I'm not a 'pro' but ill put it forth and say that using EQ's and reverb is NOT cheating at all! Most probably every cd or record you have heard would have had EQ and Reverb added to it, its a very normal procedure! (Or using natural reverb (room mics))

And i'm excited! Party party!

I am with Doomith. mixing is like cooking. season to taste!
yes, I'm so excited, and I just can't hide it.
I'm about to lose control and I think I like it.

Thanks guys! I'm glad that's how it is. The vocals just sound so much more... THERE! And DAMN I need to reduce the bass to shit for the ipod to be happy. My friends sister has my speakers in Israel, so I think I will get some monitors in place of them! Then I can tell what the bass is really like. Is there a reason the ipod does this?

Some pearls of wisdom:

- Sometimes you have to do some un-Natural things to make things sound Natural.
- All mics suck. None are as good as you're ears. If they were, we wouldn't have to put them inche's away from the source.
- The whole recording process is a cheat. We know it's a cheat, they know it's a cheat, no one cares that it's a cheat.
It's like David Copperfield. Everyone knows it's a trick.
- Did Picasso cheat because his paintings didn't look anything like the original source?
- No one is really more excited about someone else's product as they are about their own. (If they are, then their medication needs adjusting)

The vocal has the biggest dynamic specter than any other instrument out there. That will often requier some compression. For Rock and Pop you need heavy vocal compression to get it out in the audio image-land. Reverb push the vocal futher back in the audio image. You can try to increase the pre-delay or change the reverb for a delay to still get the reverb effect but preserving the clearity.