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Achieving more depth in your mixes.

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RawDepth:
You should approach your mix with attention to the three main dimensions in the sound field. They are height, width, and depth. Work on them each one at a time. Here's how...

Dimension 1:
Before starting the initial mixdown of all recorded tracks, set your mixer to MONO at first. (Don't worry, it's only temporary.) Don't bother with effects yet either, it's all about volume levels (height) at this point.

Now start a basic mix with everything in mono. You will notice it is far easier to determine proper levels for each track. Because everything will appear dead center, you can focus on its vertical size with no other dimensions to distract you. Pay close attention to anything that stands out too loud (too tall) or too quiet (too short.) Don't make everything the same level either. It all has its proper place in the mix as far as vertical size. The taller you make a certain instrument, the more the listeners will focus on it.

Dimension 2:
Listen to it several times that way until you feel that it has a good overall balanced sound. After you are happy with the volume levels in general, you can start adding effects to give depth to a few things, (your second dimension.) Reverb is effective at making things seem far away or smaller. This is done by changing the wet to dry ratio. The wetter the blend, the farther away a track may appear.

Dimension 3:
The third and last dimension should be Panning. With your mixer set back to stereo mode, you can now move instruments left or right. You should find that even after everything is panned out to its own private spot, (left or right in the sound field,) it all still mostly maintains that original blended volume.

thebigcheese:
A good book on this subject is ReaMix, available here:

http://www.lulu.com/content/2539885

It's oriented towards people using Reaper, obviously, but it's still got a lot of good information, IMO. Especially for people just getting started, such as myself.

kip4:
initially i thought great way to mix everything in mono but after reading the rest of this article im not sure it'd work for me because and don't get me wrong i'm not saying the technique is totally wrong but
when things ar panned they lose some volume so i'd prefer to set the volume (or reset ) after panning
also reverb can mean readjusting too so i've always done it in that general order but kept it stereo
good topic though

stainless:
klp4-  welcome to the board.

I'g give mono a try, at least as a mix (I will routinely toggle back and forth)- tracks that are too loud or too low will be immediately obvious-  this technique also helps minimize the slight differences (electrical components all have manufacturing tolerances, so it's not uncommon for 2 "identical" components to have slightly different values... magnify this with an entire circuit and  one channel can have enough of a tolerance difference that we unconsciously make the adjustment- like wise with speakers

and then , oh yes, there's our own ears... seldom does each ear hear have the same threshold for all frequencies

kip4:
thanks for that i promise i'll give it a go
cheers good poits well made.

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