Yeah nice one Craig. It does sound full yet I can almost hear the silent bits poking through at the same time which is what the black backdrop is like. I get the feeling everything that is in there needs to be there and you have stopped at some point which is also very good.

Anderton
I did a reference mix so people could hear for themselves what that number of tracks sounds like.

Huge sound, but uncluttered. Something I try for and usually don't achieve, but I now have a guide to follow. Thanks for sharing.
 
FWIW, I don't think there's anything to be embarrassed about. I just wonder if the instrumental drama might be overpowering the sweet sentiment of a first kiss.

Nice essay video about Steely Dan from Nerdwriter. Not a totally technical perspective as such, nor posting to because it solves the OPs situation, but just because it's become part of the topic.
 
I like Nerdwriter, but he does have a habit      of finishing       his videos          in the same                       way!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSDD8rgUiNc      

JohanSebatianGremlin

Ok so now the rude part. If you want your mixes to be more open, stop making recordings that are less open.
It is very difficult to create a mix that has space and room to breath when the arrangement itself is cluttered. 
Leaving open space in the mix requires... well, open space.

Perfectly said.  I remember when I first started recording (nearly 45 years ago!!) I couldn't understand why my recordings sounded so bad.  It must the equipment.  It must be the room.  It must be my mic technique.  Nope.  It was because I had nine guitars all banging out the rhythm part.  I started with a muddy mess and ended with a muddy mess.
 

Jeff Evans
 if many of you suddenly had the opportunity to work with a really great producer and you showed them where you were up to the first thing they would do is rip out about 60 percent of the stuff that is in there now.  They would be saying do you need this, do you need that, why have you got 15 acoustic parts here when only one will do.
 
No amount of carving out frequencies and stuff for parts in other parts compares to not having so much going on in any one point.

Again, perfectly said.  Listen to professional arrangements.  It's amazing how they can give you the illusion that there are a zillion things going on when there are only a few.

As a coda to this thread...I remembered this song as an excellent example of how you can morph from very few tracks to somewhat more tracks and end up sounding extremely full - yet you can still identify every instrument clearly. Talking Heads were very good at this...
 

 
As to how this relates to SONAR, try muting tracks selectively to see what happens. Look at the Master output meter to see how often removing a track doesn't appreciably reduce the level.

Doubt if most stuff that's on the radio is so many tracks playing at the same time....probably they would not tell you on Youtube if they had only a few tracks.
iic those insane numbers of tracks are created on recording nowadays, guess the mixing engineer will want to delete as much of that as he/she can (heard quite some mixers complain about those numbers).
Only if it really helps to get that sound (for example on a certain guitar part) stacking tracks would make sense to me, but I won't believe you need 100 tracks to get a good sound.
just 1 opinion ofcourse.
 

Anderton
As a coda to this thread...I remembered this song as an excellent example of how you can morph from very few tracks to somewhat more tracks and end up sounding extremely full - yet you can still identify every instrument clearly. Talking Heads were very good at this...
 

 
As to how this relates to SONAR, try muting tracks selectively to see what happens. Look at the Master output meter to see how often removing a track doesn't appreciably reduce the level.

Every word of this is true. But I'm reminded of a Patty Larkin lyric that I believe applies quite well here. 

'We were a couple of kids crawling out of the crib
Talking about the positives and the negatives of wine
Living our lives just like Hemingway did
But he was lucky, he was a genius most of the time'

Both the song and video are examples of excellence we all would do well to strive for. 

Look at it this way when considering if multiple tracks really makes a song stand out. Abbey Road studio, the Beatles created some fab albums with songs that captured ears around the planet, their tunes that were not that layered and many of those tunes are still revered today by many. Now U 2 was able to to have the privilege to use the modern Abbey Road studio to produce some of their albums, yet those efforts didn't capture the audience as the Beatles albums did.
 
Sure its easy to throw a lot of conjecture of the merits of time and artist producers, yada yada. Bottom line, artistic decisions are interesting choices when a tune is being decided upon. Kinda makes things interesting.

Great ideas all. I love this forum for the unlimited information that I glean. Some things you might want to try. On time based effects, set them to line up mathematically to the rhythm of the song. The capo idea is great - another alternative if you have an inexpensive acoustic or electric hanging around, re-string it Nashville style. Capo's, inversions, Nashville stringing, different tunings all can allow for 'supporting tracks' that limit the mud.

Mic techniques, and different Mics are your friend to help differentiating each guitar track too. Sometimes, 'all those tracks' are different Mics, in different positions, and placed in various areas in the room, capturing one instrument. You might try a 57 off axis near the grill, or a ribbon centered on the cone 12 inches from the grill. If you have an open back cab, try a 57 in front and in back, both the same distance away from the speaker, pointed about the same place on the speaker, and set one of them out of phase.

One thing that helps for me - I try to flesh out the purpose of the song before I start. Not all times, but more often than not. When I'm recording, I ask myself 'does this part support the theme, emotion and lyrics of the song'. If it does, I keep the track. I might not use it, but it's there. I usually delete any track that doesn't fit, before I even get to the mix process. Don't keep mud. 😀 For me, lyrics are the key in the genre I love. I try to set them up in front of the mix process, as a guide to keep or lose tracks. Even if it's the greatest guitar I have ever played, if it steps on the vocals or lyric image, out it goes!

The nice thing is Sonar reduces the time I'm not playing. With all of the productivity tools it has, I can spend more time with my guitar in my hands, and the creativity switch ON.

Back when all we had was 4 tracks we used a cool trick to widen out the guitar part. 
The guitar had it's own track. The vocals too and the other 2 tracks were bounced drums , bass, acoustics and keyboards. 
Send that guitar track out to an Amp in the live room and put mikes at different distances, as many as you liked. These all returned to the mixdown desk and so were added in real time to the master tape. There might be 6 mikes coming back and you would pan these etc. The tone and delay made it sound huge, and it was real, not digital. 
Of course we can sort of do this trick using amp sims etc but It's still way cool to use these old tricks to see what happens.