https://soundcloud.com/ant-832623685/freedom
(Instrumental soft rock)
 
Hope you enjoy!

Pretty good Ant. What instruments did you play?

Thanks Wayfarer. I played the guitars (acoustic and electric) [and then did some timing adjustments afterwards]. The sax is a SWAM saxophone, played with a MIDI keyboard and breath controller. The others were sequenced.

Very nice! Somehow it reminds me of the soundtrack to Local Hero, a movie from 1983.
I thought the sax got a little buried in places, but that's the only nit I can think of.
I totally enjoyed it.

very relaxing.  Thanks for posting.

Could be the end credits music to something cool. I liked it more as it went on. That early sax I think might be putting the weakest foot forward first, I dunno. To say that it is Knopfleresque is about the highest compliment one can bestow upon anything. The last half particularly.
 
If anything could come down a smidge in the mix, it might be the drums. Boost the bass guitar a bit for a little more drive in the song? Just a thought. It's pretty cool as is, actually.
 
thanks for the share, I liked it!
 
-Tom

Thanks for the comments Bjorn, eph221, and Tom. Glad you liked it.
 
I suppose I was trying to start 'small' and then build up, making the ending seem a little 'bigger' than if I had constant 'bigness' throughout. In my original mix I thought the drums were a little too soft, and the bass too boomy; the mix I subsequently uploaded had a small notch in the instrument bus around 7k to let the snare ring through, and I lowered the bottom of the bass. Maybe my reference mix was a little bass-shy.

Lovely. This gets better as it goes on. 
I really appreciate the bell ringing and bird noises from someone who moved away from the UK for 11 years, you don't realise how you miss them.
My only nit is that I'm not sure about the sax sound. My philosophy on sampled brass is that if it doesn't sound real, you may as well go the whole hog and use a cool synth sound instead.
Very nice all the same.

Thanks daryl1968. Happy you enjoyed listening.
 
The sax is modelled, so it might just be my lack of knowledge on how to play it realistically: there are loads of parameters that can affect the sound, and I didn't really know how to program them with respect to how a real sax is played.

Uplifting, inspirational vibe and well executed.   I would consider increasing the MIDI velocity of the sax in the intro to give it more hair.   Understand you want to start light and build, however, the sax is a pretty agressive instrument so even if your backing track is subdued, you still want that sax to sing rather than sound like a french horn.   That might help along with adding a bit more modulation to some of the sustained notes.    Overall, the song, mix, etc... sounds really good.
 
Regards