@JohnG said .. These kinds of tips and instructions are precisely why I post these early attempts on my part. It's how I will best learn to use the tools better. Thanks!!!!!

hey no problem!  Ill run out of pointers fairly quick.lol

One thing I thought of that I have trouble with when it comes to making a backing type track.. is alot of the samples you find were recorded in big halls or professional studios.  for instance..spitfire records alot of their stuff at Air studios.  which sounds awesome!  BUT... as Gordon Shumway pointed out we dont have that kind of recording environment.  and mixing the two ..well sounds like weve mixed the two...so one thing ive experimented with especially on some of the spitfire librairies is to back off the reverb setting they have built in...bring up the close mic setting back off the room and tree mic settings they have...and since im doing more irish and folk stuff...back off the vibrato settings they have on each sample.  ill try and get close to the mic im using but not closer than say 3 or 4 feet..i know weve talked this to death but giving my process again for sake of this conversation..  there is a spot in that room i use  that gives a fairly decent dry recording without too much air from the room.   THEN ill create a reverb bus and insert a reverb plugin and from my audio fiddle channel will send a PORTION of that signal to the reverb. on the reverb there is a mix setting and ill max that out since im controlling the amount from the sends..  at that point its alot of trial and error and to my ears there is still alot of error in my method.. but the times im happier with result are starting to get more frequent.

i think for folk type backing tracks using plugins ...the ones that were recorded more dry would probably work better...in the case of spitfire that would be studio strings and i think abby road..but all of them to some degree allow you to back down the amount of reverb.  you can also from their plugin interface back off the gains, pan, and select round robins which give some different reaults.  on the flipside there are times you may just want to max out your reverb and try and match the two that way..  to me this is very difficult.

the point is IS there is ALOT of experimenting and trial and error and the out of the box settings for the plugins usually get changed for what i do.

sorry for the long post and techy mumbo jumbo but i think your into it and have a feel for the stuff...

fools gold maybe but thanks...haha.. 

nothing really other than diving in and trying and turning dials..seeing what does what.