It sounds like someone struck a pool ball in the background.
the unusual vocals give a bit of edge & stop things getting too smooth & MOR. You may be a bit self-conscious about them, but they're distinctive and cool.
Hey Robus & IBB, this is really good. You seem to have a knack of writing stuff with a strong emotional hook.
Ray does the writing. I just work here lol.
your drums are sounding great. Do you play/record to a click? Or to the programmed drums in the original file?
The reason for #4 is to give Dave control over the level of the lead vocal when he is tracking, or turn it off if he wants. I tend to mix "vocals up" these days, but I can understand him not wanting to listen to that numerous times while working out the drums.
Bass comes early in the songwriting process for me, usually before vocals. Some of my songs are built from the bottom up, and I tend to use a lot of partial chords on guitar that are ambiguous without a bass line under.
Top tip:
I think I've mentioned this before, but if you want a decent-sounding Soundcloud clip, then you simply HAVE to upload it in WAV format. It takes no extra space on your account, but the sonic difference is like night and day.