A Super Exciting Week + Lots of Videos! New Animation: "Tales of Zale -Minisode 2", Livestreaming with Hikarian Animations, Meeting lots of cool people at Brighton Music Conference 2016, Better Than The Book receives Front Page on Newgrounds, + more!

What an eventful week! Lots of new experiences, meeting amazing people and videos to share! I've no idea how to introduce it all, so lets get right to it!

To start with, the beginning of the week was busy finishing off the final elements of Hikarian Animation's 2nd animation for "Tales of Zale Month", a project where we're releasing an animation EVERY WEEK (most of which I'm heavily involved in)! This week marks my first animation with Hikarian since "Tales of Zale - Episode 1" over a year ago, and we're very pleased to present you on the lead-up to Episode 2: "Tales of Zale - Minisode 2"! As usual, I'm doing the audio engineering and mixing and I love it! A big thanks to sound designer Andy Thomson who I've been (and will continue to be) working closely with throughout Tales of Zale month, as well as guest animator Anita Tang, composer Mathew Pablo, character voices Lennel Ray and Allegra Scott, and of course our director and everything-else-person Hikarian herself, Sif Perlt Savery. 2 weeks down and 2 left to go: That's 2 more animations for me to mix before the end of the month. It's certainly going to be busy and exciting and I hope you enjoy the ride and the animations too! Without further delay, here is "Tales of Zale - Minisode 2"!​
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Following on with the Tales of Zale theme, I was also invited to take part in a YouTube Livestream with some of the Tales of Zale crew on Friday evening, which was a whole lot of fun! It was actually my first time involved with a Livestream and one heck of  an experience! Crazy to think too, I've been involved with Tales of Zale for well over a year, but I hadn't even met half the people who've worked on it. As the sound mixer too, I generally only get to communicate with the director and the sound designer, and this is mostly through text, so it was amazing to finally hear everyone's voices and chat with some of the crew about what we do as well as interact with the fans. The livestream featured Sif, Victor, Nate and myself, talking about what we do, answering fan questions, talking about icecream flavours, trying to invite President Obama to join us, Batman and more (It's best just to watch and see... I really can't begin to explain that!). Feel free to check out the stream below and even join some more of the crew for the next one! Hikarian is hosting a live stream every Friday in April at 7pm DST on her YouTube Channel, and it's a great place to meet the crew, ask questions and generally have a fun time! I'll not be there next week (22nd) but I aim to make it for the last Tales of Zale Month Livestream on the 29th!

Also, Victor (AKA TheSilleGuy) Drew this great picture to represent our time that evening! For a full explanation of what's going on, you'll have to check out the livestream above, but if it's not clear, I am the melting cookie dough flavoured ice cream second from the right! Check out more of Victor's work on his YouTube Channel and Twitter. Looking forward to seeing you again Victor!

Next on the interesting things that happened this week, after Thursday's animation release, I decided to take some time out to attend Brighton Music Conference 2016 and it was GLORIOUS! It was my first time at this specific conference and on top of the usual playing on and listening to lots of cool new gear (it's focused on electronic music producers), I met a ton of cool people (some old and some new)! First was Luke from Korg who I've met before a few years back when he came to demonstrate some new synthesizers at my local music shop GAK (out of the 4 which were demonstrated that day, one of which I now own, and 2 others of which my brother now owns!), and had a talk with on Korg's latest gear as well as more music tech geekery! Next was Gerald, product specialist for an amazing piece of kit called the ROLI Seaboard, which is kind of like playing a keyboard crossed with a squid?! Feel free to look up what I mean (it's amazingly strange, and strangely amazing!), but boy could this guy play! The amount of expression and realism he could convey with this kit especially with orchestral sounds (fading to choirs!) was astonishing and beautiful! Definitely something I'll have to keep an eye on! On top of more awesome people from Moog (who I discussed modifications with) and Yamaha (more on that later), I also bumped into Markus Fuller, a popular YouTuber who dismantles and explains musical equipment in his videos who I'm a big fan of and have been watching for a long time! Terrific and friendly guy and I ended up chatting and hanging out with him and another musical YouTuber, Organaut (great organ/keyboard player), and going to Yamaha's product launch for their new Flagship Synthesizer: The Montage (which Markus already had on order to dismantle in a new video!). The Launch performance also included Matt Johnson of Jamiroquai, who shredded the keys outstandingly and was awesome to chat to afterwards too! The final big presentation I stayed for was on "The Rise of Synthesizers" by Doctor Mix which was great fun, starting with an amazing Theremin Solo (one of the first electronic synthesizers, and this one was signed by Bob Moog too!) accompanied by some modern Yamaha Synths, then went onto the basics of Analogue and Digital synthesis which was very interesting (and the jams were great!). I had a great conversation with one of the Doctor Mix presenters afterwards which was awesome, though unfortunately I didn't get to speak to Claudio himself. All in all a fantastic Day out, though one major lesson learned: I really need to remember next time to bring some business cards! If you're interested in more of the day's goings-on, Markus Fuller has already put up a video of his highlights of the day and if you look carefully, you'll be able to spot me chatting with him before the Yamaha Presentation at 3:53 (Grey jumper)! It was great meeting you Markus!
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Boy this is becoming a long post, but we're not quite done yet! This week, Better Than The Book made a nice mark on Newgrounds as "Hearts Racing" was featured on the front page! This isn't the first time I've made it onto Newground's front page, but it is a first for Better Than The Book which is very nice :D Many thanks Newgrounds and I'm really happy you like the music!

Lastly, as usual we have another track from "Two Years On", and another track from the Charlotte's Web orchestral commissions streaming too. This week it's "Wireless Networks Available" on the BTTB YouTube Channel, and "Charlotte's Farewell" over the HurpADervish Channel. Hope you enjoy them and feel free to leave comments and subscribe for more videos! More to come next week!
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I think that's about all I can report this week, but it certainly was a good one! Next week I'll be working hard again on the next 2 Tales of Zale Animations so stay tuned for another one coming out on Thursday! Apart from that I'm not sure what's going on, but I'm sure I'll be busy enough. Until then, I hope you all have great weeks and thanks for taking the time to read, watch and support JabunAudio. Take care and see you next time!