And for the vocals, yeah I'm being extreme with the t-pain comparison. But the thing with autotune is that if you're bumping notes into place, it's fine. I can deal with that personally, but the fact that the notes are held solidly more like a synth than an actual voice is what you need to fix. Screw with your autotune settings or use melodyne instead. Or perhaps just autotune the chorus but melodyne the rest so the notes will be in perfect pitch but there will still be that natural modulation there. THAT is what will make the difference.
As far as contrast goes, personally I don't think it's an automation problem but a composition/arrangement problem. The verses are too busy and the choruses aren't busy enough in comparison. The more simplistic you keep those verses, the more that chorus will soar, and you'll be lessening that volume problem between the verse and the chorus too.
Don't be afraid to take out a fuck load of layers in the verses. You may have worked hard and spent a lot of time on them, but what would be more pointless than taking them out is letting your pride as a producer affect the song.
That may come off as sort of bitchy sounding, don't worry man. I'm levelling that one at myself too. I find myself putting in fucktons of layers and then I think "does it really need that? does the song REALLY call for it?"
It's all about the SONG. As songwriters it is your goal to make the song hit as hard as it possibly can and really serve its purpose and sometimes swallowing your pride and muting a few sections that you've slaved over can really help things out.
Don't worry about automation yet. Treat movement as one thing and contrast as another. Song first, contrast. Mix second, movement via automation.
If you're at -11 RMS then you may well be alright for now. What's the level at the chorus? It sounds a fair bit more smushed than the verses. Perhaps automate the limiter to open up a bit on the chorus? and then clamp it back down for the verses?
Failing that you could always cheat and automate the volume of the mixdown on the mastering file, like bumping the level of the verses down a bit and leaving the choruses as your loud parts, but that is technically cheating and there's better ways to go about getting your contrast in volume, which is by contrast in the writing more than anything.
But yeah man, I don't usually leave anywhere near this much critique on stuff, ever, but I really dig your stuff and just wanna hear it go from being 9/10 to 11/10 is all haha. Don't take my word as gospel either, you're the big cheese at the end of the day but as a music lover this is just how I'd want to hear things done.
Hope I've helped
