What's the problem?
Anyone who's done any home recording, especially multi-tracking any more than a couple of tracks, will know that it's not easy to get a professional-sounding result. No matter which Audio Software you use, such as LogicAudio or Cubase, you will have the same problem trying to make your mixes sound as good as commercial recordings. Of course, you will never be able to get the same results in your home studio, unless you've spent so much money that your house is starting to resemble George Lucas' Skywalker Sound setup! You simply won't have the necessary equipment, and more importantly you won't have the right sounding room.
Flip Down Monitors
There are many people who will tell you that you need the right monitor speakers to get a decent mix. It's not bad advice - you'll get better results with better gear - but it's not complete advice. Many other people will tell you it's all down to your ears, and that an expert engineer will be able to get a great mix with any equipment, in any environment. Again, this is quite often true, but it's also largely irrelevant. You're almost certainly stuck with your own ears, listening to your own equipment, in your own room.
Most people have an idea how a good mix should sound, based on listening to professional recordings. What tends to happen is that when you mix, you make the track sound like you remember it should sound, based on what you've heard elsewhere. Of course, when you listen to it on your home hi-fi, or in the car, or on your iPod, it doesn't quite sound right.
So, given that state of affairs, what can you do?
The solution
I've made quite a few recordings in my time, and I do a lot of multi-tracking, often using as many as 20 individual tracks. That takes a bit of sorting out, I can tell you! The best method I've ever found for getting a good mix is a simple A-B comparison with a commercial recording. It's really easy. The details will vary between different audio software tools, but the idea is the same. You can probably do it with hardware mixers too, but I haven't had any experience of that.
The method works on the principle that if you make your recording sound like a commercial recording in your studio, on whatever equipment you've got, then it should sound OK on any system. Purists will argue, probably correctly, that this doesn't always hold true, but at least you're comparing apples with apples.
I'll assume you've recorded all your tracks, and have done a "rough" mix, that sounds OK... ish. So we move on to...
How to do it
The first thing you do is select a commercial recording that has two vital characteristics: 1) it's in a very similar style to your track, and 2) you actually link the sound of the recording. If you don't like the sound, why are you trying to reproduce it?
Next, you record the reference track onto a couple of spare tracks on your recording.
Now you need a simple way to A-B the commercial recording with your mix. In Cubase, I simply MUTE the reference track, and then use the SOLO button on that track to flip between the two.
Depending on the structure of your mix and the reference track, you may need to cut 'n' paste the reference track around a bit, so that the quieter and louder bits line up with yours.
Lastly, set up a loop, or loops if necessary, and hit "Play". Then just click the "Solo" button on, off, on, off, over and over again, and listen, really listen, to the differences between your mix, and the reference mix. Check the overall bass and treble levels, and concentrate on getting the actual instruments, and especially the vocals, to the right levels. You'll probably need to tweak the EQs quite a bit too - but that's another article!
Once you've got everything matching, you'll be amazed how much better your mix sounds.