I use VU meters running in
Reaper as a visual aid for knowing what my mix is. I run a seperate VU for mics and background music. I try to keep them almost even, with a bias on the singer.
Take a look at this picture to get a better idea. The red arrows point to stuff. Mic is mic, BGM is back ground music.
http://shup.com/Shup/253056/109111214313-My-Desktop.png