I'm keeping an eye (and ear) on your posts and wanted to let you know that I really like how things develope. Your guitar sound is seriously badass.

Panning is a funny issue. Can be tricky... or not; it depends, lol. I mean, there's the technical side and the musical side. Leaving technical issues aside for now, I guess you basically wanna make sure that your stereo panorama isn't "distracting" or "irritating". For example, if you pan things hard to one side, you might want to make sure that there's some kind of "counter weight" on the other side, so that the listener doesn't (suddenly) feel deaf in one ear.
Obviously it's always about context. No rules are set in stone, so don't think I'm telling you to never put a lead guitar on only one side, lol. If it sounds good, then it sounds good.

And your stuff sound great, so don't let me throw you off. Keep rockin', ma dude!

Guitar panning is the go to method for all but acoustic guitar tracking. any serious record you've heard from really about 1965ish on has multiple layers of guitar panned to either side. Same is true of vocals. The common basic method for a track is close miced drums, drum overheads, a drum room, bass line that is split 2 or 3 times all up the center. left and right guitar parts for each part, sometimes a single lead in the center if not panned leads, 2 or more layers of vocals in the center with at least left and right vocals if not multiple layers of vocals on either side.

I recommend recording all of your guitar parts twice. Have one panned hard left and one panned hard right. Not only does it really thicken up the mix, but having to play it as close to perfect every time will really help make you aware of the places that you are falling behind as a performer.

I totally agree with you on your explanation for panning rhythm guitars. Your comment in general is well said I hope it will help OXIDIZE with their music.

OXIDIZE is kicking ass. I'm happy to pass on whatever I can, so far the path has been exactly what it should be for anyone who is going to get really good. regular posts, new meterial, experimentation, and a big one, willingness to ask for advice, critique and take it to heart.

I do think you can get away with single layers of a lead vocal if the take is decent enough. I've been very surprised during some of my recordings when I've not had to double a part to get it to cut through (probably Manuka honey at work or something when I was tracking!), or you could use a bit of gentle doubling from a plugin as another option. Choir vocal parts and backing vox are where I tend to have layers aplenty personally, and at that point it's generally better to start bouncing submixes

For sure. That Opeth track we got with NTM has only one vocal layer. But to be fair, not everyone is Opeth.

That's okay, Akerfeldt accused me of being Welsh ten years ago and I've not forgiven him for it to this day

Could be worse, he could have accused you of being English. lol.

Oh, you wound me haha

Excellent work on clarity and balance in this mix, this one really shows one of those 'aha' moments shining through for your personal progress As  aleutiansilence mentions panning is pretty much a 'must' for any modern mixes - usually either double-tracking (one left, one right) or quad-tracking (two takes on each side) for rhythm sections.

Personally I don't tend to double lead parts like for like, though I might record a second take an octave up and blend it in quietly if I want to enhance a section. Paradise Lost's Elusive Cure is a subtle example of this - the refrain's lead in places uses an octave up for thickness, but it's very quiet and not immediately obvious in context of the full mix vs soloed, whilst the verse leads and solos etc are pretty much single takes.

For your mix above, I think my main crit is more of a 'just give it a check and see' point: the mid range feels like it might be being drowned out a little by the low end. You might just need to hi-pass the rhythm section a smidge higher to get it to stop fighting with the bass. Worth a peek, but the clarity on the high end and leads is really darn good. Great work mate