u/mefixomusic

Hey everyone! I could really use some wisdom from people who've cracked this, because it's been driving me crazy for a few months now.

The mystery

I've been comparing my track's spectrum to a bunch of reference uplifting trance tracks, and they all share the same shape: a classic "smile curve." The mids are noticeably scooped, yet the supersaw lead sits loud and clear, even though there's barely any visible energy between 400 Hz and 1.5 kHz. How does that work? Screenshot of the references attached.

Reference track in SPAN — the \"smile curve\" I'm talking about

My setup

For leads I use Spire and Serum. I've tried countless trance supersaw presets and built many of my own as well, and the result is always the same: once the melody is playing, there's way more energy in that mid region (which is exactly where the top notes of my melody and their first harmonics sit) than in any of the references, so my spectrum never matches theirs.

I'm comparing in SPAN with identical settings (MASTER preset), loudness-matched to the references, so it isn't a metering issue.

What I've tried

• EQ, layering, multiband compression, saturation
• OTT and exciters
• SSL-style bus compression and a limiter on the master — none of it reshapes the spectrum in a meaningful way
• Force-matching the spectrum with EQ (API-560, FabFilter Pro-Q 4) — but then the lead loses its life and sounds even worse

The rest of the mix feels solid: kick, bass, pads and drums are balanced, melody and harmony are done. Mixing the lead is the last puzzle piece.

For context, I'm not new to this — I've spent hundreds of hours in my DAW, gone through tons of tutorials both on YouTube and paid courses, and I have a solid understanding of mixing. But none of them ever cover this specific thing.

My questions

1. Am I simply comparing an unmastered mix to a finished master, and mastering is where that smile curve gets carved out?
2. Or should the mix already look very close to the reference masters before mastering?
3. Is there a specific technique behind it — multiband on the master bus, deliberate mid scooping while mixing, something else?

Thanks in advance — this is the last thing standing between me and finally releasing my track!