Horns in the beginning generally have more life, fuller, I guess louder
. And I like it.
The singer is sitting better 'in the mix'. I hear more 'smoke' on her voice, and that's good, makes it more bluesy ... I have A/B listening here first mix/present mix, and yes, it sounds like the lead vocal is certainly sitting better in the mix, more 'in the same room' type feel.
I can hear the backup there a bit better approaching, 00:48 now.
oh yeah at 00:58 ... excellent backups much better, much more 'living' ...
At 1:12 I would really bring the horns out here bigtime, and maybe even add a bit more horn here ...
At 1:44, I would take another look at the backup vocals and choose one to be the 'clear leader' of 'all' the backups at that moment if you have any seperate tracks of their voices ... it's really more like a duet between the lead singer and the group of backup singers and I like that a lot.
As we are very familiar with this lyric by now, the primary hook, at 2:56, I would almost put her backups on equal footing with her lead, and again at 3:01 . and again at 03:13, equal footing.
I want to hear more of a 'choir with soloist' rather than 'lead singer with backups' ... IMHO. And I think the whole mix is headed in the right direction.
At 03:44 we need a musical element to take a dominant postition, as you are about to introduce a new section, a bit of a new feel ... fool the listener, at 03:44, bring the horns way, way up, as if they are fixing to jam ... and solo ... and then bring them out quick as the new section starts ? IMHO
And now at 03:55 we have a new focus, the organ, things are good, the listener is given a moment to re-adjust ...
Now I would bring the horns up here about 5db, but do that in increments all the way through to 04:55 ... really loud, and then bring them down for the organ to shine a bit, you have a lot of flexibility here to do a lot dynamically.
On the issue of the kick, I think now that it is way down, you have some room to work it with an envelope and raise it at some key points to create some dynamics.
Cool tune, that's a lot to work with and their is a lot going on in this tune, it's a good workout and a great piece for us all to learn stuff with.
Thanks for ya'll hard work on this one. I look forward to the final mix.