After being frustrated with my mixes from Sunday, I decided to try something a little new.  Many studios use a tad bit of corrective EQ on their studio monitors.  Well, I don't have any outboard EQs so that idea was shot down in a hurry. 

However, what I do have is plenty of plugins.  I simply slapped a Waves stereo EQ on the 2bus.  I did a 2dB low shelf boost on everything under 1Khz and I did a 2dB high shelf cut on everything above 1Khz.  These settings are very drastic, but I had to to the test.

Before I rendered the mix, I would simply disengage the EQ plugin.  The results.....WOW!  My mixes sounded muc more like commercial cds that I'm used to listening to but could never make myself do.  I have a feeling that this is going to make a big impact on my mixing!!

I do need to play with my curve a little bit, as some of the 10-12Khz stuff may be a little hot. 

I did a mix and took it to my computer speakers w/subwoofer (which are my main reference these days).  Sure enough, the mud and low end crap that always seams to ruin my recordings was not there.  The mix doesn't sound thin either. 

Conclusion
Maybe my studio monitors weren't lieing necessarily, but maybe my tolerances were accepting what the studio monitors were giving me.  Well, by pushing the sound coming out of the monitors out of my accepted tolerances, I was able to compensate.

The best thing about this trick, is for the first time, I don't feel totally incompetent in my mixing.  When I perfect the curve, I think I'll be able to crank out pro sounding mixes.  I wonder how this will work during tracking!!

Note:  This is not exactly fundamentally sound.  There are problems with tossing an EQ on the 2bus and in almost all cases, proper monitor placement and acoustic treatments are a better choice.  However, if the problems you are having with your mixes cover a broad frequency spectrum, there is no reason that this trick can't help.  Just keep in mind that this is a "trick" and not necessarily a solution.