About time I wrote a tip. This one will be obvious to some, and new to others:
When finishing off a song you have written it can be hard to tell if it is ‘ready’ to be put out there. Because you are hearing your song in the same way each time its impact becomes unnoticable to you.
One thing you can do to get around this is listen to your song in two different ways: drums or melody.
Listen to the drums by muting all the melodic tracks. Listen carefully for spaces where the drums could have things added or subtracted to improve the flow of the rhythm. Many rhythm tracks are too repetitive and lack varaiation in both structure and expression. Edit the drums sound they sound acceptable by themselves, and they will sound markedly better with the melody. Of course, be sure that what you have done matches the flow of the melody and the song dynamics. Go back and forward from ‘seperate’ to ‘all together’ until you get the improved result.
More importantly, listen to the melodic tracks by themselves. Apply the same test: is this a work of art from start to finish? Edit your melody so there are very few repetitive parts and so you have varience of layering. Many artists neglect building counter melody, harmony and chord variety because they are lost in the percussion or cannot hear that the song is edging on boring. Listening to the melodic elements outside of the percussion will hopefully make that more obvious. Each part of the song should be unique, even if you are repetiting themes. Consider dynamic options too: like building things up in layers, or subtrating them. The listening experience must be one that holds the audience in fascination all the way through.
Try it out on your next song. 
