A lot of stuff will begin. I might even get a job and do some school work. A lot of stuff will take up my time yet the only thing in my mind is sitting down and making music and listening to my favourite records.
It feels very weird. Maybe some of you are also going to start with school? :O

I began the mixing of a simple song I made for pure fun today and my plan is first to get the volume of each instrument/sample right first so nothing clashes, then necessary EQing (especially for the synths, since there are high plucks here and there, some detuned chords, strings and the bass all together in the "chorus") then compression (only if necessary) and finally, additional touches on the mix. (I don't really know mastering, so I try to limit my last steps to additional eqing, or a tiny bit of compression)

There are a couple of inquiries I've got in order to get the first steps right:

How much headroom should I leave for my loudest instruments (like the lead, the chords and the kick and snare) and how much in the master volume?

Should a snare drum be merged or separated in stereo?

On that note, which instruments are better to have merged and which better to have separated?

What can I do (wether in my mixing or the final touches in the bounce) to avoid squashing the dynamics while still making the song loud?

Thanks in advance people!

If I had to reccomend one, it would be deadmau5's 4x4.

There are a couple of things that I am note sure when it comes to sidechain, like:

1.- When wanting to make a snare drum above another instrument, should I compress the snare and send it to that instrument or viceversa?

2.- How much should I compress what I want to stand out?

3.- What does a long sidechain mean?

Thanks!