This topic comes up probably once a month at least. Just do a search on "Steely Dan"
But allow be to present an opposing point of view to what Scrubs put on the table. Scrubs and I are usually on the same page on most issues. I respect his opinion and I understand where he is coming from with his first point.
However, I believe that while it's important to hear what others are doing within a genre, to concentrate on listening to only that flavor of recording or music that one is currently doing the majority of their work in is extremely limiting and can lead to a very boring homoginity in one's productions (if one is an independent engineer) and in one's music (if one is an independent musician.)
To my tastes and experience, many of the very best recorded productions are those that, if not defy conventions, at least incorporate engineering or musical ideas from areas of music that may not seem obvious at first blush. Actually, many examples within Scrubs' recommended list incorporate just such fusion. Duncan Sheik, Michael Jackson, Pink Floyd, Steely Dan, and even in some degree Big Head Todd, all in the albums mentioned incorporate many musical and engineering styles and techniques normally considered the normal jurisdiction of styles and genres other than that in which the band or performer is normally associated.
Personally I believe that there are many hip hop artists and producers that can get quite a lot of useful ideas out of a Yanni disc...and vice versa.
As far as the OP question itself, I'd like to take a different tack and say for the best sonic inspiration, turn off your CD player or MP3 player and get out to live events. I'm not talking big barn rock concerts, I'm talking small clubs where you can sit up close and watch and hear everything from jazz trios to quality 5-piece rock cover bands to dance DJs. I'm talking the really good ones who make a living out of it and have been doing so for 15 years or more.
The idea here is to listen closely and critically, hear what good instruments when played well and sung well really sound like. What a hi hat sounds like when you really actually listen to it, and when you hear it w/o benefit of microphones or EQs. How the vocalist sounds and how they work the microphone with their head and how that changes the sound. How the bass actually feels and integrates with the rest of the mix. And so on.
This may not directly give you recipes for mixing, but I don't think that's a bad thing. Use this experience to give you inspiration as to how great things sound and how much better they really sound in real life. Then use that appreciation to start imagining in your head how you could put together such great sounds in a great mix.
Even more, listen to the live mix - which is almost always going to be problematic compared to a studio mix - and as the band is playing, listen to it and imagine how you'd want it to sound different on your recording. is the guitar too loud or too soft? Can you actually hear the keyboard? Is the vocal too bassy or too nasaly? Is the arrangement flat and boring or dynamic and exciting? etc.
Then take all that back to your studio and build your own composition based upon those experiences and inspirations.
G.
