Hey, thanks for the feedback! I'm glad you enjoyed. Most of your critique I would agree with, however not all of it I would care to change, either out of laziness or just ready to move on.
1) I agree that drums need more interest, and slight nuances, etc, and I actually did more of that when it switches to the ride during the rhodes solo because I wanted more interaction with the snare (or "jazzy" if you wanna say that), but editing each hit was so tedious I didn't care to do it for the rest of the song. I also felt even with all that paying attention to detail with the drums, it STILL would be better accomplished with live drums which I don't have access to right now. So why bother? Maybe I'm just lazy but maybe also I just think if I'm going to go to great lengths for variation I should get a live drummer. Though a few more fills/breaks here and there could have worked too/not taken forever to accomplish
2) I'm not sure what kind of oomph you're hearing/wanting to hear but this was one where I disagree. there's a decent amount of reverb on it already, and though the quality is super hi-fi sounding I think it works for the style.
4) I agree with the synth getting boring. I think it sounds cool but especially during the out head, since it also repeats once, gets a little stale. I probably could have done more automation with filters and the like, but didn't feel like it.
5) Actually the guitar solo in this song isn't me, it's a friend of mine, and I very much told him to do his thing in full knowing what his thing was, and I think it works as a first solo. I feel my synth solo is more melodic based, whereas the guitar gives it a contrast by coming in and kicking your ass a little. And I do think there is direction and melody to it, just not as plain in sight.
6) Yea I agree with this too. I was gonna bring the rhodes back during the melody at the end but didn't know where to put it so I just didn't. I guess I was feeling my a production standpoint, the synth takes up a good deal of room, and then the clean guitar had the left side and the lead distorted had the right, so I didn't see anywhere to put anything else without clutter. Though from an arrangement interest point it could have used something
This is all very good feedback, and thank you, though unfortunately I probably won't end up changing a whole lot, I'm kinda over this already and wanna try other ideas. Maybe slight production/level tweaks but the detail of the arrangement just isn't worth it to me. If I want to accomplish that kind of natural interplay I would play with a band where detail/variation in the drums and such comes natural and doesn't have to be painstakingly edited. Above all this was to practice my mixing skills, once I realized it was pushing 8 minutes I realized the same 16 bars over and over may get old, but I think it's okay for what it was, for fun.