In my opinion, one of the best things you can do is pick one song you like. ONE song.

Then listen through the whole song and make notes. First time through, listen for what individual parts you hear. "I hear drums, a bass, a piano, two electric guitars, and some kind of a pad, and the vocals have harmonies in the chorus section, etc."

Then make yourself a spreadsheet or a grid.

Write out in the rows the song sections; intro, verse 1 verse 2 chorus, verse 3, bridge, final chorus, outro. etc.

In the columns write out all of the parts that you heard on your first listen through.

Then in the intersections of the rows and columns, write out notes as to what you hear in the mix. You will listen through the song as many times as individual parts that you hear. A whole bunch of mixing is simply muting parts for different sections.

Then record the song yourself, and mix your version like what is in your pile of notes. Effects, EQ and all of that is going to be part of this process - you'll see/hear tons of advice about that. But I rarely see anyone talk about what I talked about above. I think it's just as critical; it dances in between composition/arranging and mixing. But since we decide on our arrangements, it's actually a step before mixing that needs serious consideration.

This may seem like alot of work. It is, but it's also fun to see how close you can get to the original song. And you will learn about the relationship between arranging/composition/mixing, which is highly tied together for us home recordists.

My Songs, photos, writing,etc.
My Sound Cloud