Vintage Channel Presets?

Mastering by preset is really a no-no! When mastering you are trying to get the songs great sounding coherrent and since they are different songs the same presets probably won't fit them equally well and definitely won't bring them closer soundwise.

I mastered an almost all guitar acoustic folk-progg album once (even if I mostly work with urban genres such as hiphop) and even though all songs contained the same instruments different settings was required for each song.

The most important thing when staring out is to listen to a few of your favourite tracks with the same vibe on the same speaker setup. Listen closely so you get to know them and especially listen for 'the sound'. If the mixing of what you are to master is totally of it's not much you can do if you are not experienced in mastering (and even then not very much as you can't polish a turd [or you can but it's still a turd]). Also you can check your favourite tracks in a spectrum analyzer (Voxengo has a really great free one) and compare them to how your friends tracks sound and look, it can give you an idea of what EQ settings to try out.

Also try both the LP64 EQ and maybe something else as well if you want a little color, hiphop and other digitally ITB-music can often sound a little sterile... The TL64 and Cakewalk Tape FX can work wonders for a little warmth as well.

For mastering pupouses on a low budget I think the pro-channel 4k comp could be a good go instead of the VC64 to glue a mix together while still keeping it punchy. And don't overcompress! A few db is often sufficient. Play around with the different attack settings while keeping the release on auto to see how it affects the sound when you have dialed in a few dB of compression and go with what you like and tweak it. Then play around with the release to see how it effects the sound.

Stay away from multiband processing if you are not familiar with it, it's very powerful tool but also very easy to get it wrong. When you feel you feel comfortable using regular compression and different eq teqhniues it can be fun to start experemeting with it though as it offer some possibilities other methods don't

When you compare your tracks with industry tracks it can be a good idea to lower the industry track by about 6 dB or something so you listen at equal level. First compare the sound and only then the loudness as the loudness otherwise will obscure the perception of the sound.

For hiphop to get that big kick it's pretty common to boost a few dB around 60 hz wich is a bit lower than other genres. You can also try layering your snare with a short snap of white noise to get it to cut. The biggest thing though might be sound selection, try to find some drum samples you think sound really knockin even before you start to mix them (and if needed layer) and always A/B pre and after you've made changes as it can be easy to accidently compress a drum to sound softer rather than harder. Sometimes no compression is the best compression. Tube and tape saturation usually goes really well with kick and snare as well. Also don't forget to use high pass filters as unneccesary low freqz wont make your instruments (or master for that sake) phatter, just muddier. Also make sure your kick and bass don't cancel each other out or drown one another, where you boost one it can often work to cut the other a little.

When mastering you can look at a reference track in a spectrum analyzer and at the same time look at your track in another spectrum analyzer. Compare the graphs and it'll give you a few pointers to where the songs differ in the frequency spectrum, if you find that the industry track have a bigger bump around 100 hz try boosting your tune there with an EQ a little or if your track has a much bigger bump around 5 khz it might be to harsh and you can try cutting a little. Put your EQ before the analyzer in the chain so you can see the difference your eq tweaks will do and you might get to know your eq of choise better. After a while you'll learn to hear these differences between the tracks or what eq tweaks you might try without having to look at the analyzer.

To get a little more glue as well as some more punch try using the Pro-Chanel 4k on the masterbus with an ratio of maybe 2 or 4, a slow attack and a fast (or auto) release and lower the treshold until you get just a few (no more than four, probably even less) gain reduction. It's a subtle effect but it can make a track sound much more together as well as give it some more bounce.