Your right you have to have a mental picture of what you want to hear in the end beforehand. Naturally you will replicate that in the pre-mix as close as possible, then the alteration later will be small. If you have a final mix in your head and you don't go with it (say you boost the mids) then the alterations in the post-mix will be greater. Big no no. Don't fight what you want because of rules. See we are saying the samething but your just taking what I'm saying the wrong way. If a good enginner can exactly balance out all the frequencies before recording a single track, he/she is god. No engineer can do that because you never know what the right balance is, it's a process that changes everytime you sit down to mix a song. Many factors play a role here, most aren't in our control.
[Edited by noticingthemistake on 10-12-2003 at 09:55 PM]
"My whole life is a dark room...ONE BIG DARK ROOM" - a.f.i.