[albee1952]

I've never seen any EQ qith a side-chain input. What about putting a multi-band compressor on the music track and side-chain it with the vocal? In any case, I would think that a well-recorded vocal would blend with a decent music mix(take advantage of automation). Since the music is already mastered, I would bring the music into a session and probably trim it down a couple of db. Then add the same mastering limiter to both the music track AND the vocal track(to match the latency once you have the vocal all recorded). By applying some mastering limiter to the final vocal, it should blend with the music a bit better. Maybe slap a mastering limiter on a master track so you don't get an OVER when you bounce it down(just set the output ceiling to -.02 and apply little or no GR).