Quite good suggestions for a good mix from LoRez.LoRez wrote: 1) Mix on speakers, preferably good ones.
2) Use a subwoofer, especially if you do dance music or anything. How do you know what is happening in the low frequencies if you can't hear them or feel them? Ans. You can't!
3) Multiband Compression. Get multiband comp plug and learn to use it. It is highly unlikely you will get a good pro sounding mix of even relatively complex material without one. Great for Drum bus too!
4) Proper use of single band compression as well as a touch of EQ here and there can work wonders. Try rolling off the low end of instruments other than bass and drums (i.e. guitars, synths) as this will leave more room for the intended bass instruments and make them sound punchier, clearer, and with less mud.
5) Listen to it on lots of systems and compare with CD's that you like the sound of. Go back and tweak over and over if need be and you will get to know what you need to do to get "that sound"
6) Use a spectrum analyzer so you can literally see how flat or how "peaky" your mix is. You can also use it to help tame individual instruments.
In my cases Voxengo's Soniformer does the most pleasant corrections. Although monitoring with headphones in mixing stage is a good way, it fools you totally on bass (as mentioned in previous posts). That was my experience a few years ago until I've got good monitors+subwoofer. We all have to learn to get better
