"I want to know (like many others) how the top dogs get amazing sound clarity and just generally good quality."

is what you said, MISS BASS.

i'd advise you to try and get the best samples possible beforehand so you don't have to do so much polishing later on (good sample cds) and as said before try and make minimal or fairly minimal things work, try and create a loop you wouldn't mind to listen to on it's own for ever and ever.

i'd name umek as an example, his old stuff was pretty simple yet effective.... even if you don't like his stuff, have a look into his production.

compare your stuff to pro-stuff (not mp3s if poss.) and see what is going on in certain freqeuncy regions and compare it to yours.

.... and have a look at reverb techniques and plugins like waves maxxbass
and compresssssssion


...
sometimes i MISS BASS, too :dontevengothere:


...juz kidding