3 Month Update (LOUDER!!)

I'll be writing a bit more earnestly here, and more often than I will on my social media.

Whew, it feels like time has flown since my first release as Konrad Cage. I took a messy but fun crash course to get here. I honestly believe I've gotten all of the valuable feedback I could have gotten on this batch of music. I made all of this in such a short amount of time, where before it would take months just for one song. As a result of making and putting out everything at once, I've gotten similar feedback on similar issues.

Here's everything I've learned, technical-wise, from each track.

"make you" - My biggest takeaway, and with every song so far: everything needs to be louder, and louder than you think. The -14 LUFs they tell you is ideal is actually killing your music. During my self-directed learning on mixing, mastering, and other engineering techniques I hadn't yet scratched off the list, I initially understood that if Spotify aims for -14 LUFs, then I should master my music to that same range. But through reference tracks and reading online, I came to realize that the music I was listening to was much closer to -6 LUFs, which is way louder, or "commercially loud." While streaming platforms do turn your music down to a certain degree, hitting that commercial loudness before they touch it makes a real difference.

"pxcasso" - I honestly didn't get much feedback on this one that would make me change how I produce. It's a bit louder, a bit punchier, and has more variation in sound. Most of the response from music reviewers was that it's a creative, fun song. There's enough space for the vocals to fit, and I've since created a version of the track that's mixed better and mastered louder than what's on Spotify.

"tag team (demo)", "taiko", "what i needed (jersey club)", and "bleed4urluv (jersey club remix)" - Apart from needing to be louder, not much can be said about these. "tag team (demo)" in particular, despite still being "a tad quiet" as one reviewer put it, is the track that has shown the most promise overall with feedback, listeners, and curators playlisting it. It's also the one I spent the most time mixing, and it shows.

"#trouble" - Same story here. The only thing I'd add is that I wish the vocals were louder. I mixed them low intentionally to capture that sampled vibe you hear in a lot of remixes, where the vocals sit back in the mix on purpose to create a certain feel. It's a debatable creative decision, and it influenced the whole mix of the track. Still a banger though.

With two more remixes already out on SoundCloud and YouTube, I've shown real improvement, and I'm just getting started.