April 2024 Blog Post: ONE mix left to go for Better Than The Book's upcoming album, the Better Than The Book LIVE band is back in action after 4 years apart, Bass and Leslie Speaker maintainence, more guitar videos and beatmaking + more!

April 2024 Blog Post: ONE mix left to go for Better Than The Book's upcoming album, the Better Than The Book LIVE band is back in action after 4 years apart, Bass and Leslie Speaker maintainence, more guitar videos and beatmaking + more!

Hi everyone and hope you're having a great start to April! Another month arrives and another set of updates! Let's get to it:

Onto the updates for the month, it's just ONE MIX LEFT to go for this intial and most in-depth round of polishing the tracks before a final go-over for Better Than The Book's upcoming album! 13 tracks done and ready for final pre-mastering checks now, but this final one is gonna be a big challenge! Essentially 2 complete band set-ups including rap vocals, 2 organs, horns AND a full string and brass orchestra?! It's the biggest mix session of the album (maybe even of my entire non-post production engineering career?) and I'm pacing myself through it, but things are sounding boss so far! Aiming to get this done in the coming weeks and I can't wait to share it with you!

Meanwhile on the Better Than The Book news front, March 9th was a monumentous day as for the first time since January 2020(!!!), the whole of the Better Than The Book live band were back together in the same room to jam out the tunes! It's been a rough few years to say the least and I honestly wasn't sure how things'd be after all this time, but I can say with upmost confidence that despite the 4 years away, we are sounding better than ever! 10 tracks were prepped, but only 9 made it to playing due to a lost click-track, but we got a tonne a practice in and a load of videos recorded too including 5 tracks we've not played together before (which I think turned out to be the best ones of the lot)! 8 videos are all edited now, albeit with the lo-fi go pro mic audio quality, and are scheduled for release on YouTube throughout May, and I can't wait to show you all what 4 years apart has done for us! Next practice has been schduled for Mayday weekend (with 2 additional tracks since last time), and hopefully we may have some advancements in video/audio tech by then. We shall see! The plan is to get another practice in after that, then if all's good, start looking for gigs! It's been much too long in the making! Get excited!

Next on the news, on top of a busy BTTB month it's been a super busy one with equipment maintainence too! After many (mainly pandemic) years of putting it off, and my first bass (a modified Squier Jazz Bass with additional secret so-called "BEEF" switch) being in a sorry and slowly deterioating state electronically, I FINALLY got around to serving the electronics including a complete overhall on the control cavity with some oo-lah-lah CTS pots which sound and feel FIYYYYEEEEEN! The bass which was used a lot during my gigging and recording years with Lights Camera Attraction, and on BTTB's Two Years On album is sounding and feeling better than ever, and while it's still residing at my parents' place until Eva and I have a place of our own, it's a lovely instrument which I look forward to playing whenever I'm back! While I was there, I also ended up servicing my dad's electric guitar too, I think the first time it's ever had a full service! He seemed very pleased with the result and it's always a plesure hear him inspired to play. On top of that, after some hesitation, I finally got around to servicing and oiling my homemade Leslie rotary speaker which although was running great before, should hopefully continue to run great again now for another year+. Given the complexities of the task, I decided to video the whole process too for anyone else to find useful! I think that video's scheduled for release at the very start of May before the BTTB live band stuff. It's been a busy time video editing this month! That about wraps things up for overdue equiment maintainence now, but I'm sure there'll be more to do before long!

Finally for this update, there's another load of videos to share! Still keeping up with the 2-a-week packed playlist, and as I mentioned last time, it was a beat based detour this month, followed by a return to some metal guitar! Check out the playlist below:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLWEmqIhrNPvQTBoOjZdKLgL4ecTvLz6sm

And here's a list of the latest additions:

• Limp Bizkit inspired beat
• Lemon Tea Beat
• KORG Electribe EM-1 Instrumental Hip Hop beat (MF Doom Inspired)
• Nujabes inspired beatmaking on the Akai MPC 1000
• Nujabes inspired beatmaking on the Akai MPC 1000 with a Yoko Kanno Sample
• More chill Nujabes inspired beatmaking on the Akai MPC 1000
• Better Than The Book - Head Above Water (feat. Cyberdevil) Akai MPC 1000 Original Session from 2015!
• Numetal Grunge Tonality on Squier Vintage Modified Jaguar (Linkin Park, Limp Bizkit, Deftones, POD)
• Dissonant Metal Tonality Tapping on Vintage Modified Jaguar. Something between Wes Borland and DOOM?

Next month we're back to some organ as well as guitar, and also (would you believe) it'll have been a full year of doing these 2-a-week videos by then too?! Time sure does fly! I've got a special video planned to celebrate and hope you're enjoyed the ride so far!

That's it for this month (unless you're a $10 patron in which case you have a mix demo for Better Than The Book's "Don't Be Too Hard On Yourself" to look forward to)! It's looking to be another busy one ahead recording videos, finishing off this final BTTB mix (then getting onto the extra edits) + praticing for May's meet-up + I've got my taxes to look forward to: JOY! I'll be away at the end of the month too for some birthday merriment, and although it's not confirmed just yet, there's been talks of me taking on a bass guitar student too! Should be a fun challenge! Until the next update, I hope you have an amazing April to come and thanks as always for supporting me with this crazy musical adventure! Can't wait to show you the next chapter! Take care and get ready for the next wave!

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