Hi
Its been a while

Been working on a new EP called " Sparrow Island " , named after a recent trip to Malta.
This is the title track.
Named after a little outdoor cafe in Baluta bay , that my wife and I affectionately renamed " sparrow island " due to the amount of them on the ground and in the tiny trees as we sat in the sunshine with an early morning coffee and a muffin.

I didnt intentionally set out to make a reggae track , but I always follow the sounds. Wherever they lead me , I will go , as I hate to be confined to any 1 particular genre.
I took a risk in leaving the marimba dual layered lead unquantised , and after playing it , just left it as it was. I felt it gave it a looser feel , more conducive to the reggae style.........or at least my perception of it.

Anyway......this is a test.
I'd really appreciare your input.
Can this be tweaked some more ? Is there anything glaringly obvious that could do with an overhaul ?

http://soundcloud.com/2ndmouse/sparrow-island

Comments / feedback very welcome

Cheers !

2M

Yes, follow the sounds, that's how I go too.

Infectious push-pull groove, nice instrumentation and arrangement. I love the big string-y lead. Off the top of my head, I could hear a quick break down with the kit switching to acoustic drums... just a random thought. Interesting trip as always 2M.

Many thanks Poly !
The part after the first silence needs more work , and I agree.....a break , in that second or 2 of silence , would kinda announce the arrival of the next part much better....some kinda reggae rolling break with timbales ( can hear the sound in my head but not sure what its called )
Need to sort out the sidechaining on that part too.
I was kinda worried about the timings in this as there are a lot of things that aren't on point. Any lead that i tried quantizing sounded out of time , so I was manually shifting notes by microseconds to make it fit its own time rules , so im wondering if you noticed any off timing ?

Nice work 2M. This is a change of style, but the melodies are recognisably you. I didn't notice anything wrong with the melody timing. It sounded great. I listened to this a couple of times last night, and once again today. Sounds good. I can hear 4 hits on a timbale or a high-tuned snare with the snare turned off judiciously applied here.

Good work mon

Nope. I'm all about loose here though. Didn't hear anything that I would consider a problem.

Yes, I suggest backing off the compression. I think it's too loud and squashed.

I let the tracks develop their own direction mate , so I never have any preconceived ideas and I never know where they'll end up. Justas much of a surprise for me as everyone else =) I could never confine myself to one style.

Workin on an update =)

Thx for listening

Very original fun tune, and some surprising but very good changes
Those strings give the whole thing a slightly ethereal dream-like quality.

I agree.
I thought it was more noticable in the kinda chorus part.
Did you notice it throughout or just that one part ?
Thanks !
Ive been working on an updated version to address all the fixes.

Throughout. I find it fatiguing to listen to. With all these hand played parts, there should be a lot dynamics with some soft moments but everything sounds super loud.

Yes. I know what you mean. All the notes have the same amount of emphasis , instead of some loud and some quiet ?
Thanks. I'll see what I can maybe do with it , but the limiters action on the dynamics is first on my list of fixes =)

I do not think it is an issue so much with individual notes. I think the entire mix is too squashed most likely due to a high compression ratio, e.g., 10:1 or more.

You might want to:

1. See if anyone else agrees since I may be overly sensitive to this.
2. Read up on compression, limiting, mastering, etc. before attempting to fix this.

I have a limiter on the master bus , and then I also have the kick sidechaining the sine bass , and , if my memory is correct , the chords are being sidechained by another cloned kick with its master signal routing muted. I'd say the problem lies therein. Maybe I could subtly automate it between 2 states but anytime ive done that manually before , its introduced phasing.

I do want it to sound squashed together , to an extent , because i love what compression does in reducing the daylight between the various parts and makes a mix sound more connected , but inducing ear fatigue ...........i'll be checking it out.

Btw....I always return feedback with feedback , but i cant find a track by you. Can you link me to one so I can return the favour ?
Thanks !

I have a feeling that limiter isn't just preventing occasional clipping but really squashing things. Adjusting the threshold could help. I suspect the sidechaining is not very subtle either.



To achieve this personally I would only add some gentle mix bus compression and be done with it but I realize this is not how dance music is produced.



This is the only track I posted here so far: http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=366162

I have another track in progress which I think is coming out better but it's not ready yet.

Very cool track.

It would have easy for this to sound a bit pastiche, but it doesn't at all.

I really dig the combination of dubby bass and dreamy lead.

The only tweak that sprang to mind was perhaps losing some of the beats at that 3 minute mark to let that awesome lead to sing a little, and then drop it back in later.