vladasyn

John
One thing I have found helpful in mixing is avoid raising faders and try to lower faders. Even if this means you lower all of them. If a track seems to low in volume don't raise the fader lower all the others. Of course after one has lowered all the faders then its OK to raise them as needed, individually. Another reason to use a Control Surface. I like to at least lower them by half. -5 to -10 on an MC
 
Start low and work your way up. 
 
 

John, it is very nice rule when you have 5 tracks. When you have 70 tracks, you can not lower every track just because you need to increase one track level.
 
I have to say this again: when they say, -3 Db, it should be full scale. Where do you see settings for the meter scale in Sonar? The way my meter set - it is going from 00 to -39. In that sense -3 Db means something different than full scale. How do you change Sonar to show dBFS - dB Full Scale?

Its now as hard as you think. Using a CS makes its rather easy. I do it as the first thing I do before I start mixing. 
 
Its worth the time it takes 

I was trying to say that but didn't get around to do it, Steve. LOL Thanks man!

stevec
Using Quick Grouping for this - Shift+drag select across your tracks in either CV or TV, then Ctrl+drag one fader down - that will do the same for all selected tracks.
 

 
Of course you could also do this using Busses so your not dealing with so many faders at once.

Good point.

The interesting this is when you have a set of real VU meters on your stereo mix that is how you do it. If you are starting with vocals you use the VU's to show the first levels eg -5dB to -6dB VU. Then as you bring in drums and things with care you end up with a full mix with everything just hitting 0dB VU. A lot of the great mix engineers do it this way. If you are working at say K-14 then by time everything comes in and you are 0dB VU it also means there is 14 dB of headroom sitting above all that too. Peak metering does not help you in this regard much. Only rms metering can show you this sort of stuff.
 
That became obvious to me reading the books 'Behind The Glass' Vols I and II.
 
It is good to start with the end instrument that is the main thing in your mix. Vocals are great to start with actually. With care you can still have a full mix with everything in but the vocals are still up there being number one. Creating rhythm sections first also can involve the VU meter. You can build all the bass and drums and things and get the VU's just hitting -3dB to -4 dB then you have room for all the rest including the lead instrument.
 
BTW the small mono speaker down low is the best way to set vocal levels on top of musical backing. Many have them too loud. The small quiet speaker makes you keep them lower and much more well balanced with the music. When you look at the VU's you see the vocals are not changing the voltage much or if at all yet it becomes so clear.

John
One thing I have found helpful in mixing is avoid raising faders and try to lower faders. Even if this means you lower all of them. If a track seems to low in volume don't raise the fader lower all the others.

Quick grouping is your friend