There are lots of answers to your questions on this web board. Do a search. One thing that I will say is that without really good monitors and good acoustics you are not going to be able to judge what your are doing and will come up with some STRANGE sounding mixes that are probably NOT what you are looking for,

You don't state a lot about what you have for equipment nor your background so it is rather hard to give you ANY advice.

How about telling us more about your setup and what you are hoping to do?

Thanks in advance.

Do a search and read your waves manual. That is assuming you have a manual, seems kind of odd to spend a 100 bucks on your sequencer and 5 grand on plug ins that you don't even know how to use. You should just be able to open the eq and mess with it to see what it does, its pretty self explanitory, now compression is another ballgame altogether that even I don't fully understand. But I still know enough to use it and wouldn't have thought about upgrading to a 5 thousand dollar bundle before I figured it out. For a newb the platinum bundle is way over kill, you'll probably never use half the plugs you just "bought".

My name is Marcus. I have been involved in music, in one form or another for about 15 years. Around 8 or 9 years ago I began learning to sequence on a Korg01W with a receiver hooked up to speakers I bought at a pawn shop. (There were no internet forums that I'd heard of back then exclaiming the existence or newbs or spoobs or whatever... offering any kind of help or assault either way) Nonetheless I ended up with about 30 floppy disc (10 on each side) full of music , starting out painful to listen to, and getting progressively better until I had a pretty good handle on how it was done.

During this time I focused zero on mixing and mastering since all I had was a Tascam 424. I stayed squarely on songwriting and compostition. I learned how to play the piano and guitar and the rest I could sequence. I am a singer.

In 2000 I found a group and moved to Florida. We were eventually signed and began recording an album. MAJOR focus shift! The next natural step for me (learnign to EQ, mix, master etc.) was blunted by this ever increasing onslaught. Though I did learn quite a bit about how music was made. We recorded in Conway Studio in LA, The Sound Kitchen in Franklin TN.. worked with alot of very talented engineers and producers. We had a good run.. about three years semi high profile in the business, even had a #1 single in October 2002. End of 2004 I walked away. The business eventually began devouring my soul and I had to make a choice. I wanted to start over, get back to that kid with the keyboard who would blink and 7 hours had somehow miraculously flown by as I was creating my own music. I had become a plastic, robot version of myself.

So now I am back.. starting over. I do have alot more knowledge about Eq, compression, mixing and mastering then the average person.. but I see it as an art form that takes years to really understand and be proficient in. As I look upon the landscape of this intregal part of recording that I never got to fully mature in.. I see myself as a greenhorn. I respect this part of the process like you have no idea.

This year I have built a little DAW out of mostly modest equipment, with the exception of some plugins. I am working with Cubase SE (home) and SX (studio) Acid 4.0, FL Studio 6, and Reason 3.0 .

My setup is as follows:
P4 3.2GHz
Intel 925
800MHz FSB
2GB Dual DDR RAM
80GB System SATA
200GB Media SATA
Win 2000 Pro
Dual G5 2Ghz
2GB RAM
500GB HD

I am currently using a shure SM58 and a low end condenser mic to record audio (personally, I don't need a $2500 Neumann to get a clean crisp sound) and a pretty decent pre-amp.. plus I want to upgrade to a firewire interface.

I already have a huge head start in some areas, but I am severly lacking in others. I am an artist, not an engineer, but I want to learn how to do my own production. I want to learn and grow into a working knowledge through my own trial and error yes, (like in the early days.. I am not afraid to get my hands dirty) but I also would like to be able to utilize these forums for pointers and advise from time to time.

I am hungry and willing to do whatever it takes to grow.. money, time.. blood, sweat and tears.

HI MARCUS,

it is still rather difiicult to give you a very concrete advise or tips over the internnet, as i am not clear how "good" or "bad" your stuff is without actually hearing it!

the setup you have, will certainly be able to give you the results you are looking for... (the soundcard being a vital part of your sound, which you did not mentioned what type it is... going firewire, RME fireface if you can afford it (just being my personel recomendation), and you should being able to splash out on the waves diamond bundle!!)

however, here is something basic which might be already obvious to you, but that's the only advise i feel being able to give you.

i assume you as being an artist have good ears, the most important item.

just start after recording and arranging / editing... to step to your mixing setup... know do every part of introducing a plugin VERY CONCIOUS!!
what i mean is say you listen to the tune raw, and you feel the guitar is not loud enough, raise the volume... if still not happy EQ-it to "push" it out of the other sounds... twiddle with the EQ and just continously listen carefully... so that you will get a "feel" of what it does... let's say then you introduce a compressor to your drums... same just listen while you tweak... that way you will soon get a feeling how things react / sound together... mmhhh.... the problem is i don't know how "advanced" you are already, you see, it can become very easyly very complex, bus routing and the like... if you discover the sound get's muddled, stop.
just check what you did at last just before it started to sound muddled, maybee you EQ-ed something that is starting to fight with the same frequency... the guitar say you have very low at about 300-500hz and you have a very bright bass sound too, around 300-400, they can burry each other... look / listen and remember always what you did during the process, you will eventuelly be able to eliminate the problem.

ok i have to admit that english is not my mothertongue.. so excuse if i did not made myself clear... also the whole concept of mixing, eq-ing, compression and so on... is or can get very complex... this is just a VERY basic aproach... i don't know any good books, for example, i mainly learnt that way, practicing... i did lot of different mixes of the same song with different plugs, orders of plugs, setting, and listened to the find out what does what and what works and what not...

a rule of thumb: always start very low and slow with all settings... and listen while you tweak... very carefully and concious...

i hope that i have been not to confusing and that it might help you...

otherwise here on RO are several very usefull tips to concrete mixing questions, just surf and read...

cheers
axel

p.s. even if you did not "bought" the diamond bundle there are some good tips on the waves website about general settings to start of...