Sonar X3 Studio Mixing Mastering help wanted

A rather large topic.  It might fit better under techniques.
 
But, the most important thing  (you probably don't want to hear) is time.  Mixing and mastering is an art, but before that it is craft in which you tune your ears and learn a few tricks (of the many) that YOU like to use.  So buckle up and be prepared to put in time.  In the meanwhile, you can make good sounding songs.
 
You don't list your hardware, which is another important part.  A music soundcard is a first step, if you don't have one, even if you are doing in-the-box production (ie. not recording anything acoustic).  It is hard to make quality sounding recordings (or playback) if you don't have a decent monitoring system - some good speakers in a room that doesn't have huge problems.  You can learn speakers/room and learn to adjust the final sound to compensate, but that, too, takes time and can really skew your mix and is frustrating.  At this point, don't worry about your other equipment (unless you have lots of money to throw at it).  Used to one learned about recording in a studio which already had good equipment.  Today, in the home studio world, if you stick w/ it you'll slowly acquire some good stuff that you do like.  Again, everyone has slightly different tastes and in the meantime most interface converters and preamps are decent.
 
The good news - SONAR Studio is good and comes w/ enough software that you won't have to spend money on third party software.  It has prochannel w/ a great EQ, a good track compressor (76) and a great buss comp (SSL).  The sonitus line of effects is very nice and clean while the Nomad stuff looks and sounds more like vintage hardware.  The SONAR LP suite is everything you need for mastering but only mastering - it is linear phase and introduces latency into playback so you can't use it during overdubbing (same w/ the Perfect Space convolution reverb if Studio has it).
 
Getting hiss or feedback off a recording is hard.  best to re-record. If not, you'll likely have to gate the noise and try to eq it out during the vocals.  That usually doesn't work to well.  The most feared words in audio or video is "We'll fix it in the mix." Get it right at recording time and you'll get a better song easier.  You'll find that well-recorded tracks that were properly arranged before recording practically mix themselves.  You end up working on the ear candy instead of having to half-ass fix things.
 
As far as professionally sounding vocals - the best mic you have in the best room you have into the best preamp is the best bet.  Once you have that, I usually high-pass the vocal (cut out the low end noise etc.) up to 100 Hz or more, shelf EQ the high end for air (turn it up at 10-12 KHz) and put the 76 comp on it to steady the levels.  Those are general things and depend upon the voice and the song, but is my usual starting point.  A delay usually works to thicken the sound (rather than reverb, which can muddy up the soundstage).  And reverb - I always knock down the "mix" of the reverb to about 20-30% if I'm using it - unless I'm mixing for someone on acid (then I'll make the delay an echo and watch them smile).
 
Welcome to the forum and have fun.
 
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