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Not sure if this tidbit of advice will help, but here's how I finished American Pixels. That was a 5+ year project, tons of excitement at the front-end, and then it turned into... work. And here's the problem, I have a family and a full-time job, so I kept hitting the snag where I'd work all day, spend time with the family, have a pocket of free time at night, and then... not have any energy left. That, or there'd be this sense of "yay, I have time to work on music... and oh no, I feel obligated to work on that project and I'm really not in the mood..." So, that happened over and over, and occasionally I'd have a magic day off (holiday, whatever) where I'd get a wonderful 4 hours in a row to myself... and during those moments, I could tap into the creative juices and get it going again... but man, those little magical windows were rare. Like, once every few months rare. It got really frustrating seeing an album inch to completion in those sporadic bursts. The answer for me: wake up earlier. I'd set my alarm for 4:30am, be in my studio by 5am, and get in a solid hour, hour and a half every morning. My brain wasn't yet tired from the day job, I was rested and fresh, and the stuff that seemed like work before now seemed fun again. And, it actually helped my happiness level, so even though I was sleepy, I was giddy at work considering the progress I made in the early morning hours. And then I just had to ride and chase that feeling until things were done. It was tough to get started, but then it became strangely addicting.

lowering/cutting is not gonna hurt your track as much as you'd think. I have this piccolo right now that plays some very VERY high notes on one of my tracks - the original bleeds your ear. I EQ'd some of the nastier sounds in there but still made sure it sounded like a piccolo. here's a series about EQ. nobody is telling you to cut something entirely or make an instrument not sound the way it's supposed to; that's for sound design. It's all about making it the best possible for the listener (without completely sacrificing your vision)

Haven't worked on anything yet, but I can start up a project this weekend. Still tossing around whether to tackle Gnat Attack or the BGM 2 music.

@Dextastic You don't have use the gate as a full on gate either. Just use it to turn down the sustain part automagically

Yeah - the bass with reverb (plugins) topic makes a good point. In a less technological world of an ancient orchestra you would - if the sound is halling so much that you can't hear single sound events clearly anymore - probably change the surroundings until you have found an opera house or open air location where the hall/echo reflexions won't blend the frequencies of the individual instruments into sound mud anymore. What I wanted to say is that: 1) Natural beings have often sharper senses than beings that lost their connection to nature over generations. It's mostly a matter of species-appropriate nutrition, natural and healthy development (or degradation at the non-natural way) of the body and vital life force that makes the big difference. And the more people (or even animals) get restrained from vital nature the more they' ll lose their potencial, vitality, their fine senses (neurological development) and their health. And lots of humans of the modern age got very far away from nature with all the painful consequences. 2) Lots of essential knowledge of former times died literally out in the core of the society and has been replaced by mere (commercial) informations of big companies and profit-over-life structures that often dumb down the people's minds and bend truth into lies for their financial sake. You can say that - for example the pretty wise Greek doctor Hippokrates of Cos - had more essential knowledge about health than most pharma-schooled doctors - guided by pharma-sponsored universities - have nowadays. That's something like a wisdom-versus between "Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food." (in this case a pretty grounded old school teaching) and "Just take these pills to win the war against those dangerous enemies in your body" (in this case a pretty contrary, small-minded new school teaching). It's not always like this. But it's an example that new teachings don't have to be always better than old teachings - especially if mindless greed becomes more important than the devout quest for truth. 3) It can be really fatal if technological advancement & possibilities surpass the knowledge und sanity of the users. And not every trend or technological achievement is a good one. Just to come back to the music stuff... Let's face what dynamic compression in the age of loudness war has done to the sound quality of modern music. It might not blow your head off if you listen to the soundtracks with the mastering standards of today. I kinda like lots of modern tracks - but mostly because of the composition & interesting sound design, not because of the unnecessary dynamic compression and kinda deadly sound surgery (nah, no bad jokes about surgeons and the quest for the lost limbs, livers or lives at this point). If you compare the music standards of the 80s with the music industry standards of today you might hear a perceptible decrease at the hi-fi sound quality over the years. ...just because the salesmen, marketing agents and even some producers in the music industry started the unhealthy, mindless trend of competing in loudness instead of competing in musical content, interesting compositions and sound quality. >>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcKDMBuGodU