Tim, this is a good song. I like this pretty much the way it is.
 
Just a few things I would do if this was mine.  I'd likely shorten the intro and seriously consider if I wanted the BGV la la's in there at this point in the song. Just start with the first line on the vox.  As the song goes on, there are places where you have the BGV that I'd probably hit the mute.  (less is sometimes more) Where you use them at 2:27 is a perfect use of the BGV as a connector between song parts and at the end...  
 
Sometimes it's what you remove from the song that makes it better and not what you add.
 
Of course, this is all my personal opinion

Thanks Warren! Sometimes it's nice to be late to work, know what I mean ;)
 
Thanks Lynn, The jury is still out on if I'll make this more complicated. I had thought about adding a solo in the middle to break it up between the parts where I talk about " a laugh a drink or two". Appreciate you listening!
 
Mark,  A big thanks!...Dan thanks for your comments. I have lowered the drums in places. I hope they no longer are as overbearing in this mix.
 
Steve, Thanks . So when are we getting together to work on something? You're only right down the road from me ;)
 
Thanks Freddy, I appreciate!!!
 
Wookie thanks for chiming in here. Your comments are very much appreciated.
 
Mark, Thanks! All the best your way!
 
Kakku , thank you much!
 
Herb, Thanks! I have been thinking about doing just that. As always I appreciate your views . I guess I felt as if I might be making the song too sparse, but in hindsight maybe not. Honestly I'm not happy with my voice totally and the harmonies are marginal at best IMO...kind of like seeing a pic of myself...yuck :) I feel better that others aren't quite as critical of that. I think I'll do as you recommend and come back with something else. I'm also wondering if it shouldn't be a bit louder. Since it is an acoustic tune I didn't want to get carried away, but it doesn't seem quite as present as some other acoustic mixes I've heard. I had to pull my volume slider up more to really hear it. What do you think? I haven't done any scientific test on it to see exactly where it sits. I think I'm in the neighborhood of -3db at my highest volume on it...very little in the way of compression.
 
 
 
 

Herb ( or others) I would be interested to know if the harmony placement seems better now. I also added a guitar solo/interlude. The guitars still aren't quite popping out the way I would want.

I would tune those vox a bit, also, it felt like the high violin part could have used some more diversity, good job though. 
 
H-

very much in the spirit (of producer Scott Litt) of R.E.M.s Green album; which is my personal favorite.
shades of genius here. delicate; balanced audio poetry. nostalgic and poignant within the minimalists' resplendence and a lot of 'open air' like R.E.M. / Dylan, Peter Paul & Mary etc.. with a hint of Syd Barrett in the vocals somewhere

Once again Great work Tim. really nice :)

simple days
really nice tune, starise...
your timing is off on certain lines,
there is an extra beat here and there that interrupts 'proper' time,
but it's pretty consistent, and some would say that is is part of this style.
nice harmonies.....

mixwise, it feels bottom- light.
your high end is good, but there is nothing to really round out the EQ balance,
if you know what i mean.
if there is no real low end information,
it may require that you use a smoothed-off top end,
so that it sounds less pristine,
and more organic and smooth.

getting guitars to pop out on stuff like this,
really has more to do with the 'capture',
than mix, pan or eq elements.
i personally like the way they sound now,
but i don't know what you are after from a 'production' standpoint.

"H"- Thank you for your comments. I have tuned the vox in places since you listened and have also removed some of the vox where it seemed to be too much. I also changed the violin here and there...nothing radical though just small stuff:)
 
Daren-  Thanks man! Being compared top REM can't be bad thing :) Minimalist...yes. I guess it doesn't get much more minimalist than this..almost a total 1+1. 
 
Gus- Thanks!!
 
Bat- Thanks for your comments! I actually hated the last version of this I did because I couldn't seem to get those timing errors eliminated. I guess I'm not good enough at auto snap yet. The problem arose from me adding those additional guitar interludes later on after the main recording was already made....which I have since removed. I like this version much better. I had some thump on the guitars in the 200mhz region ..so I did some surgery there,maybe too much .This never had much going on below that..Hmmm..maybe I'll look at adding some bass from the guitar below that range to give it more low end without it being annoying. 
 
When I took those guitar interludes the second time I had a tough time duplicating the tones from the first take...so I just scraped those parts. This mix is pretty much my original takes. No overdubs. Thanks!

This is a nice tune. I like it.
 
Backing vocals can be tricky. I usually separate them as such. 60%L 30%L 30%R 60%R with the higher parts on the outside and of course, the lower parts on the inside. I also roll them off much more than the lead vocal but not more than 300hz. BTW, I roll off the EQ at the bus and not individually. I usually compress them in one buss as well. Depending on the range of the vocals, I may use two compressors. Use the first one to catch the loudest parts and the second one for everything else. I thought the BVs could come up a bit. I didn't notice the whistle thing and maybe I was enjoying it too much but I didn't even hear bongos. 2nd listen and I caught the bongos but they were buried.
 
This is a really nice song Tim!!!