For the benifit of others, I will post the same answer to this question as was posted in "New Beginnings" ....Fats
Modify the sound at it's source. If it's a bass amp tweek the amp tone. Same with guitars.. A lot of guitar players will go for the same type of tone ( you know the one, super distortion with NO mids). Record them as they are and then let them hear a playback. Then tweek it some on the amps, record them again and let them hear the difference. Explane to them what is happening. It may convince them to change they're ways. A lot of times, musicians in a band will all play the same chord in the same octave and voicing. This can make it almost impossible to differentiate between them, especially if they are all using similar tones. Arraignments shoud be altered to get the guitar players and keyboards to play different chord voicings and in different octaves. This will remedy the "pile up" of the instruments. This is a perfect example of it's not what you record with, it's what your recording. While your correct in saying it's better not to use radical eq settings, bottom line is, do what sounds good. If you need to use 10dB of eq, do it! Thats why the eq's all have that much range. Try to cut eq instead of boosting whenever possible.... Fats