Today was a fantastic class. Our Instructor Ariel, walked us through a complete mix of a project provided by one of our classmates. Luckily our classmate Daniel provided a great project to mix. This covered initial setup/cleanup of the stems and then a full on mix process. This was where all of the technical details, discussions and examples over the last few weeks were put into the context of doing a actual mix.
What I got the most out of this was 1) you must have a solid production prior to mixing, you can't fix it in the mix, its purpose is to enhance and reveal the beauty and art of your production. 2) less is the best, loading up on plugins and effects is not a good strategy, minimal and good use of EQ, compression/limiting, one or two special plugins and reverb can really make a difference with most projects. He also showed us how to properly use returns, sends, busses and inserts.
It was really a fascinating class and I'm looking forward to trying my hand at mixing in one of the next few classes under our instructors steady eye.