It's been a busy and exciting week here at JabunAudio, mostly for Better Than The Book, but also in random musical endeavors! Kicked off the week with building a synth expander module, so expect to hear some lush Moog sequences in the next Jabun release, then lots of admin work in preparation for releasing the new Better Than The Book album "Two Years On"! Much to tell and show so let's get started:

​Firstly, while I was waiting for feedback on the new album, I decided to test out a new music distribution service with the "One Small Step" EP. The result of this is that the "One Small Step" EP has been approved for Worldwide distribution, not only on my personal store at Bandcamp as previously, but also on all major digital retailers such as iTunes, Amazon, Google Play, as well as online music streaming services such as Spotify, and commercial radio! I have to say though, while I do like the extra exposure the distribution service provides, I have no control over pricing on any digital retailer apart form my own Bandcamp store, and the music is only available as MP3s as opposed to the range of formats supported on Bandcamp (including the high CD quality download). I'd therefore still recommend my Bandcamp store as the best shop. You'll also get more information about the album there, like album credits and lyrics for the full BTTB experience. Distribution on the new shops / channels should start within the next few weeks.

Next, a big thanks to the album testing team for their amazing feedback on "Two Years On". I can safely say now that the album is completely finished! I've also taken the liberty this week to register all the metadata, write up all the album credits, get everything ready for distribution, and create the album art too. All that needs doing now is chopping the album up into individual tracks and putting it up on the internet! "Two Years On" has received an even bigger positive reaction than I'd had hoped and I'm really pleased with the way it's turned out! At this late stage, I can and will reveal a concrete release! The album will be out on Bandcamp by the time I get around to writing next weeks blog post, with other streams such as YouTube, Newgrounds, and Worldwide distribution coming very soon afterwards. Make  a note in your diary:

 Get ready! I'll be seeing you all next Saturday!

Other news for this week, I've just been commissioned to do some orchestral arrangements for a School in California, which stretches my client base all the way across the USA now! Gotta try and get some clients east of Russian and South of anywhere to expand further. I don't think I can go much further north than Norway... Anyway, it's set to be busy times in February as I've got A LOT of orchestrating to do. I've also received dialogue audio for the new Tales of Zale Episodes by Hikarian too, so I'll be getting started on mixing that soon. Exciting times!

That's it for this week! It's going to be a busy and exciting week next week. Lots of orchestration to do and sorting out the final things in preparation for the new album release. Hope you're all stoked, it's certainly been one heck of a ride! See you all next Saturday and as always, thanks for supporting JabunAudio. Take care!

Hope you all had a great 2 weeks! I know I surely did and as I type this, it's Winter NAMM 2016, the biggest Music Tech convention in the world, and I am turbo excited about all the news I've heard so far and will hear in the next few days! Hopefully one day I'll be able to make it out there, but for now my attendance is purely on social media!  Hope you're ready because there's a lot of cool news this week! Lets get started!

Firstly, and I would've put this in a post last week if I had time, but   A P O T H E O S I S ,  a game I'm doing the soundtrack for, has finally released a public demo for everyone to play and it is AWESOME!!! Still a couple of little bugs, but I gotta tell you this game is soo cool (and frightfully addictive!). I shan't spoil anything but please click the picture below to go to the download site. You will not regret it (or you might if you get addicted....). Good Luck everyone, it's pretty difficult!

Next on this week's news I have the pleasure of celebrating 7 MILLION views for The Dinosaur Alphabet on YouTube, which makes it over 10 MILLION views in total for my work with Fun Station 4 Kids! Thanks soo much to everyone for their support on this and we hope to make another animation for you soon! I've seen screenshots and character designs, but I'll keep my mouth shut for now! Feel free to check out more Fun Station 4 Kids animations on the YouTube Channel HERE.

Next and BIG on the news, the audio for the new Better Than The Book Album - "Two Years On" is finished! Well... it's finished to my ears, but this weekend I'll be sending it to my specially selected set of beta testers to review and see what they think (It's uploading as I type this!). All that's left to do is chop the album up into individual tracks and prepare it for distribution! In the mean time while I wait for their responses, I best get started on sorting the metadata, album credits (and there's a lot of them) and of course album art! Front cover only for the moment and we'll see later if I'm able to do a physical release :3 Exciting times! I'm aiming for release some time in February so stay tuned for more info, and get pumped!

Finally in the audio news this week, I was buzzed by the awesome Sif Perlt Savery about doing the audio mixing for Tales of Zale Episode 2 which is apparently well on its way animation-wise, along with a few mini-sodes! I'm very excited to be back to working on this project after just over a year, and will be starting on it sometime in February! Exciting times indeed! Looks like things are gonna be very busy next month! 

That's it for this week! Not sure what next week has in store, though I'll be taking a break from the mixer for a little bit to sort out other things while I wait for reviews on the album audio! Can't wait to show it to you all! Thanks as always for reading, posting comments and supporting JabunAudio and have a great week (I'm sure I will)! Take care!

Happy New Year! Hope everyone had a great holiday and some nice rest. Lots of time spent with family these past few weeks, and when it finally hit 2016, I was fully refreshed and pumped for a super productive week working on Better Than The Book! Lots to tell about lots of things so lets get this first post of 2016 started!

​Firstly, over the holidays, the "3 Little Raptors" by Fun Station 4 Kids surpassed 3 MILLION views on YouTube, an amazing milestone! Looking at the other videos by FS4Ks "The Dinosaur Alphabet" should be hitting 7 Million very soon too! I'm already looking forward to working on another animation with FS4Ks soon! If you like what you see, please support the creators by sharing the YouTube links and subscribing or even leaving a comment. It's always nice to hear from our fans :D

Next on the agenda are some more BTTB updates! The holiday really got my pumped for working on BTTB again and after receiving the final pieces of audio for these collaborative tracks with Bob Axell (Cyberdevil), I've just about finished another 2 mixes for the album! Only thing left to do on them is await Bob's feedback! That marks 11/12 mixes for the album finished, and the only track left to do is the atmospheric album intro! Exciting times certainly! Since I was unable to make the release target of the end of 2015, my new release target will be in February, just to give some time for feedback by the beta team and get all the non-audio admin stuff sorted too (album art / credits + track registration, etc...). I can't wait to release it!

Next, A P O T H E O S I S, an in-development indie game I've been working on the soundtrack for is back on track and has made a twitter account posting all sorts of cool information including screenshots and video footage! You can follow them at @apotheosisgame for all the latest news on its development. I've recently been contacted by the game's creator to start work on the last 3 tracks for the game too which will likely be one of my first projects after the new BTTB album is finished. Certainly exciting times! I'm looking forward to playing the latest beta version and getting composing again soon! 

In other news, the creative media people reading might be aware that Pond5 recently changed its terms of service introducing a more in-depth member profile in order to combat piracy and other intellectual property theft in their online libraries. Just to let you know, the JabunSamples library on Pond5 has been verified and all sound effects previously available are still available as usual. Thanks to the Pond5 service team for their help and you can find a link to the library along with the links at the top of the JabunAudio website.

Lastly, I just wanted to share and say a huge thanks to Vlad from World Beyond and my girlfriend Eva who helped sort out one of the wonderful creative presents I received this Christmas. As some of you may know, for my 25th Birthday in April, Eva contacted a whole bunch of my online friends and creative partners to draw pictures of me in their own art styles, but somehow, Vlad managed to slip the net back then. Not this time though, and I feel truly blessed to have the great and amazingly talented friends both at home and around the world that I do. Thanks soo much Vlad and Merry belated Christmas to you. I was blown away when I saw this:

This is probably the closest you'd get to a photo of me unless you go snooping on the internet!

Just to round off this first post of the Year, as with most people I have some targets I'd like to make and I wanted to share them! Here's some JabunAudio things I'd like to achieve in the coming 12 months:
          1) Release this new BTTB Album (Maybe make more BTTB, but I'll definitely take a little break)
          2) Do some Jabun Music (Electronic/orchestral stuff) Preferably an EP/Abum
          3) Invest in some new studio equipment and/or instruments, preferably something with a keyboard (I've stuff in mind)
          4) Make some new connections and help make more animations         
          5) Keep doing what I do, and keep getting better at it!

Have you any creative targets for the new year? Feel free to post them below, I'd love to hear them!

That's about it for this week! No update next weekend as I'm away but my target for the next update is to have the mixes for the BTTB album fully done and ready to be sent out for the beta testing team! Just one more to go, it should be doable. Until then, hope you have a great 2016, and thanks as always for supporting JabunAudio and its partners! Take care everyone!