The most common mistake in a mix down:

Letting music overpower the beats in frequencies where the beats should be working.

Aside from Drum and bass, some garage and bass music, the lowest part of a mix will probably be where the kick settles down. If that frequency is not low enough and a bass sound goes under it (frequency wise) and is as loud or louder, the kick sounds weak (thats a kick drum lead track idea).

At the top end, if your hi hat, or ride or whatever is meant to make the framework of your beats at the top end is overtaken by a trance lead, how are you going to hear the hats. It doesnt make the trance lead sound good, it makes the track lose energy.

For references of these things listen to good trance productions.

For working it out on your mix, get focussed...
Go to the master output, stick a low pass filter on, filter the track down.. now you are listening to the bottom end only. Make sure the kick is leading the bass.

Take that low pass off, get a high pass on, now listen to the top of the track- does the crash sit 3db above other hats, are the hats and ride balanced, are the riffs overtaking the hats.. are the riffs CLOSE ENOUGH to the hats (wtihout swamping them).

Wow, your drums are punchy, yes, in the right frequencies they are a framework which the music must never overtake. Understand, learn and put this into practice and your mixes are in a good place. Following this, make efficiencies by making small things smaller to leave the big things big!

 

Working on this very thing in a few of my mixes. Good idea to LP the master buss and just give a listen to the bottom end. Good tip!

 

and you can play with the imaging of the individual elements or freqs. I hear a lot of new music smearing the the highs of the hats and vox all across the stereo field instead of placing them in there own distinctly notched and cut out spaces.
example

Dayum some of those highs are wide! but only on certain elements and sounds

 

Last edited: May 9, 2017

We recorded drums using the Glyn Johns method for the overheads. I really like the width possibilities and limited phasing issues from that mic arrangement. The hats and ride just sit where they should without too much fuss once you do a little compression work. I don't generally put any spread on the drum buss. I like the drums to sit just within the rhythm guitar tracks width. That's something I've learned and continue to learn to focus on, is placement of the hats level-wise so they don't dominate (sound out in front of even the vocals), but reinforce the groove.