if u don’t know i make part of my living as a mix engineer and here are some opinions about mixing and music:

There is no such thing as a perfect mix, anyone who says otherwise is wrong. I am also wrong bcos there is no objective answer

i love guided by voices and sebadoh, i wouldn’t have their respective sounds any other way and by modern definitions their music is ‘badly mixed’

what is most important is emotional intention, the medium will become the message. is burial badly mixed? is actress? no bcos there is an emotional intention that is underlined by the sonic quality and chances are they got there by accident

tech house, ‘get physical’ types who go on about ‘professional sounding mixes’ and the importance thereof probably make the most boring bait music known to man. it is the christopher nolan of music. leave it out it’s backwards thinking

no true cultural shift was 100% intentional. act first and think later. make mistakes, allow accidents and promote growth

it sounds obvious but your first eq is the volume fader, the louder the signal the more frequencies will come thru. low end and low mids will come thru in the mix the louder you make the channel. get levels right before eq

try only using three band eqs, if you are going mad with loads of bands then you are making a comb filter and not an eq

for vocals try a band at 100, a band at 1k and a band at 10k..try and make the adjustments you need with only those three bands, chances are you won’t need anymore than that unless the recording is total ass

don’t sidechain channels to your kick to hear your kick, you don’t always need to hear the fkn kick you just need to feel it. there’s a difference

make a smile eq on your kicks to scoop out the low mids, this will make your kick less boxy, give it a bit of thump and allow the bassline or sub to come thru better. no need to sidechain, sidechaining is for returns and french house

set every other level against your kick if that’s what’s the most important part of your track, sounds obvious but many forget it..learn about gainstaging cos it’s the most fundamental part of mixing

don’t listen to anyone including me