Thanks very much sdmaas! I had a very lengthy reply worked out, but I just lost it the I tried to post a soundcloud link. I try to re-write it again...
Since I hadn't heard from anyone, I went ahead and did a significant amount of work on this since I first posted the question.
First of all, I cleaned up my computer moving all data files onto the external drive. I found that I had inadvertently keep a number of audio files on the Mac book pro and things moved quicker once they were properly stored on the external drive.
I decided to go ahead and delete the large sections of tracks when they were not used on a particular section such as the narrative, or when the choir was not singing. Of course, all the unused tracks had been muted in the FOH mix but all 24 the tracks were open for the recording. I was nervous about doing this, but decided that I could always bring them back through the drag function or by re-importing the raw WAV files. I had considered doing this with mutes in the automation, but decided against that. I wanted to do all the edits, time correction and error repairs (the band made lots of music mistakes I needed to correct) before I added in automation. There were 7 mics on the choir that were used in various combinations depending on the song and I used 7 different instruments in the performance, each on it's own track. The sheer amount of bleed and room ambience would have very problematic in any mix. I did have KM-184s on the acoustic instruments, but stage bleed made it impossible to use them in the mix. I went with DI signals and EQed out the pick up "zing".
To avoid a glaring change in the soundscape, I made a point of putting long fades on the end of tracks I deleted when not being used, particularly the choir tracks. This seemed to work fairly well so far but I'll be listening carefully in the final mix to make sure it's not an issue.
It's been a massive project so far, but I just completed all the edits and corrections and have rough EQ and FX in place. I did do on SAVE AS about 3/4 of the way through this part of the process and just did a second one now. I've put fades on all the edit points, but haven't yet consolidated the tracks. I'm going to go through all the edits a second time to make I've got them all before I do that.
I'm not very familiar with working in stems, but have done a bit of research on the internet and will be trying to get a handle that. I have heard other folks talk bout them and it's one more thing I'll need to get under my belt to move forward.
I have yet to link in the video to pro tools, but will try to do that soon. I have one of the 4 camera shots they took and it sounds like an relatively easy thing to hookup (famous last words!)
As suggested, I was planning on saving automation for the end. The sheer size of this project is intimidating and I am going to have to get a handle on automating EQ which may have to change from song to song. I've used it many times in the past but only on album based projects that were individual tracks, not an extended work like this.
OK, here's the link to a rough mix of We Shall Not Be Moved along with the narrative intro. This song features the full choir, lead vocal, electric slide guitar, bass and rhythm acoustic guitar. Basic FX (comp, De-esser) and rough EQ.
https://soundcloud.com/gin-ridge-rec...gh-mix-4-27-18