for.

Finally, if your happy with it, that honestly is all that matters.