I've listened to thousands of independent artist demos over the years. The same three problems show up in almost every single one.

1. Your vocals are fighting your beat.

Most artists layer vocals on top of a beat without carving space. Use a 2-3 dB cut in the 200-500 Hz range on your instrumental bus. Your voice will sit in the mix instead of competing with it.

2. Your low end is muddy.

If you can't tell the difference between your kick and your bass, neither can anyone else. High-pass everything that isn't your kick or bass at 80-100 Hz. It's that simple.

3. You're not using reference tracks.

Pull up a song you love that sounds like what you're going for. A/B your mix against it every few minutes. Your ears will lie to you after 30 minutes of mixing — a reference track won't.

Fix these three things and your tracks will sound more polished than 90% of what's on SoundCloud right now.

I go way deeper on this in the SoundTour Beats VIP — full course, sample packs, and a community of artists and producers who actually give real feedback. If you're serious about leveling up your sound, it's all here.