Hey everyone
 
So this is my latest track, it's called In Paradise.
 
http://soundcloud.com/user9603240/ali-price-in-paradise-draft-1
 
It's still very much a work in progress so any feedback or comments would be greatly appreciated.
 
Thanks for listening
 
Ali
 
EDIT: Hey everyone, this is my new track, it's also a trance song, but this is a remix of the classic Love Stimulation By Humate. http://soundcloud.com/user9603240/love-stimulation-humate-and

This is'nt a style of electronica i listen too and i'm not a lover of "Trance"  either really, but from the break at around 1:36 onwards, you incorporated some interesting sounds that kept my interest.

Thanks blipp, I'm glad that you found it engaging even though you're not a fan of trance. I will definitely take that as a good sign :)

Hey Ali. Mix sounds good. I agree that it was more interesting to listen to after the first change up. It is a tad dated in sound (sort of Enigma-ish). I would cut at least half of the first minute away, perhaps up to a minute, then I would focus more on incorporating more of the sounds and energy you have in the change up, and less of the pads (as they are what is making it sound dated).

I agree, I would tone down the pad that comes in at 1:57 because it gets in the way of that killer bass tone....in fact I would center the mix around that bass because it drives the tune, but it gets a bit lost in the pad. In terms of mixing, have you tried the free TP Basslane plug on the bass and the kick? It can really help to solidify the low end in a track like this, by centering all frequencies below a certain threshold. I find it works very well on the default setting of 300Hz. Put it last in the chain on those tracks. Then, I would perhaps try to widen that pad and move it back somewhat, to make way for the bass and the vocal samples. 

Don't know if it's your thing, but you could also try ducking the pad with the kick, by putting it through a compressor sidechained with the kick as the key input. Wouldn't have to be full-on Daft Punk style, but just enough to give the track a little more bounce for the clubs. Lots of potential in this track. 

@Foxwolfen. Thanks for your feedback, I actually tried what you said this evening, but the track kind of lost all of its progression because it quickly had nowhere else to go. But I will certainly try and give that another go.
@Sharke. Thanks for your feedback and all of the tips. I downloaded that plugin and it's great. In fact it's exactly what I've been needing for a long time now, so thank you so much for the suggestion. I also tried the sidechaining suggestion and it worked really well, so that's definitely staying. It really adds a lot of bounce like you said.
The only thing that I really can't get right though now is the mix. Whenever I make any changes, especially with the basslane plugin, it all just gets louder and it's a bit too much. But then if I try to lower everything by the same amount then it goes too quiet.

It's a tough one because I'm really happy with the actual volume ratios between the different tracks, so how can I keep those ratios and stop everything from peaking all the time. I also don't want to just compress the master bus because then I would simply lose a lot of the dynamics. So, I'm not really sure what to do to incorporate the suggested changes and stop it all getting out of control at the same time.

First thing is that I wouldn't worry about the overall level being too quiet when you're mixing and trying to get the track levels balanced. You can always raise everything later. With this style of music you can get away with using a lot more compression and limiting than you would on, say, a blues recording. Especially with the bass. 

You have to think of your tracks in order of importance when mixing the levels. In this type of music the bass and the kick drive everything, so I would get those solidified and work the rest of your mix around them. Listen to the bass and kick on their own from 1:34 to 1:57, that's a great sound and they already work very well together. The bass and kick should account for most of the energy of a tune like this. But you can see from the shape of the Soundcloud waveform, that the introduction of the pad brings your overall levels up considerably. And with it, the kick and the bass kind of lose a lot of their impact. I can't really hear the bass very well after 1:57, which is a shame because I can tell that you have some nice filter sweeps going on. In my opinion, the introduction of the pad shouldn't really bring with it a lot more volume. 

I think there's also some frequency clash going on between the bass and the pad. The bass has a lot of high end on it too, so you might want to think about hi-passing the pad some more to give the bass some more space. Try soloing the bass and looking at what the frequencies are doing in a frequency analyzer like Vonexgo Span. You'll get a good sense of its frequency range, and you might try cutting some of those frequencies in the pad so that they don't get in each other's way. How about, for instance, putting a low shelf on the pad, to reduce some of its lower frequencies?  

Also, are you putting TP Basslane on the master bus as well? I avoid doing this because of what it does to the sound, I just use it on tracks that have low frequencies.   

So in summary, I would work on getting the bass and kick sounding as good as possible together, then introduce the pad and the other stuff with the philosophy that the bass and the kick shouldn't lose any of their impact. 

Thank you so much Sharke for all of your excellent advice. I've really learned a lot over the last few days. And also where do you find all these incredible free plugins.
 
Anyway I've tried to take all of your advice and make the project better, but no matter what I do it just ends up quieter and even less centred around the kick and the bass than ever.
 
So I decided to take a break from it for a bit and see what else I could come up with using everything that I've learned over the past 3 days, and to that end I give you "Love Stimulation (Humate and Paul Van Dyk) - Pure Passion Mix by Ali Price."
 
http://soundcloud.com/user9603240/love-stimulation-humate-and
 
I've really tried to use all of the various methods of emphasising the kick and bass to make sure that it stays strong. To be honest though I'm still not 100% happy with the mix. Anyway, let me know what you think. And thank you again Sharke and also everyone for listening and for your comments.