Yes, the five points mentioned in this page may seem small, but they play a major role in getting that big impact. One point which most people take as natural, but don’t realise how important it is, is ‘Listening’. You may say listening. Yes! I discovered in the last year when I have been mixing I forgot what that was, I would look at the meters on my computer software and hardware and I simply forgot to listen and go for the sound I felt was right.

Point number 2 according to this article is a small point, but in many cases its a mega cause of song sounding bad and that is bad vocals. Get a program to fix the vocals or get the vocalist to practice and practice till they get it right. I use vocal tuning, but it does not always work well. What I do is I do about 5 takes and I choose the best bits and if parts still don’t sound well, I use a pitch corrector like the one builtin Logic.

The best professionals in the business can do amazing work on literally any gear you throw at them.

Its much much more about the technique that it is the gear. (Obviously having quality gear is also very important, but) It sounds like you have some solid gear, now its just about practicing and really developing your ears.

Tons of very famous music is mixed completely in the box these days. Tons of very famous music is mixed using the box as a tape machine, and using a console and outboard gear. My advice would be to stick with the gear your have and really learn it well, so that you are sure that you are taking your gear to its highest sonic potential.