I recently have had the same dilemma and came across a very helpful article that offered a nice technique for giving elements in the mix their own space yet keeping the parts together. Take two reverbs. One should be a short one like a drum room reverb and the other should be a long one like a large hall or something. Place each reverb on its own bus. Create bus sends for all tracks to both buses. Use the short reverb to add natural ambience to the individual tracks. Use the long reverb sparingly to create a sense of space. Try different combinations of reverbs. The idea is that the long one should help all the instruments sound like they were performed in the same environment and the short reverb should help either thicken a track or add some natural ambience and polish the track. Just my method now. I'd like to hear how others go about it as well....

Yeah that's what I do currently. Two verb, one short the other long. The short verb could also be a simple delay effect, and may be better actually. It also helps to place an EQ after the verb and cut out any mud or excess high-end. Compression sometimes helps out too, you could place this before or after the reverb it really depends. I used to be very very frustrated with reverb, that is, until I actually got to use decent units (Kurzweil and high-end Lexicon)

And giving each instrument it's own space has alot to do with EQ and panning as well, and I ussually do the best I can with these before even touching reverb.

Excellent point that I forgot to mention: Yes, it is best to always get a good a balance and placement with panning and levels before touching reverb.

Yeah, I like the two reverb idea. That makes a lot of sense.

I haven't had a chance to try this out yet so if I want to make most of the tracks up front and "in your face" sound and like a couple guitars and tamborines sound really distant. Would you suggest using the short reverb for most of the bed tracks and the long reverb or the echo for the distant tracks? Or how go about doing that?

Use the short reverb on any track that is too dry and just needs a bit of ambience. Use the long reverb on all tracks in various amounts. The idea is to use the long reverb to set apart the spatial positioning (sending sounds further back by adding more) and the short for ambience only.

What's good, like this post. Question, on the long verb I generally use a pre-delay somewhere between 60-80ms. Now on the short verb used for ambience would you use a shorter delay? If so in what range?