You've already got some excellent advice from some people who are very skilled at mixing.

Keep in mind that you're comparing your mixes against work that's done by some of the best in the field. You can't expect to get that kind of results without years of experience.

But you can get "good enough" results if you've got an idea of what you're doing, and understand the tools that are available to you.

My mix philosophy is to keep the listener focused on whatever is happening at that point in the song. Usually, that's the vocal. At any given point, there should only be one focus. Anything that's not the focus needs to be supporting the focus. Sometimes that means taking the volume of a supporting instrument down a notch, having it play something more simply, or even removing it.

If that sounds a lot like the description of a good arrangement, that's exactly what it is. A good arrangement makes mixing almost trivial.

Anyway, feel free to post an example with specific questions for a more useful response.

-- David Cuny
My virtual singer development blog

Vocal control, you say. Never heard of it. Is that some kind of ProTools thing?