Hey, awesome! It's never too late to learn something new, especially in the field of music. And given that some of my students resist learning at every turn (even grad students... sigh...), I'm doubly impressed when someone does it because... well, just because!

As an aside, I once got stopped at customs on my way into the USA, where I was doing some grad school in music. The customs officer asked me what the chord progression for a 16-bar blues was, and - I was working with choirs at the time - I totally messed up. They made me sit for over 2 hours as they checked me out. Guess I should have paid a bit more attention back in undergrad

By the way, that "ducker" I thought I heard - are you running the vocals and mix through different compressors? That could have a similar effect (although I didn't notice it as much in your newer mix). I'll listen again on tomorrow on my main monitors, when it's a bit quieter here.