I hear ya.
Well, sorry to disappoint you but to tell you the truth: the golden secret is that there is no secret.
Have you read that "tutorial" Slipperman wrote some time back?
It's incredibly detailed...
BUT, just knowing how to EQ things right won't give you what you're looking for.
What guitar are you using, what pickups does it have, are the strings new? What kind of pick are you playing with?
Is your technique tight, where do you hit the strings. It starts here. And it ends with the master.
Directly compare your results to the ones other mortal people post.
You can always reference your mixes with professional ones, nothing wrong with that but keep in mind
they're doing this stuff for decades! Go little steps and you'll improve. Slowly alright. But you'll improve.
Even CJ has done his shit for years. And when he says he's not tight playing some riffs he's still 100x tighter than I am.
He's not saying that because he wants to make us all look like morons but because he knows that he can still improve, he can do better (if he wants to).
Consistancy. Can't say it often enough. Consistancy is the key. I'm having more downs than ups but I'm not giving up.
The more results I get sounding shitty the more my ears get trained to differ between good/clean/tight/punchy and shitty crap
Sure there's often the situation where I just want to jump out of the window but hey, that's part of the learning process.
Noone is keeping golden secrets here, I don't think so. It's all a matter of talent (how fast and efficient you learn) and experience. No magic there.
I can't even listen to mixes I did last week (which sounded great then!) after all the stuff I've learned SINCE then.
Expose yourself. Show your weaknesses and I'm sure others will help, because most certainly they've stumbled across the same problems...
You have to put all those tiny pieces together to get THAT sound everybody is killing for...
It's all here on this forum and other places, just read, read and keep reading till your eyes bleed.
Then sit down and experiment. There's something others can't give you: Experience.
You have to absorb everything and then put it to practice. See where it gets you.
Focus on little things and try to improve them. There's always room for improvement, everywhere.
It takes time and good ears. Train them. I could focus on a tight lowend for several years and there would still be a possibility to tune here and there.
) and would like to see where your punch comes from.. like what eq settings, what maximiser settings, what settings on master buss...
Now it sounds more like it with Dry signal off 