here I go:
The first thing is making sure everything is tracked properly, cleaned, aligned and (my pet hate when someone doesn't do it) each track labeled. I normally then look and study the mix and try and determine my attack plan.
Drums I normally have two overheads (panned left and right), snare (middle), toms (panned from left to right), kick (middle) and room track. I set up a overhead buss, parallel comp buss, tom buss (all of these have an output to my drums buss), plugs used is eq, comps, saturation, reverb, delays - now the panning and the eq'ing allows to create space and also lets each part of the mix have it's own place in the spectrum
Bass is panned in the middle,135hz and 900 hz being bosted after high pass to about 130 hz, then smashed with a compressor
Guitars are panned how ever I think is needed (for example I may have one panned hard right and left and one in the middle for the chorus, then in the verse I may have one panned say 40% to the left and one in the middle, when it hits are heavier part I may add another guitar to these other two and pan it 60% right), up to you. Eq, comp, reverb, saturation and all other effects used here. I normally have all the guitars sent to the guitar buss, so I can have more control when looking at overall levels
Vocals like guitars change in panning all the time (main vocals in the middle with harmonies panned either side), I normally smash my vocals with a comp, use tap delay, chorus, saturation etc, all depends on the mix. Main vocals are sent to the main vocal buss and harmonies are sent to harmony buss (which is then sent to vocal buss), all these effects are normally used via sends!!!!
Automation is the key to a good mix (being effects, panning, volume etc), try to move things around so it doesn't get boring and also check eq guides on the net to give you some rough knowledge about certain frequencies that cause say "trashiness, warmth" etc in the spectrum.
Hope this helps
