Combining pads & Compression in Ambient

So back to mixing issues.

I often have more than 1 atmosphere in a track. I like droney sounds and like making pads and atmospheric soundscapes from synths and/or field recordings. My question is this, since most atmospheres have similar mid-high frequencies in their sound, how do you guys avoid masking, and how do u share your pads in the stereo panorama? so that each sound blends with others naturally but keeps its own special place in the mix? Do you like using Mono or Stereo Synths and is there a purpose for that? From what i understand also, most frequencies below 40Hz or so are removed from all sounds to avoid muddiness.

Also, do you guys compress your pads? If yes, why and on which occasions? some lines would be appreciated.

sometimes use a number of different pads/atmosphere/drone sounds. i tend to pan things so everything is in its own area and cut out blocks of unused frequancies with eq to create space. overlap the sounds with fade in/outs so there not all playing together.

as for compression, on the overall drum mix and slightly on the master sometimes but i don't fully understand it ha

trust your ears

As far as avoiding masking, I personally suscribe to the "every instrument should be assigned to its own specific frequency range" school. I think it's the best way to acheive clarity and boil-down-and-empashize each instrument's personality.

And as far as compression, I usually put compression on everything (sometimes only to truncate peaks). I use alot of subtle (and not-so-subtle) sidechaining to keep movement in my tracks. If I have a section that's just kick and pad, I think it's much more interesting to have the pad respond to kick, even just a little, like throwing a big dumb 80hz pebble in a lush warble-pad pond.

Thanx for the reply folks, this topic didnt receive many answers, probably because it has been over-discussed and most guys are not interested. Even though Ive been making sounds for quite some time now, Ive given mixing less attention just because when i feel like writing something, most of the time goes for making the actual music and not post-production, a bad habit ive obtained since i started making music. Anyway, thanx for your replies, ill to try to experiment more with side-chaining i guess.