@batsbrew... Thanks. Yeah, that's where this experiment is going. As nice as all these fancy software effects are there just always seems to be a compromise going on. Try and cut something to get rid of an obnoxious frequency and something good gets yanked out. Try to boost something cool and another thing that isn't so cool is all of a sudden popping out. Try and fix wonked out levels with a compressor or whatever and things sound all smashy and thin. It's just a pain and frankly I'd rather be working on writing, practicing and tracking. The little tweaking experiments I've done with the EQ's and compressors so far with THIS signal have been more complimentary than some kind of elaborate exercise out of necessity. Basically I'm not desperately struggling to make it sound like a bass because it already does. I'm just messing around with things to make it work better with the other stuff going on.
 
That said... I do not regret being forced to use the crummier signals I had been. In fact I kind of did that on purpose. I've blathered about this before but I actually WANTED to work with crap signals and try to fix them up so they sound alright for the experience. Now though after this past year I just want things to be easy from the get go. I need to release some new material and I actually have some people crawling up my butt to write stuff for them so I have to get on with it. Cheers.
 
@Makeshift... I'll keep that in mind. Seems very specific though. I spent a lot of time a year ago trying to learn the whole paint by numbers approach to mixing and then when I went to apply it I realized all this stuff is constantly moving around and there are million and one approaches. It was all good to have some general guidelines but I have all these extensive notes I made from some of the Groove3 vids based on specific mixes that I realize now are kind of useless to me because they working with different genres and instruments. The truisms are there though so tweaking the Freq knobs and Q's ends up ballparking it in but you're right with the ears thing (as Danny points out frequently)... science is great but it ain't jack if it doesn't sound good.
 
Kind of where I'm at with this. I'm trying to capture every frequency I need upon input so I can mold it from there in mixing if need be instead of endlessly polishing turds. Cheers and thanks.

Heh... got ahead of me there, Danny. That's what I get for not refreshing before posting. As I said I think the guidelines helped me at first just to get a feel for where things sit but it really was getting limiting and I think that's why that last tuned failed in many ways. I mean I think it was alright but I was just trying to toss everything at it and when I got to the end it it was too much and I couldn't be arsed to go back for such a stale composition.
 
As far as the input stage... the gear issues will help but in a lot of ways I think performance trumps all. As I'm writing, practicing then tracking my parts, particularly with bass, I can just see the waves getting smoother and sh*t landing where it needs to. I'm so ticked off at how out of practice I've become because of all the other nonsense going on. I went years without so much as a twinge in my fingertips from endless hours of playing and now I'm having to take a couple days between tracking sessions because my callouses are gone. Pathetic. But they're coming back quick. No more hackin' this crap. Hopefully the universe sees fit to finally allow me to get back to business.
 
Thanks again. Cheers.

Danny,
 
I should have been more specific in my response, you are absolutely correct when you say each instrument and track offers its own unique set of issues....or non-issues.  I always use my ears when making EQ adjustment and don't generally make adjustments, unless I have a goal specifically in mind.
 
I take all of these "starting points" with a grain of salt.  They only tell me in what general area I might start to look.  I then start to scope that area to see if it's going to help me with the issue I am trying to address or not.  I just usually make changes by ear, what sounds best and knowing what general area to start looking at helps when you don't do this every day, day in and day out.

I guess I approach EQ and FX more musically than I do scientifically. Much like adjusting the knobs on a guitar amp. I twiddle with them until it sounds good. I'm more artistically logical, than engineering scientific.