hi bill,
mixing visually always!! re har-bal i have only casually looked at this program, and it seemed to me to be a bit gimmicky...although i havent actually used it so it might be okay...run a decent 31 band graphic and use your ears imho is still the best way...but these things prob aren't much use to you bill, if you are just using tracks with all instruments "in"...if an when you start doing individual tracking, then an additional eq might help...eq'ing should be done on single instruments as its designed to help them fit into their own space in a mix, without overintruding somewhere else..if the instruments are already in "each others way" so to speak, no amount of eq'ing or balancing on the end l/r track will make a lot of difference, other than to just flatten everything out, which "flattens the mix" too....
cheers
dennis