Thanks cpm.
Not keen to add anything I don't think....just to get the mix right now.
Yeah the drums are much better aren't they? I had this DrumDrops (love their stuff if I haven't said so before!) loop hanging around.....don't know why I didn't use it earlier.
It's the levels that get me. Sometimes I think drums ain't loud enough, then vox too loud etc etc.
I completely understand, a few times I've had some really good advice on this forum, but the amount of unzipping and re alignment made me think we'll it's as good as it'll get, some of these longer songs take weeks of production, it sounds like you are on my wavelength.
Never heard of DrumDrops, I better check them out.
With regards to levels, it's soo subtle sometimes, 1 or 2 db make such a difference.
Some mixing engineers start from the LVox and work back from that, others work from the other way from the drums and bass upward, as I think you said you do in an earlier post.
I do find that submix busses (drums, keys, BVox, guitars etc.) help quite a bit with getting the levels right, and then send these off to an overall instrument buss (with no LVox) this allows the relationship between LVox and the rest, and then do all the sidechain stuff if you want, but I'm sure you do that, if you don't I'll be glad to advise.
Currently I'm trying out a few scenarios in this area.
Hope this helps
Rich