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One of the best ways to ensure your mix is heading in the right direction is by listening to well mixed songs periodically throughout the mixing process.  Continually checking your mix against a great reference helps you shape specific elements in your mix, keeps your ears tuned, and challenges you to perfect your mix.

Like with many other art-forms, imitation is flattery rather than forgery.  Mixes cannot be copyrighted (lucky for us).  If you find a song with great production you can copy everything in the mix, as long as you have the skills and patience to do it.  I'm not talking about sampling, I'm talking about the eq, the effects, the compression.  Really like those drum sounds on the latest Foo Fighters' CD?  Put that on your reference list.  As you are tweaking the drum sounds, switch back and forth from your mix to the Foo Fighters and sculpt the sounds to match.

You can put 3 or 4 songs in a playlist within ITunes or Windows Media Player and set it on random.  Pick songs from different artists that each represent something you like that you would like to emulate in your mix.  Every time you return to the beginning of your song, switch to your reference for 10-20 seconds.  Listen to what sounds different (or better) and try to understand why.  Try not to rationalize what you are doing as being really creative - if it doesn't compare favorably it is probably going too far.  And don't fool yourself into thinking your mix sounds better because the bass is so full and the reference song is just wimpy.  You are probably overdoing the bass.  Push yourself to understand why the mix engineer on your favorite mixes did what they did.

One thing to be aware of is that you are comparing fully mastered songs to your mix.  They are probably way louder than your mix.  Set your reference players volume so it is the same level as your mix.  Besides volume, the closer you get to your reference in terms of EQ, balance, separation of instruments, etc. the less will have to be done in mastering.  This is a good thing - you want your mix to have the right balance.  Just avoid adding any compression, limiting or eq to the overall mix.  The more you can shape each individual element of the mix to get the overall sound you are after, the better the final product will be after mastering.

Reference listening also can help compensate for a poor mixing room or monitors.  If you have 3 or 4 reference songs and your mix sounds somewhat similar playing in your room on your monitors, you are probably in the right ballpark.  (Your room is affecting the curve of the reference songs the same way it is affecting your mix.)  This is certainly not a solution to the problem, but can help you create better mixes if you can't do anything about your environment.

Once you think you have a good mix, listen to it along with your reference songs on as many different systems in as many different rooms as you can.  Every room and every system will reveal different things in your mix.  Your car is a really good place to listen.  The thing that is interesting is that your reference songs will sound good in just about any environment.  This is your goal!!  Take notes on what sounds different on each system, go back and try to compensate.

One of the myths about audio engineers is that they always know what the "right" sound is.  The truth is that they have learned to tune their ears often to a good reference, especially when moving around from studio to studio.  After many years, you get a better sense of what is right and wrong, but this technique remains indispensible.