not being rude, i went thru this at first...
no noob can possibly afford all the racks of equipment that CEP puts at your fingertips. But...its overwhelming at first. Learn what the equipment in real life does, at least the basic idea, then you will have a better idea of what you are doing.
TIP: start with a simple two-track song. A ballad-y vocal and an
acoustic guitar track...recorded on a cheap computer condenser mic. WORK with these two tracks, and no others, till you get the hang of it. Never lose those two original tracks...keep each "version" mixed in a separate file, or folder, and compare them...in each version folder of this "song", name each file with the affect or thing you did to it, and growing version numbers...I like T1 and T2...then, i do the Noice reduction, and they become t1.0 and t2.0...if i do something to track1, it becomes t1.1 and so on...
short course: learn how to record the two tracks/signals loud enough, without clipping....then set volume levels, and listen.
then add a little reverb to the vocal, a little chorus to the guitar...and play. Play with one effect after another, but dont save it...you willslowly learn what the effects do to the sound....and never lose those original tracks!!!
keep mixing, and remixing...again and again, with these two simple tracks, until you get the basics down. If you like, I can email you two simple tracks a local musician did for me, and i STILL go back, a few years later, to take another "whack" at them when i am bored...my theory is that if i keep learning how to polish those two turds (tracks...with 1 dollar condenser mic...lmao...) half decent, to where peopel hear the "song" and dont cringe...then i was able to add more tracks to other mixes, and better appreciate better mics, and stuff.
walk before you crawl, grasshopper. Nothing but time and inquisitive "what does this thing do...?" mentality playing, will get you anythignany faster.
get a cheap microphone vocal track, and a matching guitar track...and keep polishign that turd...for a few months at least...you'll get ONE version that stands out from the rest.
then, if you LABELED all those intermediate track versions in the folder "Mix19", you can see what you did to that "cool track" for reference.
dont get frustrated.