Tokøta from Mastering.com walks through rough mixing a track built entirely from Apple Loops, covering drums, bass, rhythm guitar, lead guitar, and pad.
The balancing trick: pull every fader down first, then bring each part back up to taste. It's a faster route to a solid rough mix than tweaking from a cluttered starting point.
From there, effects get layered in to shape character: stereo delay and EQ on the lead guitar, distortion on the bass, modulation on the rhythm guitar, and a slow left-right tremolo on the pad for movement.
On panning, the guideline is to keep drums, bass, and any other focal point centered and upfront, then spread the remaining elements across the stereo field. Treated as a starting guideline to adjust by ear and against reference tracks, not a fixed rule.