Back to the house, I can never stay away. This track made me want to know more about how to make music and I've decided that I want to learn these things:
1) How to master
2) How to boost levels
3) How to structure
I'll try and implement these into my future tracks, but I would also love insight and/or advice. Learning is awesome - Cheers
Compressing the bass using the kick does two things: keeps the volume consistent because the kick and bass are usually the sounds with the greatest amplitude, and keeps them from interfering.
A lot of "mastering" is actually mixing. If you mix a track well, you should need minimal mixing to get an ideal sound. And if you don't know what the ideal sound is, it's best to leave the track unmastered because you can't tell if the mastering actually sounds better. So instead of mastering to boost levels, you could change mixing by changing the sound of the layers individually. Side chain kick compressing provides consistent compression that should open up headroom.