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Hey @DarkeSword if we get 15 people in on this you should fill in the last slot to participate, too. It'd be a pretty fun change of pace, and I'd personally be interested in your take on this thing. I mean, sure, you probably don't have time... but I don't buy it! I ain't got time for it either, and I'mma make time for a few hours in a week to give this some attention. Give this one some personal attention!

Here's a remix I am working on of the Kokiri Forest theme from Ocarina of Time. I just had an itching for some latin music. I know the arrangement is quite liberal, but I think it flows well enough. Enjoy the mix! ReMix Edit #1: "Hey Saria, There's a Fiesta Down in Kokiri Forest" ReMix Edit #2: "Hey Saria, There's a Fiesta Down in Kokiri Forest 2.0" Remix Edit #3 (MOST RECENT): "Hey Saria, There's a Fiesta Down in Kokiri Forest" Final Bounce???: "Hey Saria, There's a Fiesta Down in Kokiri Forest (Final)" Source Tune: Pleased to say I'm working with @Bowlerhat for some live flute on this track! Gonna be great.

I'll be honest, I'm really nervous. Trying to best my anxiety though... 1) Shade Man 2) Spring Man 3) Clown Man

Ah I see. In that case, I get what you're saying. Definitely want to never touch the internal volume. Mine's always at 100%, but that's because I have separate volume knobs for my headphones and speakers. I have 0 consistency in what my (interface physical output) volume is set. The output knob to my monitors will move randomly at least 10 times a day just listening to random stuff (like other music, YT vids, etc.) But when I'm making music, and doing a final loudness check on my stuff wrt perceived loudness, I definitely pull up something professionally done and released on iTunes to reset it back to where I'm comfortable listening to mastered music. At this point, I can just visually see where that knob position should be that I hear "powerful and comfortable" for professionally done music. It's around 30% on the knob dial for speakers, and 100% for the headphones (with the Sonarworks calibration giving -7.9 dB, and having the 250 ohm DT 880's, my interface really needs to try hard) And then I just take that sort of familiar volume comfort zone and then mix my desired perceived loudness there; this way, I know exactly how my music is going to contrast with other albums people might be streaming alongside me, because I picked that volume level while listening to other stuff. And I know that other stuff is at 0 dB, so I put mine to 0 dB too. If they're both 0 dB, and they both sound just as loud, then they are just as loud, absolutely, on all devices. Timaeus hit the nail on the head. Before you mix anything you should set your listening volume while listening to a reference track, preferably something professionally done and commercially released.

@timaeus222 I think you're going in a perceived loudness direction which is a little more advanced than the kind of issue BloomingLate has. The issue here is simply that OP doesn't understand the dB scale, which is the "absolute loudness" measurement he's looking for. BloomingLate, you can raise the master track of your song up to 0 dB FS, which is the digital limit for clipping. You should always mix to 0 dB because that's the standard for mastering. 0 dB is marked at the top of the loudness meter in your DAW software. The dB number has absolutely no bearing on the perceived sound energy without a consideration of dynamic range (you can still have soft music where its loudest peak is 0 dB). If you don't like a high amount of sound energy, mix to 0 dB but avoid any master compression or limiting so that nothing goes over. In other words, avoiding 0 dB doesn't mean you're avoiding making the music sound too loud, you're just annoyingly making people raise their volume knobs relative to all the other music they listen to. To explain your own example, trance music isn't loud because it's at 0 dB (the "red" part), it's loud because it's very compressed with little dynamic range, so the sound energy over time is packed and you feel it harder in your ears. For a practical solution to your problem, you can also render your mix so it never hits 0 dB (to truly avoid the need any master compression and limiting) and then just Normalize it. This will make your music at least hit the same peak that other music does, and shouldn't require the listeners to vastly pump up the volume to hear. However, I would wager that without any compression whatsoever, people will still be raising their volumes. Most music is compressed in some form nowadays, and I can't remember the last album I saw with full dynamic range (besides classical music, which is impossible to listen to in environments like the car because of said dynamic range). As for the volume levels of your devices (headphones, laptops, stereo), none of that stuff matters at all. If someone's listening device is quiet and they need to dial it to 70% to hear anything, that's their problem. If your music is mixed to the same standards as everyone else, then it will sound the same on their system as any other music they listen to, and that's what you shoot for. This is the 0 dB thing I was talking about before. How loud it sounds is a matter of handling dynamic range using stuff like compression, and that's what Timaeus is talking about with referencing a track to match the perceived loudness. That stuff is its own rabbithole and takes a lot of learning and experience to understand how to do properly. tl;dr If you mix it so that you go up to but never cross 0 dB, you will never blow out speakers/headphones and your signal won't distort. This is one of those things that should just be automatic for every piece of music you create.

I can relate so much to this, and I dealt with the same issue for years. After studying music in college, I felt burned out and thought I was done with music. Years later, what I've finally realized is that I was so worried about being successful that I didn't let myself make the kind of music that I love, and I stopped enjoying it. I realized that not only did I have unrealistically high expectations of myself, I projected those expectations onto everyone around me, especially my mentors. I spent so much time studying composition but so little time actually composing, and that was the most stressful part. I'd say the stress comes from thinking about it, and the only release is doing it. But the thing is, music isn't about being the best. It's about getting people to feel something. People aren't expecting masterworks from you (yet!), but you might feel like they are. Until you're through this anxiety, just enjoy making it. Know that until you choose to share your work, it can go through as many wild/shitty/insane/vulgar/dumb stages as you need it to. It's safe in your hands until you choose to show it to people. All the unfinished stuff, don't think of it as failure, because that's just a recipe for creative anxiety. There's always going to be a huge pile of discarded ideas relative to finished works. That's just part of the process. I think often about kids making sand castles at the beach. They get so fascinated by the process and the desire to see it finished that they don't even feel the time pass. They don't say, "I'm going to make the best sand castle in the world! People are going to line up and give me money to see this! I'll be known the world over!" They usually don't even start with a plan. They're just having fun doing it, really getting into all the little details for no other reason than their own satisfaction. That said, I also agree with Garpocalypse. Competitive drive is often a good motivator. I just released my first indie game online, and even though it's completely free, the first comments were all negative. After the initial sting, I found I wasn't angry. I was actually really motivated to get it right next time. I think that forcing yourself to release your best work and subjecting it to criticism can help you gain perspective. You feel so close to this thing you've made, but as soon as it's out in public, you can suddenly see it objectively, as if you were looking at someone else's creation. And you can learn so much from people's reactions about where to go next. It pushes you to reach new levels. It's easy to silo yourself off and then get into a really stressful negative feedback loop. I still haven't found my best work process, but I feel like I'm getting there. Right now, it's "Feel safe working on things in private, and then once in a while, release your top choices and see if they survive on their own out in the wild." I hope you find what works for you. It's a lifelong journey, and your creating music or any other art can only have a net positive effect. You've got this, dude.

I would like to repoint out our track listing progress which is current and up to date as of this evening: https://docs.google.com/document/d/19MJ6_QsHxvDJJlDN_bHbLXddLij8AmwKLn_7TANeN1g/edit?usp=sharing Our masterer is hard at work at bold greening up all the tracks and making sure we make our 15th anniversary release date on time. When is that, you ask? Well if you count the Legends Gamecube release in Japan of December 26, 2002, then we have until December 25, 2018 to be within our release window of 15th anniversary! We are working real hard to make that date! Wish us luck! As you can see, we got only a few more tracks left to finish by our talented remixers! Let's wish them luck and wrap this amazing album up once and for all! I hope you fans are starving for some Arcadia music!