Thanks for the feedback guys. You have no idea how much I have missed working on CMT tracks and listening to other mixes. Voelund, I really appreciate the pointers you have offered. Much of the tweaks required would probably have been avoided by the use of volume & eq automation, but after 9hrs of just trying to find a direction and then getting things to work together I ran out of steam 
sheer laziness on my part 
With more time I'll also try to bring some synth into the first chorus that is seriously lacking in interest when the guitars take over & there's no synths that carry over into the chorus so the whole backing arrangement just drops away.
One thing I was incredibly happy with is the performance of the free Tokyo labs feedback compressor as a mix buss "mastering" dynamic controller. Even when things got crazy at the end of the track there was no pumping!! First time I have tried using it but this is going to be my first go to mix buss plugin from now on.
Hopefully I'll get some time in the next 2 weeks to revisit the mix.
I'll also try to listen to some of your songs on the train during the week and get some comments in.
Cheers, all!
Dags
sheer laziness on my part With more time I'll also try to bring some synth into the first chorus that is seriously lacking in interest when the guitars take over & there's no synths that carry over into the chorus so the whole backing arrangement just drops away.
One thing I was incredibly happy with is the performance of the free Tokyo labs feedback compressor as a mix buss "mastering" dynamic controller. Even when things got crazy at the end of the track there was no pumping!! First time I have tried using it but this is going to be my first go to mix buss plugin from now on.
Hopefully I'll get some time in the next 2 weeks to revisit the mix.
I'll also try to listen to some of your songs on the train during the week and get some comments in.
Cheers, all!
Dags
So many songs, so little time!