Making your tracks technically right, with all the right software and settings, is an admirable goal. Be careful not to lose sight of your creativity. Many of the technical aspects of music will influence its perceived quality (i.e. a song may not sound “right” to an untrained ear, even without any objective criticisms), but if the creativity is lacking, the complaints may be much more strongly worded.
You can read more about it here: http://therecordingrevolution.com/2013/01/28/why-creativity-trumps-technicality/
Mixing Time Management
The fine details of mixing shouldn’t be neglected, but how often do you start doing detailed work on a track before you’ve gotten all of the big-picture work done? By starting with the big-picture work, you’re getting a much better start on the finer details that will need polishing later in the process.
You can read more tips here: http://therecordingrevolution.com/2013/01/25/get-better-mixes-by-going-for-the-big-wins/
Knowledge Is Power
Improving your equipment is a great way to improve your final product. Unfortunately, fancy new gear will do no more for your skills as an audio engineer than a new piano will make you a pianist. If you have the resources available to invest in high quality equipment, go for it. Those pieces may actually save you money in the long run since you will be able to get more life out of them than some of the cheaper alternatives. The most efficient way to improve your product is to improve your skills, and often that only costs time.
You can read the full article here: http://www.audio-issues.com/keeping-track/skills-first-equipment-second/
Equipment Envy
Psychology is a bit of a nuisance. You may think you’ve completely isolated yourself from marketing gimmicks and equipment sales hype, but that is never really possible. Expectations can have profound effects on our perception of quality. This is true for wine just as much as it is for audio equipment. Yes, there is some downright terrible wine in the world, just like there is some downright terrible audio equipment. There are also bottles that are the epitome of perfection in a certain style, and audio equipment that really does perform up to its price point. As demonstrated in the article linked below, sometimes the differences between good and great gear is exaggerated in our minds.
You can read the article here: http://audioundone.com/loudspeakers_winer
Audio Compression And Data Loss
Compression can refer to either dynamic range compression (DRC) or data compression. Data compression can also be either “lossless” or “lossy”. Lossless compression keeps all parts of the original file (.zip or .rar are examples) while lossy compression does not. For example, .mp3 files only have about 10% of the pre-encoding data. All of these types of compression are important to various stages of the home recording process in their own way. Learning about each may help you avoid some of their shortcomings.
You can read the full article here: http://productionadvice.co.uk/what-is-compression/