Here are some general mixing tips that may prove helpful.
Start with the arrangement
A good mix always starts with a good arrangement. For each instrument to be heard clearly with good separation requires that there isn’t a pileup of instruments that occupy the same frequency spectrum all playing at the same time. Allow your arrangement to give each instrument some room to breathe.
Use reference tracks
Find one or two existing songs that matches your creation as close as possible in terms of instrumentation, style and feel. If possible, bring this reference track into Cubase but make sure it isn’t affected by any plugins or EQ that may live on your Stereo Out bus. (There are a couple of different ways to ensure this. If you’re using Control Room, you can route the reference track to a Cue bus which allows you to switch between the reference and your mix in Control Room.)
It’s a good idea to loudness match the reference track to your mix. Remember that the human ear tend to perceive louder as sounding better. Get a loudness reading of your mix and use Loudness Normalization on your reference to match.
When comparing your mix to the reference, listen critically. This brings us to the next topic…
Listening skills
Knowing how to listen as a mix engineer is a skill that develop with experience. Try to focus on specific frequency areas and assess what’s going on in terms of clarity, dynamics and depth. Practice this skill by listening critically to commercially produced music. You can ask questions like “Where does this instrument sit in terms of panorama and depth (back to front)?” or “What frequency range does a particular instrument fundamentally occupy?”.
When you start your mixing project there are a few tricks you can employ that might help you get to your end result faster. One of them is to start in mono. All mono channels panned center and stereo channels turned to mono by use of the Stereo Combined Panner. Start by setting the volume levels of all your tracks, trying to achieve a good balance as much as possible. As you progress by making EQ adjustments, taming dynamics with a compressor or adding space with a reverb, remember to adjust your levels to compensate. Cutting with an EQ for example will lower the perceived loudness.
Another good trick is to check your mix at a low volume level. Turn your listening volume all the way down and slowly raise it until you can all the individual instruments. (You can use your reference track for this.) Does the balance between instruments in your mix sound the same as it did when you listened to it on a louder level?
Listen to your mix on different speakers in different rooms. When checking your mix on a different set of speakers, I recommend listening to some other music on that system first (it could be your reference track) to get your ears accustomed to that environment.
Try to work quick and take breaks. Our brain has a phenomenal way of getting accustomed to what we hear. Listening to the same material for hours can be truly detrimental to your decision making. “Ear fatigue” is an issue and kicks in a lot sooner than you might think.
Beware of the Solo button! When applying EQ, dynamic processing or spatial effects it is critical that those are done in the context of the rest of the mix. A solo’ed instrument typically never sounds as full and complete when in solo as it does in the full mix.
Lastly I would just like to add that Cubase Pro comes with all the tools necessary to craft a great sounding mix. If you’re new to mixing, I would recommend you learn how to use all the common tools, such as EQ, dynamics processors (compressors e.g.), reverb, etc, before shopping for new shiny plugins marketed with a plethora of hyperbole.
If your mix is suffering from issues like muddiness, lack of separation or just flat sounding, a new channel strip plugin is notgoing to solve that problem.