Thanks for the compliments!
Emeraldsoul - the landscape is an awesome analogy and spot on! First off the mix is all midi with vocals. No real guitars were harmed in the making of this song.
I use very little reverb and if I do it's of the short gated variety or a slap back delay. I learned here in this forum that subtle use of delay is cleaner than reverb.
Panning is the real key. I don't even know how to use an EQ, so I just do simple things like add a little 4k to 12k on the vocals and roll off some of the low end on the bass guitar.
The choice of instruments is what makes the mix sit well for me.
I use an IK EQ preset for the vocals that simulates a vintage sound and then I use hard compression with IK's White Compressor.
I also use the White Compressor to "fatten" up instruments that are not sitting in the mix very well. The drums have a New York Compressor blend to give them some clarity and snap.
I highly recommend Behind the Glass (Howard Massey) & The Mixing Engineers Handbook (Bobby Owinski) and just follow a lot of the suggestions and techniques. I learned about these books right here in this forum.
The best advice is mix everything totally dry until it sounds good, then sweeten it up.
With digital's clean sound you have a lot more room to pan and no noise floor. I use mono sounds more and pan them at random intervals, not 100% left or 100% right. That tip is in one of the books as well.
My only technique on the vocals is that I use Waves Vox Renaissance Mono (or stereo) on every vocal track I record. I record 4 takes of every vocal line and literally chop them up until the best final "take" is completed. The Vox Renaissance evens out the discrepancies in volume from the various takes. I know people say you can do this with any Comp/Limiter but I have only been able to do this with Vox Renaissance. It is my one essential plug I can't live without.
This particular song I double tracked the lead vocal only because the original did as well. Normally I just leave the Lead vocal in the center or near center. In this case I panned the two leads about 10% L and 15% right. The low harmony was also double tracked and panned a little wider than the lead voc. The high harmonies were panned wider like 9 o'clock and 3:30. Slightly random not symmetrically apart. As a general rule I keep the lower harmonies closer to the middle and the higher harmonies wider apart.
I used the same EQ and Reverb (very little/short gate) for both Lead Vocals and Backing Vocals. If I were recording someone else's voice I would not use this chain. It just works for my voice.
One last thing. All of this is what goes into the pre mastering mix. All reverb tails and esses get exaggerated in the final mastering mix. I try and balance all that into the pre mix. Occasionally, I may have the mix too dry and just add a very slight amount of reverb wash to the mastered mix. The compression used in mastering is what glues the mix together.
One lastnote:
As one of the books says; one reverb from one instrument can color a larger part of the mix. Use one reverb wash to color a whole bunch of instruments without actually applying it to them. Another good reason for not putting reverb on every instrument.
Hope this helps! Thanks again for the kind words.
Mark