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Hi everyone and hope you're having a great spring so far (and not battling hayfever hard like I am)! It's been a heckin' super busy month since the last post (only set to get busier) and there's tonnes of news to share so let's get straight to it!
First of all in the big news, the CD test pressing for Better Than The Book's Side Character In My Own Life album arrived in the post from the distributor and looks and sounds BEAUTIFUL! 2 weeks before their estimated delivery date too! There are a couple of minor unexpected quirks, like CD text not showing up, or being cropped strangely depending on the specific CD Player (as well as the CD not working in my super old player from '86 which isn't entirely unexpected), but the printing looks great and the CD plays smooth and gapless (in players which support gapless playback) so that's veeeery nice! After multiple tests on various systems, I can say that this CD release has been APPROVED! If you're a supporter on Patreon (free or paid), then you've got a sneak peek of what the CD release looks like right now (see links at the end of this post)! On another note, the test print for the 12" vinyl version was sent off for and apparently is now due to arrive TOMORROW, 4 weeks before their estimated delivery date! Fingers crossed that everything looks and plays great on that version too and if so it'll be time to solidify that release date, prep that final single (and full album) release and get ready for some much overdue ska punk mayhem! Not long now! Get excited! Speaking of Ska Punk Mayhem, the title track of the new album got its radio debut by being featured on Button Down Radio's Ska Time show episode 14! The show was celebrating the London International Ska festival as well as showcasing a pick of the new ska tracks from around the world so it was a big honour to be part of it. Check out their post about it below: https://www.facebook.com/buttondownradio5446/posts/pfbid02RxuGgBWKo7hL9qSsFhXdSQkikKhpdEuYctjUxgH5ubiwVZrffFCHYz5qrCkwCh6Gl And you can catch up with the full radio show over on Mixcloud! There's some great organ work in this one. Fantastic stuff and thanks again to the Ska Time show for spinning the track! https://www.mixcloud.com/CuttersChoiceRadio/ska-time-w-button-down-radio-ep14/ Next on the news, it was my birthday last week and on April 24th 2025, my twin Eamon (TallismanRogue) released the Sonic The Hedgehog X Better Than The Book - Endless Hopes and One-way Dreams Mashup EP to celebrate! It's incredible! Thanks and love you so much, Mon! I highly encourage you to check it out below. Gotta go fast! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QAg8Mu49JQ Keeping in with the birthday theme, as a present to myself, I'm back to some wood/metalwork to FINALLY (after 3 years?) finish my homemade Leslie speaker by adding some grills! For the past 3 years, it's been all to easy to stick you hand/foot into the rotating drum while it's spinning, but now that'll be safely behind a few millimeters of perforated steel mesh. SAFE! As it currently stands, the 2 sides and top have been fitted with a permanent grill each while the front panel grill is complete (apart from possibly a custom badge on the front) and easily clips on and off for maintenance and if you want an open grill for stage presence. All that's left to do is sort out the grounding for electrical safety, give the mechanics their annual service and oiling, and put it back together and calibrate again! Hoping to have that done by this time next month with any luck and I'll be sure to put up a video of the completed project when it's done! And on the topic of videos, after 2 full uninterrupted years of 2 videos a week on YouTube (that's over 200 in total now), I've decided to step away from regular scheduled YouTube content to focus on music creation (and releasing this upcoming album). April 2025 marks the last full month of videos and while there has already been one video released in May, for the first time in a LONG time, I don't have any new videos scheduled currently. That said there are a few more I have planned, and there's a WHOLE lot of new music to come very soon too. Check out the updated playlist below: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLWEmqIhrNPvQTBoOjZdKLgL4ecTvLz6sm And here's a list of the latest additions:
Lastly for the news this month, after many years for the first time ever, there are currently no $10 patrons, and so I will not be posting a $10 extra reward this month. If the situation's the same for a while I may decide to change things up regarding Patreon rewards, but there are more urgent things to attend to currently so I'll be playing things by ear. To all the Patreon supporters past and present though, I'd like to say a HUGE thank you to you all for all your support over the years. I hope you're still enjoying the music and content ramblings and hope you're as excited as I am for all the new music still to come! That about wraps things up for this month. With a vinyl test coming tomorrow, unless something's drastically wrong I should hopefully have a concrete release date for the Side Character In My Own Life album and maybe that final pre-release single to share with you (as well as other stuff) next time. Until then, thanks as always for supporting me and my musical endeavours however you can and I'm super looking forward to sharing what's to come very soon! Take care and all the best! $1 Rewards: https://www.patreon.com/posts/126129247 Reward Archives: https://www.patreon.com/posts/50344842 Find out more: https://www.patreon.com/NickStanding
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Hi everyone and hope you're having a great start to spring! It's been a super busy time over here as I'm sure you already know if you've been following the usual posts and stuff. I decided to delay the monthly post given that it was April Fools Day yesterday, but now that that's all over I can post without worry of any misunderstandings! With such a big release less than a week ago I thought there'd just be the one shared news post for all Patreon supporters this month, but I managed to whip something a little extra up for the $10 patrons anyway! More on that in a moment, but let's get started with the news!
First of all, the big news in case you've not heard it yet: Better Than The Book released the 2nd single and title track from the upcoming 3rd full-length album Side Character In My Own Life on Friday! Not only that, but the cover art for the album has also been revealed as well as a vinyl and CD release for the album being announced too! Not only that, but $10 patrons now have full early digital access to the album too! I've already posted about it so I'll not repeat myself here, but read more and check out all the details in the Patreon post below: https://www.patreon.com/posts/124775796 And listen on Bandcamp: 
https://betterthanthebook.bandcamp.com/album/side-character-in-my-own-life
As it currently stands, the digital release is pretty much ready to go, and I've just ordered the very first CD test pressing from the distributor! If that comes back all good I'll go ahead and order a test vinyl too! All the physical release packaging is pretty much done, so all that's left to sort once the test pressings are approved is to solidify the release date (taking into account release lead times) and get the (personal) online streams sorted (YouTube, Newgrounds, Soundcloud etc...)! The next and final pre-release single is already pretty much ready to drop and I'll be announcing the concrete release date for the album when that goes live in a few weeks time once the test pressings are approved (if all goes to plan). Exciting times! In the mean time, following from the physical release progress I have an extra reward for the $10 patrons this time! The vinyl release includes a lyric sheet for the main album (not including bonus tracks), so as an early access patron, you now have an early download for the lyric sheet to look forward to! If you're a $10 patron, head over here to grab the download: $10 reward: https://www.patreon.com/posts/125676704 And the lyric sheets will be available to the rest of the patrons and on Bandcamp when the album drops in full in May/June! Following the big launch, the Side Character In My Own Life single has racked up a few press features already in its first week live! Big thanks to The Punk Site for sharing the new music, The Retweeter Hits Radio for adding the track to their radio rotation, and to the great peeps at Newgrounds for the front page feature award! That makes both singles which have met the mark for all 3 of these features. Will the next single (and album) complete the collection? We'll have to see! March 31, 2025 - Better Than The Book's Side Character In My Own Life single featured on ThePunkSite.com March 30, 2025 - Better Than The Book's Side Character In My Own Life (Single) added to The Retweeter Hits Radio Rotation March 29, 2025 - Better Than The Book's Side Character In My Own Life (Single) receives Front Page award on Newgrounds.com Away from Better Than The Book news, the home studio set-up is pretty much all set up now too! All the acoustic treatment (for now at least) has been sorted including a ceiling panel I'm very pleased with, and all that's left to do now is a quick speaker/room calibration when I have a free quiet evening. There may be a few stands to get/swap out but functionally it's finally back to how I've been wanting it to be now to get on with making music again properly! The next thing to do in the studio will be to plan out and set up a patch bay to integrate much of the electronics. It's something I've not done before so it's going to be a challenge and will take some capital to invest in all the cabling etc... so that might not be for a little while, but I'm looking forward to the challenge. Before that, I recon the next major project will be to add a grill onto the front and sides of the homemade Leslie speaker though so it'll be time to draw up some plans for that soon! Next and lastly for this month's update, more videos on YouTube! This past month has been filled with some bass and slide guitar fun times and experiments, as well as my first saxaflute (bamboo saxophone) video! Check out the updated playlist below:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLWEmqIhrNPvQTBoOjZdKLgL4ecTvLz6sm
And here's a list of the latest additions:
The next month is set to be my last month of regular YouTube videos (for a while at least) while I prepare for the big BTTB release. It'll also mark 2 full years of uninterrupted videos on YouTube so there's that too! More music to come soon though so you'll not be able to get rid of me just yet! That about wraps things up for this month! I'm hoping that by next time I'll have a finalised test CD (hopefully even a vinyl too) in my hand, perhaps the next BTTB single out, and a concrete release date set in stone for the next BTTB album too, but now that all depends on how sorting these physical releases go (manufacture times etc...). Exciting times ahead and until the next one, thanks so much for supporting my music and I hope you enjoy the new music and videos this month (and to come)! Take care! $1 Rewards: https://www.patreon.com/posts/124775854 $10 Rewards: https://www.patreon.com/posts/125676704 Reward Archives: https://www.patreon.com/posts/50344842 Find out more: https://www.patreon.com/NickStanding
Hi everyone and hope you're having a great start to spring. It's been a super busy month over here with some trips in between working frantically to get this Better Than The Book album ready for release (more on that in a moment), and getting the studio set up too (also more on that in a moment). More news to share along with some more videos as usual so let's get to it!
First of all an update on how Better Than The Book's upcoming album preparations are going! It's been much slower than I'd hoped for many reasons but things are getting there (It's a HUGE project). Album credits are mostly drafted up along with the finalised lyric sheets on Bandcamp and the artwork is well on the way to completion too! As it stands all the final penciling is finished, all the final line-work penning is done too, and it's just some shading, clean-up and lettering left to take care of before it's time to take it to the scanner. After that there'll be some cropping and digital clean-up to do and very thankfully, my twin Eamon has lent me one of his old graphics tablets to help with that. Thanks Eamon! I'm sure this'll make things much easier than my usual mouse clean-up. I cannot wait to share this artwork with you as much like the audio, I think it's my best yet (certainly from an attention to detail point of view) and is going to blow your socks off! If you're $10 Patreon supporter though, you've got a sneak peek collection of work in progress, non-draft artwork photos to look forward to this time. Hope you enjoy it! Next up on the news, some more studio updates. Again this has been slow progress for many reasons including ordering a flat packed shelf but finding a piece missing and then having to wait an extra 2 weeks for this tiny part to arrive to finish it... With that finally sorted though, the studio is now well equipped with a load of shelves at the back filled with vinyls, CDs, Magazines, charms, files/admin stuff, art supplies, tools, spare parts, manga and more! Next up will be to sort the final few acoustic tiles so I can get this room fully treated and calibrated! I'm playing around a bit with stands too for all the instruments to be effectively out on display and ready to use (while taking up as little room as possible) but that's proving a little difficult at the moment... I'll get to it when I can (Better Than The Book artwork is top priority at the moment)! On top of that after a visit down south to the overwhelmingly generous Martin (who I'm really not sure where I'd be musically without), I have now finally (after almost a decade living without one) acquired a full 88note (controller) keyboard again, as he had recently upgraded his own and wanted his old one to go to a good new home. It's been amazing to finally be able to play piano with the fully compass of the keyboard again, and after some catch-up practice I'm positive I'll be recording some proper piano compositions again very soon! Oh and before anyone asks, no piano and organ are not the same. They're more akin to a spoon and a fork (for lack of a better analogy). Fun times a'commin'! Next and an interesting piece of news which I think everyone should know about, especially those of you making ANY creative content (artwork, music, writing, etc...) in the UK specifically. In February, myself and over 1000 musicians jointly released a "silent" album title "Is This What We Want?" to protest the UK government's planned changes to copyright law, which would essentially hand the life's work of the country's musicians (and more) to AI companies for free, without compensation, consent, or any real framework implemented to opt out. Not only are they stealing from musicians and artist as above, but they're using our work and passion to train models which aim to replace us. This is unacceptable. "Is This What We Want?" is an album of recordings of empty studios, which is a stark illustration of the impact it'll have on the music industry and musicians if the government's plans go ahead. You can listen to and read all about it here and all profits from the album will be donated to a musician's charity. You can also see a list of all the "contributors" to the album where I'm listed as Jabun alongside such musicians as Damon Albarn, Imogen Heap, Hans Zimmer and many more people. On a side note, if you're into field recordings and ambient sounds, it's actually a very cool album musically (though harrowing). Here's to hoping it gets the message across to the UK Government: 
https://www.isthiswhatwewant.com/
Track list: 1) The 2) British 3) Government 4) Must 5) Not 6) Legalise 7) Music 8) Theft 9) To 10) Benefit 11) AI 12) Companies Finally for this months news it's the usual video round up! I didn't actually meet my recording target (again) last month, and with this April marking a full 2 years of releasing 2 video a week consistently and without break, I'll be announcing a reduction / step back from "content creation" after that 2 year mark. Details to come, but in the mean time here's the update playlist and a list of the latest additions: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLWEmqIhrNPvQTBoOjZdKLgL4ecTvLz6sm
This coming month we're back to some slide guitar and alternative tunings, playing some bass with the whammy pedal, and more! Hope you're looking forward to it! That about wraps things up for this post! I'll be trying to finish the artwork for Better Than The Book's upcoming album soon which also means the second single will be due very soon too! On top of that there's a tonne of stuff still to do setting up the studio, as well as admin to prep for the BTTB album release. No shortage of busy times at the moment, but exciting stuff to come soon! Until then, thanks as always for supporting my music and more however you can and hope you enjoy what's to come! Take care! $1 Rewards: https://www.patreon.com/posts/123307878 $10 Rewards: https://www.patreon.com/posts/123216355 Reward Archives: https://www.patreon.com/posts/50344842 Find out more: https://www.patreon.com/NickStanding
Hi everyone and hope you've had a good start to 2025. It's been an extra busy month over here catching up with stuff I slacked off on at the end of last year, falling behind in some other aspects instead, and prepping the new Better Than The Book album for release as well as continuing to set up the new studio. Regarding the latter, it's getting there slowly but surely! I still need to put up some more shelves and finish off the acoustic treatment so it's still a way off but hopefully it'll be closer to completion by the spring. More updates coming soon and let's get onto the news for this month (there's a lot of stuff)!
Firstly, I've been super busy working on the cover art for Better Than The Book's upcoming Side Character In My Own Life album! As with a lot of my artwork, especially the more complex ones, this one started out as pencil sketches in a pad which were then photographed, rearranged and edited to make a digital collage to experiment with layout and draft out the overall look of the album art, and I'm pretty pleased with the way this one has come so far! As it currently stands I'm in the process of redrawing the whole thing with the new compiled layout with the exception of the album title which I'm not quite 100% sure on the layout for yet. The overall image takes inspiration from the title track of the album, but there's a tonne of references to other tracks of the album in the picture too. It's been so much fun to be back to drawing again. I should do it more often! Next step is to finish the line redrawing, finalise any colour etc... settle on the final logo layout, then a final digital scan, clean-up and compilation. Hoping to get this done before the next update ready to release with the next single which will be the title track Side Character In My Own Life! Hope you're excited for it, and if you're a $10 Patreon supporter, you've got a .ZIP folder full of sketches + the latest digitally complied draft to look forward to! Enjoy! Onto more news for this month, apart from working on the Better Than The Book artwork (and setting up the studio), I've finally taken the time to update the Patreon Reward Archives! It's been a while since the last update, which I think was when the Jabun - June22 album was released back in March 2023. Read more about the updated archive below and here's a list of all the additions! Updated archives: https://www.patreon.com/posts/50344842 $1 Reward Additions:
$10+ Reward Additions:
Next on the news for this month, some press features to share from Better Than The Book! After the launch of Plot Holes, the first single from the upcoming Side Character In My Own Life album, my inbox has been buzzing with stuff and while some things have yet to be confirmed, here's a few things which have happened so far! First of all, and this is huge, Plot Holes was featured on the BBC Introducing The South show on BBC Radio Sussex in my home county! It was even chosen as the opener for the show! Huge thanks to Melita for sharing the music and while there's not much time left, there's still about a week to catch up on the show on the BBC Sounds App if you've yet to hear it. Some cracking tunes over there! https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0kbhyw4 Next the single and album announcement was featured on The Punk Site! Thanks for the feature peeps and hope to be back on the site again when the next single or album drops in full: https://www.thepunksite.com/news/better-than-the-book-reveal-plot-holes-announce-side-character-in-my-own-life-album/ Finally in the confirmed news Plot Holes has been added to The RETWEETER RADIO's tune rotation! Thanks so much! More radio shows and podcasts to confirm the feature on to come hopefully! https://x.com/ITHERETWEETER1/status/1876352413004931566 Finally this month, more YouTube Videos to share! After recording NOTHING in the month prior to the previous post, it was a super busy few weeks catching up and recording twice as many videos to get back on track, but I (just about) managed it! Phew! In honesty, I may have to reduce the number of videos I put out at some point, but for the moment, I'm keeping up. Anyways! A busy month of videos it's been so here's the updated main playlist and the latest additions:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLWEmqIhrNPvQTBoOjZdKLgL4ecTvLz6sm
This coming month's videos will be full of me messing around on the big bass amp with not just bass, but guitar and organ too! Hope you enjoy it! That about wraps things up for this post! Next month's looking to potentially be busy with some trips but I'll be aiming to get the album artwork for Better Than The Book's Side Character In My Own Life finished as well as more YouTube videos recorded and more studio build updates done at least. It's a little later than I'd hoped but I recon the next BTTB single will be coming in March at this rate. We shall see I suppose! Until the next update I hope you enjoy the news and new videos and thanks as always for supporting my music and projects however you can! Take care and all the best! $1 Rewards: https://www.patreon.com/posts/119425579 $10 Rewards: https://www.patreon.com/posts/121177435 Reward Archives: https://www.patreon.com/posts/50344842 Find out more: https://www.patreon.com/NickStanding
Hi everyone and hope you had a great December, Christmas, New Years and Holiday season! It's been a heckin' super busy time over here, so much so that I've fallen behind on my pre-scheduled YouTube video recording! Fortunately I prepared videos up until the end of January in case of busy times, but there's going to be a lot of catching up to do this coming month, and man oh man it's looking to be an even busier time to come! Speaking of which, with Better Than The Book's big single release earlier this week (more on that in a moment), there'll be no extra Patreon rewards this month so everyone's news will be together in one post again. Should be back to the usual jam for February, and with that, let's get on with the news for the month!
Firstly, it's been just a few days since the launch but things are already looking great for the first single "Plot Holes" from Better Than The Book's upcoming 3rd full length album "Side Character In My Own Life"! If you've not already heard it check it out on YouTube, or on Bandcamp if you want to pick up a copy or pre-order the album now:
https://betterthanthebook.bandcamp.com/album/side-character-in-my-own-life
Plot Holes was one of the first tracks to be written for the upcoming Side Character In My Own Life album, and like most of the album was written back in 2020 / early 2021 (Track 05 "Rewrite" was rewritten in 2023). With the world in lockdown, some questionable characters pulling the strings, not to mention some horrible things going on on top of that, it was a tense and emotional era and it's no wonder that the world's collective consciousness was at breaking point. Plot Holes was written to help process all that was going on, about how some uncomfortable realities had to be faced, and how at the time (and still now) the world just didn't seem to make sense anymore. I hope you find it enjoyable, relatable and that it brings some much needed catharsis, power and motivation to you however you experienced these past 5 years! The Side Character In My Own life album is more or less a snapshot of that time in my life with another 5 years of performance, writing, audio engineering and production experience under my belt which I really believe is my best collective release to date! With the album art and many other things still left to sort out, I don't have a concrete release date planned for the album just yet but I'm hoping for the first half of this year without rushing things. I was determined to get something out before 2024 was over though, and Plot Holes seemed like the best foot forward so to speak. The album goes through many style shifts and motions, but I think this set's the overall musical tone nicely! Bandcamp pre-orders are now open along with the Plot Holes (Radio Edit) single ready to download, and I'll be updating the page with the pre-release singles as they're released + artwork, lyrics and descriptions in due time. Of course the current art is just a placeholder for what's to come, and there is a LOT of new music to come! Check out the track list for the new album below: https://betterthanthebook.bandcamp.com/album/side-character-in-my-own-life Better Than The Book - Side Character In My Own Life 01 - 2020 Was A Write-off, But What Comes Next? 02 - Side Character In My Own Life 03 - Mood Swings 04 - Red Kite 05 - Rewrite 06 - Don't Be Too Hard On Yourself 07 - Hold Me Tight 08 - Bump In The Night 09 - Plot Holes 10 - You'll Never Be Too Old For This Bonus Tracks 11 - Hearts Racing Backwards 12 - Plot Holes (Alternative Version) 13 - Hold Me Tight (Non-Acoustic) 14 - Side Character In My Own Life (Acoustic) + Additional Radio Edits for Tracks 07, 08, 09 & 10 Written, performed and produced by Nick Standing [Jabun] Recorded, mixed and mastered at JabunAudio by Nick Standing [Jabun] Artwork, images and photography by Nick Standing [Jabun] No generative A.I. tools were used in the creation of this album. More album credits and special thanks are to come but for now I'd like to extend an immediate thanks to my family and friends (both online and offline) for their support and a big thanks to the current supporters on Patreon with extra mention to $10+ patrons: Nathan Puray, and Michael White! Thank you all so much for your help and support in making my musical dreams a reality! You folks are amazing! Of course my supporters on Patreon are celebrating today with the full download package of the Plot Holes (Radio Edit) single which includes Mp3s (+ WAVs for the $10 patrons) and full sized placeholder art! If any of that sounds good to you, then consider becoming a patron for as little as $1 today, and remember you'll be getting the full back-catalogue of rewards for your tier when you join, including the full Better Than The Book, Jabun and Nick Standing discographies, bonus Patreon exclusives and much more! Find out more below: $1 Rewards: https://www.patreon.com/posts/116513608 $10 Rewards: https://www.patreon.com/posts/116513612 Reward Archives: https://www.patreon.com/posts/50344842 Find out more: https://www.patreon.com/NickStanding And a big thanks to everyone who's listened and shared the music so far! Not even a week after launch and Plot Holes has already been streamed well over 1000 times (almost on Newgrounds alone) and even received a Front Page Feature Award on Newgrounds too! Thanks so much for the love peeps, and I'm sure the rest of the album is going to blow your socks off too! Check out the Newgrounds stream for Plot Holes below: https://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/1387749 Onto other recent music releases, all the listening parties have now been completed for November's Jabun - Nephology album and all the tracks have been playlisted on YouTube and Newgrounds now, as well as the album being up on Spotify too! With over 6 hours total of listening party streaming time for this album it's been the longest release party yet and thanks so much to everyone who joined and really made it a memorable launch for Jabun's Nephology! Check out the cloudwatching livestream playlist below and the Nephology album on Bandcamp if you've not heard it already:
https://jabun.bandcamp.com/album/nephology
Onto some Christmas and Holiday funtimes news now, this year was the first one at my wife Eva and I's new house and we were hosting which made for a busy challenge but super enjoyable time with close family. As usual gifts were exchanged and some fun highlights included a toy pig from Battersea Power Station (In reference to Pink Floyd), Tickets to Iron Maiden and the 40th Anniversary addition of Iron Maiden's Powerslave album on vinyl (the title track of which was the first guitar solo I ever learnt and performed live) which also has this cool feature where when you play it under a strobe light it shows an animated loop for each of the tracks on the album (super cool), the Mario Bros Wonder game which has been some very silly multiplayer fun, and Eva and I both getting eachother the same supposedly discontinued flavour of our favourite instant noodles! Good times all around and thanks my dear family, I'm looking forward to the next visit soon! On top of that, my twin Eamon was up to his usual dank mashup madness and made yet another Christmas album this year! It ended up being a 12 days of Christmas countdown of sorts on his YouTube channel and is as messed up as it is heartfelt! Check it out below: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xtXIGAoNAQ&list=PLwEpjDbB6TAHQ7Khc1Nq5wCtnM-f0rUVc&index=54 Onto Studio updates, with a few trips back down south in December + my family coming up to visit for Christmas, I FINALLY managed to move the rest of my equipment up into the new studio! Apart from the family piano and my very first Marshall guitar and bass amps which are staying down south, it's the first time EVER that all my instruments and equipment have been under the same roof and in the same room! Some notable additions include my BIG bass amp (an Ashdown EVO EVO II 500 + 4x10 cab), my first bass and guitar, a Squier Vintage Modified (and modified again) Jazz Bass, and stock Yamaha Pacifica 112 I picked up at a McDonalds car part from eBay at age 14, my trusty balalaika, and tenor saxaflute (Bamboo saxophone) which I've been making a new effort to play now that I can be as noisy and terribly sounding as I want (and it's going "well" so far)! There's still A LOT of stuff to sort out in the studio with a massive pile of mostly CDs and manga boxed up against the back wall now, but it's finally ALL HERE and available to record and jam now; for the first time ever! It's a great feeling and I'm sure it'll be even better once I get things a bit more sorted and less cluttered soon! Next it's onto the YouTube videos for the month and although as mentioned I wasn't able to keep up with my recording, I've still managed to release the usual 2 a week videos on top of the new music! This month we said hello to the new studio with some build updates, and some jams! Here's the updated main playlist:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLWEmqIhrNPvQTBoOjZdKLgL4ecTvLz6sm
And here's the full list of videos below:
Next month will feature some amp repairs and testing, some more studio build updates and jams and back to some synth stuff too! Thanks for sticking around and watching and hope you enjoy what's to come! Finally as it's the first post of the year, I thought it'd be nice to reflect on the year gone by, celebrate the successes, reflect on goals, and set some new ones for 2025! It's been a heck of a busy year, not so much on the music release schedule this time, but more preparing for the future and things to come! Speaking of releasing stuff though, 2024 was my first full calendar year of releasing 2 videos a week on YouTube, and crazy as I thought it was, 104 videos later, I'm still going and the JabunAudio channel has surpassed 500 subscribers too! That's something to celebrate! On top of that, although we unfortunately didn't make it to the stage this year due to injury and busy life stuff (more on that later), the Better Than The Book live band got back together for its first full band practices since January 2020 which was amazing fun! Hoping to get back to it in the new year when we can! And speaking of BTTB, although the album wasn't released just yet, master audio has been finished for BTTB's upcoming 3rd full-length album Side Character In My Own Life and the first single Plot Holes just made it to release before the year was out too! Additionally Jabun released its 6th album/EP project Nephology in November with a tonne of live streaming party fun, and moving onto collaborator news Sif Savery's Tales of Zale: Flicking lights short film reached over a million views on YouTube, I mastered the madness monster of a rap track "Smack a Fish (Motha Sharka)" by eterniTRex, and kept up with my yearly INKtober contribution to Cyberdevil's challenge with the beat for B-35 Bomber on Newgrounds. On top of all this (and likely much to the disruption of the above), as well as a tonne of long overdue or unexpected equipment fixes and maintenance, Eva and I finally managed to buy our own place including my very own studio space! It's not quite set up yet, but it's getting there! To top things off for a year of celebration, I was very pleased to find that my custom NOISE oscillator for the KORG NTS-1 finally made it's way onto the official KORG user oscillator software list! That's pretty darn neat! Phew, what a year it's been! Kinda looks like a lot when it's all piled up like that! In terms of the (audio related) goals I actually set, it wasn't super successful from a completion point of view mainly due to logistical and health problems and the other busy life stuff above, but things have been progressing slowly but surely, and technically I did put out a Jabun album, just not the one I was aiming to on the goals list (as usual)! There's still time for all of these though, so with that I think I'll be reprising the same goals for 2025: 1) Release the upcoming Better Than The Book album! 2) Finish recording the next Jabun album 3) Play my first live shows as Better Than The Book or Jabun And set an additional goal 4) to finish getting the new studio set up. Goal 1) is definitely doable and I can still dream about the rest! Wish me luck and I hope you all have great years to come too! That about wraps things up for this post! The next thing I'll be doing on Patreon is updating all the Reward Archive posts so expect a post about that before the month is over and hopefully we should be back the usual reward schedule for February! With the hype train started for BTTB's new album it's going to be a busy few months ahead and I've gotta get my paint brush out soon to start on the artwork for that too! SO MANY THINGS TO DO! Until the next post I hope you enjoy all the new music and videos and thanks as always for supporting Jabun, Better Than The Book, and my various projects for another year! Let's make 2025 the best one yet and take care!
Hi everyone and hope you've had a great November! It's the beginning of another month which means another news roundup to share and since Jabun's Nephology album was released just a few days ago (more on that in a moment), there's no extra rewards this time so I thought I'd just make one news post for all the patrons today. Don't worry though, I'll be sharing something more before the year is out so there's still more rewards to come this month! Until then though, let's get on with the news!
First of all, as you're probably already aware on Wednesday 27th November I released my 6th album/EP project as Jabun - Nephology, a 6+ hour collection of 3 long-form ultra ambient remixes of my 2nd album 15-4-20 inspired by cloud gazing! I've already rambled a lot about it in various posts last month, so I shan't repeat myself here, but you can purchase, read all about and listen to the album over on the Bandcamp page here: https://jabun.bandcamp.com/album/nephology And of course for the appropriate Patreon subscribers you've got the full download package of Nephology in your rewards below which includes Mp3s (+ WAVs for the $10 patrons) and full sized album art + cover photo + alternative cover! If any of that sounds good to you and you're not a Patreon supporter yet then consider becoming a patron for as little as $1 today, and remember you'll be getting the full back-catalogue of rewards for your tier when you join, including the full BTTB, Jabun and Nick Standing discographies, bonus Patreon exclusives and much more! Find out more below: $1 Rewards: https://www.patreon.com/posts/116372988 $10 Rewards: https://www.patreon.com/posts/116372989 Reward Archives: https://www.patreon.com/posts/50344842 Find out more: https://www.patreon.com/NickStanding For the Bandcamp savvy amongst you, it's the final Bandcamp Friday of 2024 on Friday 6th December which means that when you purchase anything on Bandcamp day (not just my music), 100% of your contribution will go straight to the artists you want to support. If you're planning on picking anything up or sending a digital download Christmas present then this coming Friday is the best time to do so. Thanks for supporting independent music however you can! To celebrate the Nephology release I'll be hosting a number of listening / chillout / cloud watching parties on YouTube! The one for the first track Cumulus was on Wednesday but don't worry if you missed it as I'll be holding listening parties for the next 2 tracks on my JabunAudio YouTube channel today on Sunday 1st December and on Wednesday 4th December. If you've not done so already, subscribe to the channel to keep in the loop via the link below and come hang out, ask questions, and let's enjoy some Nephology together! https://www.youtube.com/@jabunaudio Today's stream starts at 8pm GMT! I look forward to seeing you there: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HB-qCcMFMZg And speaking of my YouTube Channel, I want to say a HUGE thanks to everyone who's been watching and supporting the channel since I started this 2-videos-a-week schedule last year (and everyone before that too), as the JabunAudio YouTube Channel has just exceeded 500 subscribers! It's really cool to see that people are enjoying the videos (of me mainly messing around in the studio) and music (hopefully)! I'll be releasing a dedicated thank you video at the start of 2025 to celebrate and show my appreciation and I look forward to seeing how the channel grows in the next 500 subs and more! Thanks so much for watching and listening! Keeping on the topic of listening, alongside the Jabun Nephology listening parties on YouTube, on Wednesday 27th, I held the first private listening party for Better Than The Book's upcoming Side Character In My Own Life album, just myself, and Eamon and Sam from the BTTB live band. It's always a nerve-racking experience showing these projects to people for the first time, but I can safely say now, that I'm not the only one who thinks this new album is gonna blow some minds, from a performance, writing and production point of view! Get ready for a ska punk journey like no other in the coming months, starting before the year is over! I can't wait to share it! Onto some studio updates now, things are slowly but surely settling in at the new studio though there is still a little way to go yet. More than half of my current acoustic tiles are up now with still some planning to get the rest of them done soon, and it's certainly sounding a lot better and more studio quality now between these walls (with still some room for improvement). In terms of equipment repairs, after a month long dance with NI tech support, we FINALLY managed to resurrect my beloved Session Horns plugin I use for all my Better Than The Book brass work! A HUGE horray and thanks to Franky from NI tech support for the patience and troubleshooting. We got there eventually! On top of that, my main guitar amp of 17 years, a Marshall AVT50x combo has been rescued from a silent grave by an incredibly simple fix! Basically all that had happened is that after many years of being thrown around the back of cars and moved around, the one pre-amp valve had wobbled free and become slightly deseated from its socket on the main circuit board. A quick wiggle and firm press back and the amp was back in working order! While it was apart anyway though, I took the time to replace what had become a very noisey output fan, and now it's running much smoother (I've made a video about it which will be coming out in the new year if you're interested). I also noticed that a lot of noise was coming from the new computer tower into the reverb circuit so I relocated the reverb to a new position in the speaker cabinet section of the combo, shielded the tank more with copper tape and moved the PC tower a few inches further away and all the noise is basically gone now. Horray! If that wasn't enough repairs for the month, I also fired up my Moog just to find out that one of the keys was sticking/ not triggering properly, but thankfully that was just a 5 minute job for some contact cleaner and button mashing, no extra parts needed. Phew! For now the next step for studio set-up will be switching to a slightly smaller but hopefully as ergonomic synth desk in order to make room for my big bass amp which I'll be picking up later this month, then planning some shelves and storage spaces. There sure does seem to be a lot of Tetrising needed to fit this 20+ years of my music recording (and 28+ of music playing) life into this new studio. It's a big job but I'm looking forward to the adventure! Finally for this month as usual I've been keeping up with my 2 a week videos on the now 500+ subs strong JabunAudio Channel! This month we said farewell to the old studio along with a tonne of organ related videos, and more. Here's the updated main playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLWEmqIhrNPvQTBoOjZdKLgL4ecTvLz6sm And here's the full list of videos below:
Next month we're saying hello to the new studio along with some more guitar and organ and a few little insights into setting everything up! Hope you enjoy it and looking forward to seeing you in the comments! That wraps things up for this time! I'll be back before the end of the year with something extra special from BTTB before it's time to update the reward archives at the beginning of 2025, so the next (usual) beginning of January post will likely be another "no extra rewards" shared news post! Until then, I hope you enjoy the Nephology album, hope to see you at some of the listening parties this week and thanks as always for supporting my music however you can! Take care, happy holidays if I don't speak to you before, and enjoy some cloud watching!
Hi everyone and hope you had a great October (and Halloween yesterday)! It's the beginning of another month and after the huge disruption last time, things are starting to get back on track though are maybe a few months behind where I wanted to be in some aspects... Taking the good stuff along with the bad though it's been a super busy month of both fun AND pain so let's dive into the details!
First of all some studio updates: After a near (computer) death experience following September's studio move and the hard work and research from some friends, we FINALLY got the computer to boot up again (without a reset or clean install) and things are almost back to normal now! I've even been back to some JabunAudio client work again (which was a big worry this time last month), and cut a first track in the new studio too (more on that later)! The only thing that hasn't seemed to survive the fixes is unfortunately the virtual horns I use for Better Than The Book... They're stuck in demo mode! I've been in touch with Native Instruments tech support to try and figure things out so hopefully something can be done, but if not it might be time to look for some new horns... what crummy luck! As If I didn't need even more stuff to worry about too just earlier this week my main guitar amp for the last 17ish years went BANG a few times then silence... it's currently in pieces under my desk awaiting some new part and hopefully will join the resurrected equipment club later this month. I sure hope so... Away from problems though, the studio overall is starting to shape up again, sort of... I need to figure out a new design layout eventually but for the moment everything's back in that was in there before while I look out and plan for new furniture etc... The organ rig is back together and thankfully as sturdy as ever too, and I've started on the acoustic treatment but there's still a long way to go which means lots more headphone work than usual. Overall things are getting there though and I finally had the time (and tools) to finish some things off I needed to, so I'm super pleased to finally announce: Jabun's new Nephology ambient album is fully complete and launching for FULL Early Access to the $10+ supporters on Patreon! I'm giving early access to the artwork package to the rest of the patrons this time too! Downloads include the full artwork package (including album art, album art photo, and alternative art), and if you're a $10 Patron you have the master high quality WAV files, and the Mp3s too! Links to Patreon at the bottom of this post! I'm sure I've previously said, but Nephology is a long form ambient collection of 3 2 hour tracks which are each remixes of the tracks from my 2nd album 15-4-20 and inspired by cloud watching! They're less something to listen to intently and more something to have on in the background while doing something else, or just to create an ambience for a space. It was a fun experiment and I hope you enjoy the vibes! In terms of the project itself, it's fully complete now and all that's left to do is finish the marketing and promotional materials and literature which will likely take a while so I'm not putting a concrete release date on things just yet, but will be aiming for the end of November, beginning of December time! For those of you waiting on Better Than The Book's new album, I'm making sure to pace myself with all this work so unfortunately that's not looking to be out in full this year anymore, BUT I do hope to have SOMETHING out before 2024 ends to start that hype train rolling again! Plans are being made, so keep watching the usual spaces, and I'll keep you posted when I can! Thanks for your patience! Next this month, Cyberdevil has been back to his usual INKtober madness for the 6th year in a row! For those of you not acquainted with the challenge, each October he sits down to write, record and release a new rap EVERY DAY of the month, and in this case, some days even have 2! As usual I took some time to throw a beat his way to see what he'd do with it and for the 2nd year in a row I made it purely on my KORG EM-1 Electribe groovebox with just some mastering in Ableton before I sent it over! Cyberdevil took a dark but thought provoking turn with the lyrics this time so trigger warning, but I hope you appreciate the vibes! Check out the full track below which is free to download at Newgrounds: https://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/1370257 And if you're a supporter on Patreon you have the instrumental beat too in this month's download rewards! Some insider backstory on the title. B35 refers to pattern bank b35 on my Electribe which happens to also be the same as the model number of a bomber aircraft developed shortly after WW2 which which I'm sure inspired Cyberdevil's lyrical take and title. There's a whole bag of different vibes to explore this year though so I highly recommend checking out the full INKtober 2024 playlist below, and a huge well done to Cyberdevil and everyone involved with special mention to larrynachos who undertook their own "Tunetober" challenge this month as well as being on a tonne of the Inktober beats this year! I hope you enjoy it! https://www.newgrounds.com/playlist/404721/inktober-2024 Next and finally this month over to YouTube Videos! I've been keeping up with my 2 a week as usual which is now scheduled up until the end of the year! Not only that but with SO many videos now I decided to make a few playlists for interest groups so that people didn't need to skip through the main one. Check them out below: Guitar, Organ, Synths & Gear Videos (the usual playlist): https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLWEmqIhrNPvQTBoOjZdKLgL4ecTvLz6sm Guitar, Bass and Strings Videos: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLWEmqIhrNPvS2ZEUAxmpfjI8x4TBy5PRk Synth, Groovebox and Drum Machine Videos: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLWEmqIhrNPvQKCJpzoiOOkLJBfaFCKnxT Organ Videos: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLWEmqIhrNPvQqavTDXmR0UOsLoyt100mq And here's a list of the new videos for this month:
Next month will be a goodbye studio tour along with some piano and organ and more! Hope you enjoy what's to come! And that about wraps things up for this post! I'll be busy getting the Jabun Nephology album prepped for release along with continuing to set up and repair the studio and with any luck next time you hear from me will be when the new Jabun album drops! Until then, I hope you have a great November to come and thanks as always for supporting my music and projects in all the ways you do! Take care and all the best! $1 Rewards: https://www.patreon.com/posts/114242904 $10 Rewards: https://www.patreon.com/posts/114242902 Reward Archives: https://www.patreon.com/posts/50344842 Find out more: https://www.patreon.com/NickStanding
Hi everyone and what a mixed month it's been over here... Some HUGE big news of both the super good and the super bad variety this time and it's probably best just to start off with that...
THE GOOD NEWS: Eva and I finally got our own house! We've only been in for just over a week now so things are still spread out everywhere and it's a bit of a mess but it's great to finally have our own space and it's just about starting to feel homely now! This also means I'm finally moving to my very own (non-rented) studio space which'll hopefully be the home for JabunAudio for a LOOONG time to come (and it's slightly bigger than the last place too)! It's exciting as it is nerve racking, but with no limits to what I'm allowed to do, I'll be taking the time to create the most ideal studio workspace as I possibly can which I'm sure is going to take a while, but more on that as we get to... THE BAD NEWS: I knew there was going to be some disruption moving studios as there always is, but not as bad as this... Firstly the smaller(ish) bad news: the studio room which I'll be moving into isn't quite ideal and needs some additional work on top of the usual acoustic panelling which'll require some extensive planning, time and investment to sort out, but should hopefully be manageable. eventually. Along with that we're currently living on the edge of a building site so things are a bit noisy at the moment and probably will be for some time too... It was to be expected, but it's still a bit of a buzzkill for any acoustic recording for a few months at least. Finally though, and here's the really REALLY BAD news, after moving, I set up my trusty audio production computer for the last 7-8 years, and... it won't boot up... Startup recovery? Nope! System restore? Nope! Boot up in Safe Mode? NOOOPE! I was hoping at least to be able to get along with promo-work, basic client consultation and editing work, making videos and artwork and prepping these 2 album releases while the acoustic side of the studio needed sorting, but NOPE! It's all grounded... apart from basic social media and email work (on the Chromebook I'm typing this up on), I can't do any computer work anymore! I'll be making some calls later this week to see if things are salvageable which I should know by the end of the week, but unfortunately at the moment, it's looking like the BEST case scenario is a hard reset on the PC, and starting back from square one... 8 years of crafting a specialised software environment for making music and I'll have to rebuild from scratch... Luckily, I backed up everything before the move and the master WAVs for the next 3 Jabun Records releases are complete and backed up, but while all files are preserved and there's a record of all the software etc... setting up the software environment again including installing all the software, plug-ins, bridging software for back compatibility, licencing etc... is going to be a massive task (if even 100% possibly) and I'm hoping it's not going to cost an arm and a leg too. On top of all this, there's over 70 minutes of unfinished Jabun projects which I don't have access to anymore, and there's also no guarantee that they'll be fully recoverable (error free) even if I do manage to set up the software environments again. It's a real headache I did not want to have to deal with, and if things go the way I think they will, I think it's gonna be a long time to fully recover from this... I've still not had a chance to check the rest of my equipment yet, but I know at least my MPC and grooveboxes still work so maybe I'll have to go DAWless for a while? That'd be an interesting challenge. Moving on to some more bad news, with the situation above, and not having (useful) access to many files or being able to do any media work, I'm having to put a hold on all music releases for the foreseeable future, including Better Than The Book's "Side Character In My Own Life", and Jabun's "Nephology". I simply don't have the means to release them at the moment, or promote them effectively. I'll keep you posted with any updates on this as and when but it's gonna be a case of taking each day at a time for the moment. Onto some better news, I did manage to finish all the artwork for Jabun's Nephology project before the move and if you're a $10 Patron (and in place of any music rewards this month), you have a download of all the artwork, including the main album cover, the alternative cover (for the matching Jabun catalog) and the isolated photo used for the cover too to look forward to! I hope you enjoy it while you wait for the album to finally drop (as soon as I can)! Finally this month, I managed to keep up with the 2 videos a week YouTube stream despite the disruptions! Check out the playlist below: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLWEmqIhrNPvQTBoOjZdKLgL4ecTvLz6sm And here's a list of the latest additions:
I currently have videos scheduled for up until the end of November including some about the studio move, but after that I'm not sure what's going to happen with the lack of a working computer. I'll be continuing to film stuff when I can and hopefully I'll be able to get back to editing and scheduling videos soon. And that about wraps things up for this month! Not exactly the best news I was hoping to share, but we'll just have to see how things progress over the next month. Thanks for always supporting my various projects however you can, and I'll be back with hopefully some better news in November. Take care! $1 Rewards: https://www.patreon.com/posts/113133548 $10 Rewards: https://www.patreon.com/posts/113133546 Reward Archives: https://www.patreon.com/posts/50344842 Find out more: https://www.patreon.com/NickStanding
Hi everyone and hope you've had a great August! It's doesn't feel like that long since I last wrote out to you, as I guess the previous post was a week later than expected. As such there's not as much stuff to report this time, but the news that will be shared is BIG! Lets get straight to it!
This month it's all been about finalising the audio for numerous projects and after 5 years of writing, recording, production and engineering, I'm super happy to announce that the master audio for Better Than The Book's 3rd full-length album is COMPLETE! It's been a heck of a load of hard work, long listening sessions and fine tweaking BUT I really think it's not only the biggest project I've put out, but also sonically the best work I've ever done too! With the master audio complete, I'll shortly be onto creating the artwork while also going through the all the admin work to get this officially released out into the world as well as making a good promo plan, as such it'll still be a little while yet until this is our into the world but the hardest part is complete and while I can't give a release date just yet, what I will say is that I'm aiming for the album to be out before the end of the year but that after 5 years of hard work on this I'll not be rushing things. In the mean time though, while I won't call this the official announcement for the album, I hope you're as excited as I am for this latest installment of my Better Than The Book ska punk project. Get ready for: Better Than The Book - Side Character In My Own Life Track listing as follows: ----- Side A ----- 01 - 2020 Was A Write-off, But What Comes Next? 02 - Side Character In My Own Life 03 - Mood Swings 04 - Red Kite 05 - Rewrite ----- Side B ----- 06 - Don't Be Too Hard On Yourself 07 - Hold Me Tight 08 - Bump In The Night 09 - Plot Holes 10 - You'll Never Be Too Old For This -----Bonus Tracks ----- 11 - Hearts Racing Backwards 12 - Plot Holes (Alternative Version) 13 - Hold Me Tight (Non-Acoustic) 14 - Side Character In My Own Life (Acoustic) + Additional Radio Edits for Tracks 07, 08, 09 & 10 Not only that but the master audio is also complete for the bonus instrumental (off -vocal) version of the album too! I haven't decided yet whether to release that a full 1 year after this one like usual, or get it our a bit sooner instead this time (potentially the latter). Either way, people seem to be enjoying / making use of the instrumental versions of the other albums so I thought why not regarding this album too. Enjoy that too when that comes! If finalising the audio for effectively 36 new tracks and over 2 hours of Better Than The Book music (instrumentals included) wasn't enough then man oh man do I have a surprise for you! It's not been in development for even nearly as long nor been nearly as much work (sort of), but I'm also pleased to announce that audio has also been finalised for Jabun's next small(?)album/EP project too! As with many of the recent Jabun ambient projects, this one was also an exploratory experiment of sorts, but the results I was very pleased with so I thought why keep it to myself! Jabun's new album will actually be an ultra ambient remix version of my 2nd Jabun album/EP 15-4-20, but this time each track is a 2 hour long soundscape which in my ears aimed to be an auditory and musical expression of cloud watching. It's not an album to sit down and listen to note for note per say, more a collection of 3 sonic paintings to have in the background, glance through at your leisure and just enjoy the vibes for as short or long a time as you want (and if you REALLY want to listen for more than 2 hours per track then you can loop it yourself). These 3 tracks and over 6 hours of ambient remix material are non-looping and never exactly repeating much like how the 15-4-20 album was (or how cloudgazing is) and I hope you enjoy the concept, textures and sound design and just have fun with it. I've already started preparing artwork for this one, and with only 3 tracks and not the type of music to need to prep/ send out to radio stations etc... it's a heck of a lot less admin work than for Better Than The Book's album so there's a very good chance it'll be out before the new ska punk vibes! With that said, again although I'll not call it an official announcement just yet, I hope you're intrigued and looking forward to checking out Jabun's 6th album/EP project: Jabun - Nephology Track listing as follows: 01 - Cumulus 02 - Stratus 03 - Cirrus After that I still have a BIG pile of over 70 minutes of Jabun demos and decent ideas which I aim to sort through, curate and compile along with some newer compositions too soon. Those have been slowly collecting/building since 2019 and are less ambient experimental and more akin to my debut album Daydream as well as venturing into the cinematic and instrumental hip hop side of things (check out my instrumental work with the recent Cyberdevil INKtober collaborations for a taste of the latter vibes)! That'll be a job for 2025 and super looking forward to getting back to those soon! Finally this month, I managed to pick up the pace and get back on track with the 2 videos a week YouTube stream for now! I must admit I've been finding it difficult to share new or worthwhile ideas recently especially for guitar playing, so the next few months are taking a more synth and organ focus which people seem to be enjoying anyway so that's good. Check out the playlist below: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLWEmqIhrNPvQTBoOjZdKLgL4ecTvLz6sm And here's a list of the latest additions:
More Volca Modular videos to come in the coming month as well as some organ and even pipe organ(!), and a clip from a Better Than The Book mini-practice session too. I hope you enjoy it! And that wraps things up for this month unless you're a $10 supporter on Patreon which case I'm sharing with you an exclusive first look at the finished opening track to the new Better Than The Book album! Disruption is on the horizon, hence why I was so busy this month finishing up as many audio projects as possible, but hopefully by the next blog post I'll be able to reveal all and share some potentially even bigger news than in this post! Until then I think it's going to be a busy admin and artworky month for me with some more video recording to do too. Anyways, I hope you enjoy the new music and videos, and thanks so much as always for supporting my music and projects however you can. Big things coming all at once in the coming months! Get excited and take care! $1 Rewards: https://www.patreon.com/posts/111073951 $10 Rewards: https://www.patreon.com/posts/111073949 Reward Archives: https://www.patreon.com/posts/50344842 Find out more: https://www.patreon.com/NickStanding
Hi everyone and apologies for the slightly delayed post this month! I hope you've had a great time since the last one, and over here's it's been a super busy and exciting one to report so I hope that makes up for the delay! Lot's to go through this month so let's get to it!
First on the updates for this month, some big news from BTTB! As of yesterday, I've just rendered the first finished master test for the complete 14 track album and finally sent it over to my team of 2nd ears for a sanity check before it goes out to the world! Essentially, unless they have any specific quarrels, then the audio for the album is complete and it's just a final round of checks, exports and checking exports then the master audio will be considered finished, then just 4 quick radio edits to make/check etc... We're in the endgame now and man oh man I can't wait to share this with the world! It's been a long and difficult 5 years since Hopes and Dreams but man oh man, I think you'll hear how far 5 years of extra experience goes! Not long to wait now! Onto some less project related and more casual fun updates, earlier last month I went on an amazing trip to London to go see the Spirited Away stage play which was phenomenal! Despite that being the aim of the trip though, that show wasn't the only highlight of the day. When we arrived at London Bridge Station, I had the pleasure of finding and playing London Bridge Station's famous recently rescued pipe organ "Henry" which was amazing (video coming to YouTube at some point)! It's likely been over 10 years now since I last had the opportunity to play pipe organ and man oh man it feels so good to be back to it! As you can expect, I've been spending even more time with my own Yamaha YC-25D organ since that day. Inspiration has been flowing like a broken tap! That's not all for the day though, on a routine trip to Denmark Street, which has changed a lot in the few years since I was last there, I had the amazing fortune of completely by chance meeting one of my biggest electronic engineering heroes Ade Emsley! For those who don't know, he's a legend among the music tech community in a 2-fold way! On top of being head of engineering and design at Orange Amplifiers; the guy who designed virtual every Orange amp and pedal and more since the late 90s, the guy who STARTED the lunchbox/small amp head trend with the Tiny Terror, the guy who designed the very amp I use for playing organ, and live Better Than The Book performances (and much of the recording on the new record), he's also an industry legend as a mastering engineer with credits such as... the most recent few Iron Maiden albums + their entire back catalog of remasters (designing and building his own mastering rig I might add)! Needless to say, it's been a while since I was that star-struck, but I had a nice quick conversation with him and told him how much his work has inspired me before leaving him to it. I hope he enjoyed the encounter too. What a great day! The following morning Sam, Eamon and I got together sans Andy for a Better Than The Book vocal harmonies and quiet practice session to brush up some of the tunes. It was so nice to jam again in a more relaxed setting where we weren't paying for the clock and hopefully we'll get back to some full loud-boi band practicing with Andy soon! Onto some collaborative news now, first of all I'd like to congratulate Sif Savery and the Tales of Zale team for reaching a whopping 1 million views on YouTube for our Tales of Zale: Flickering Lights short film released back in 2022! Crazy to think that it's been seen that many times now and I'm so glad that people have been enjoying our biggest animation project so far! Hope to be working with the team again at some point and check out Sif's post on Patreon all about it. Woot woot and well done team! https://www.patreon.com/posts/108536096 Next, a newcomer of collaboration (sort of), and man oh man is this guy crazy, but I was asked to help out with some vocal editing and the final music mastering for a genre switching, A.I and stock photos collage editing madness monster of a rap track "Smack a Fish (Motha Sharka)" by eterniTRex! The music is all real musicians and vocalists (no A.I. used) while the video is a collage of A.I. generated and stock images, animated manually animutation-style for a wacky music video crazier than anything you can possibly imagine. It was a fun project to be a part of and the track / music video even got featured on the All Metal Everything music blog (with a fun write up too)! Check it out below: https://allmetaleverything.com/eternitrex-smack-a-fish-motha-sharka/ Finally for this month, although I've been falling behind a bit on my pre-scheduled recording, I'm still keeping up with the 2 videos a week YouTube stream for now! It's been a synthy and Better Than The Book live band time recently, with more to come soon! Check out the playlist below: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLWEmqIhrNPvQTBoOjZdKLgL4ecTvLz6sm And here's a list of the latest additions:
August has already started with another KORG EM-1 cover, an unattended synth session, and an 808 celebration and will continue with more synthy stuff and a guitar interlude to come! Hope you enjoy it! And that about wraps things up for this month (unless you're a $10 patron in which case you have a download of that unattended synth session to look forward to)! Hopefully by the next time I write another of these, the master audio for the new Better Than The Book album will be complete and I'll be onto drafting up some artwork! In the mean time, I've got some video recording to catch up on too and I'm sure there'll be other things coming to keep me busy. Until next time, I hope you have a great month to come, enjoy all the new videos, and thanks as always for supporting my work! New Better Than The Book album is almost there! Get excited! $1 Rewards: https://www.patreon.com/posts/108304290 $10 Rewards: https://www.patreon.com/posts/108304288 Reward Archives: https://www.patreon.com/posts/50344842 Find out more: https://www.patreon.com/NickStanding |
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