what technique/tool/software/equipment has improved your mixes the most..?

[panspOrmia]

Renoise has helped to make a very focused pattern-based workflow.

Same here. I love the Renoise/Redux combo. Powerful.. and so much fun!

[AGIGA]

ADPTR AUDIO Metric AB, MeldaProductions MCompare, Sonible true:balance

[cryophonik]

I don't know if this has improved my mixes "the most", but making a point to use my VSX headphone system with reference tracks has certainly improved the way my mixes translate and have gotten me to a final mix quicker and with fewer iterations.

[vitocorleone123]

Using more hardware in selective places/ways.

For example, the Elysia Karacter Qube in mid-side mode with some gentle saturation really "opened" up the mix and allowed me to remove 2 or 3 plugins that were trying to achieve the same but didn't.

[bitman]

K-Clip followed by a limiter at the end of the mastering chain.
In mixing, cutting the bass (guitar) at 300hz. medium Q and quite a dip. Cleans things up.

[jamcat]

Recreating a complete analogue tracking console followed by a complete analogue mixing console in Studio One. Each tracking console channel feeds directly into a corresponding mixing console channel. I set up separate mix scenes in Studio One for each console. Each mix scene shows only the desired channels in the mixer, so I only see the tracking console channels in one view, and only the mixing console channels in another view, giving me two totally separate mixers that I can switch between.

My tracking console chain typically consists of Neve preamp/EQ channels with 1176s and LA-2As patched in as needed, going to multitrack tape plugins. My mixing console chain consists of SSL channels and various aux effects sends as needed. The Master buss is always mixing into SSL buss compression to Ampex mastering tape, with the Brit Console Mix FX in Vintage mode (SSL 4000).

Most of the sound shaping happens in the tracking console chain. Here, I get the rough shape of the instruments from the subtle musical enhancements of the broad, fixed Neve EQ bands, 1073 preamp drive, gentle opto and FET compression, tempered by the warmth of tape. I focus on getting the best representation of each instrument “to tape” without any concern for the mix. The objective here is only to get each instrument sounding its best and fullest.

The mix comes together in the mixing console, through an opposite and complimentary approach to the previous tracking approach. Here, I use the surgical EQ of the SSL channels and VCA compression on every channel to get the instruments working together as a cohesive mix, without focusing on the sonic integrity of the individual instruments anymore. Whatever EQ and compression I need to hammer an instrument into place is already there on the channel. Drastic compression and EQ moves may be employed to beat a part into submission, if necessary.

This follows the time-tested process of making a record from the analogue days, when albums were recorded during lock-out recording sessions then mixed weeks or months later on a completely different console in a different studio, with completely different approaches and goals during these distinctly separate sessions. Neve and API consoles were preferred for recording, and SSLs were preferred for mixing. Following this method takes most of the guesswork and uncertainty out of which plugins to use, and how to use them. Your work becomes a lot more apparent and purpose-driven. And the results sound like a record.

Switching over to Universal Audio for about 90% of my plugins also has had a huge impact. A lot of instances of the plugins are doing little more than just passing audio through them, and that’s enough. And by starting out with console channels already on every audio channel, you end up making only necessary adjustments as needed, and no longer aimlessly add plugins and tweak knobs just because they’re there.

This is really about learning the historical approach to recording, to understand not only how engineers worked, but why they worked that way, and why it worked. And from that, developing a process that helps keep you disciplined and focused on the sound rather than the plugins.

[El°HYM]

Ignoring you guys.

Voxengo - SPAN

[thecontrolcentre]

Good near-field monitors (with a sub) were the best purchase I ever made, so far as mixing improvements go. Using an old grot-box ghetto blaster for reference has been very helpful too. Mixing at lower levels was another revelation.

[_al_]

Quite a few votes for headphone correction software, and actually that gets my vote too.

Mixing at lower levels was another revelation.

I don't often mix at really low levels, but I do like the low level + mono playthrough check.
Best for that I think, is Melda's Mutility, as I can just enable it , and it takes care of both volume reduction and collapsing to mono, with one click.

[emef]

directly comparing my tracks with other tracks that sound great and i know they sound great in clubs, just to see if the mix come close enough

[bmanic]

The thing that it always boils down to, at least in my opinion, is experience and monitoring.. and these two attributes are in a sort of feedback loop. There are no shortcuts to either. Experience comes with doing it (mixing, producing/composing, recording, mastering) and monitoring requires a lot of critical listening practice and experience to know when you actually have good monitoring happening that you can trust. Or at the very least monitoring that you have adequately learned all of it's issues to still be able to trust it.

No other tools or tricks of the trade are as important. Everything else is secondary or tertiary.

One of the first things that hugely improves your mixes, going from total noob to slightly more advanced, is to realize that there are no rules. Once you understand that the only important thing is the end product, not how you got there, will instantly level you up from noob to the next level.

[Frantz]

If I spend hours fiddling with a mix, inevitably my ears get fatigued and I lose perspective.

The next day I need to listen to it in another environment (often in the car) with fresh ears. Then the problems jump out at me. I write down the issues and address them early in the next session before fatigue sets in.

The actual gear isn't that important. Any number of tools can be used to do the same job.

[UltraByte]

learning audio engineering (which includes a lot of the points bmanic made)

[Krakatau]

for me, trackspacer has revieled itself to be a fantastic and very effective tool for clarifying a mix ?

[Sound_Bear]

- Being ultra-disciplined about HPF'ing all relevant signals in the chain from the track all the way to the 2-buss, including pre-processing, post processing, summing busses, FX auxes, etc. Basically making 100% sure that there is zero low frequency information clashing with the kick and bass. Most of us understand that this is a good idea, but it's easy to forget about all the reverbs, saturation, auxes, etc, producing unwanted low frequency information after doing the initial HPF cut on the track.

Interesting. Each instance of highpass filtering introduces a level increase and changes of harmonic content even if your cutoff is way below the signal's fundamental. This is easy to deal with if you just HPF a few particular signals, but if I'm understanding correctly you have potentially several instances of HPF on each track in a project. How do you deal with all those accumulative changes?