Hello everyone and hope you've had a great week whatever you've been up to! Over here it's been busy and intense working on the new Better Than The Book album, and for the first time in about half a year, there's unfortunately no track to share with you this week (sad times I know). I hope that the new BTTB album makes up for it. Anyways, just a few little things to report this week, so let's start with some Better Than The Book updates.

So as of Wednesday, I'm super happy to announce that all the rhythm guitars (both electric and acoustic) for the new album have been recorded, comped, sorted and finished, which puts the album production back on track for recording bass at the beginning of April! I've still yet to service and restring my Sterling, but it shouldn't take long as it was serviced fairly recently and just needs some new Ernie Balls (which I already have to hand). I aim to start recording after Easter. Just to keep you in the loop with what'll be happening next, after bass it'll either be time for some lead/solo guitars, or vocals, I haven't decided quite yet, then it'll be keys and horns and any other extra bits as necessary, then the REAL work (mixing etc..). Hope you're as excited for the new album as me, and in case you can't wait to hear something, here's a little clip of me recording acoustic for the 2nd song on the album "Artificial Ignorance"! I hope you enjoy it!

Hehe, I guess there was a little bit of media to share after all!

That's about it for the news this week, but there's a couple of other little other things to say. Firstly, JabunAudio will be closed for the Easter Holiday Period (Friday to Monday as usual) and will be back in action on Tuesday April 3rd. I'll not be looking at any messages while I'm away so if you have any requests, I'll get back to you when I return. Next and lastly this week, although there was no YouTube video released on Wednesday, there WILL be a 2nd teaser for the new BTTB album released on Easter Sunday at 10am DST so be sure to check that out it you can't wait to here more. In case you missed the last one, here's the 1st teaser, an instrumental demo of the 4th song on the album "Meteor Shower". I hope you enjoy it.

OK, OK, so I guess there WAS really a track to share, but no NEW FULL tracks! Anyways, that's all for this week (for real this time!). I hope you all have a great Easter and rest of the week whatever you get up to and see you all again next Thursday for some more updates, that Easter special sneak peek, and more stuff I'm sure! Thanks as always for supporting JabunAudio and my various projects and take care!

Hello everyone and I hope you've all had a good week since the last post. Over here, my week has mainly been filled with recording rhythm guitars for the new Better Than The Book album (more on that in a second) and doing the final checks and preparations for the Final Boss Theme for A P O T H E O S I S  which is now finished and ready to share with you below! There's not a whole lot else to share this week so let's start with that new track!

So first of all, after many days of composition, editing, mixing, and all that jazz, I'm super happy to present to you the demo for the Phase 2 music of the Final Boss Theme for the A P O T H E O S I S game! By now the primordial god is getting pretty angry at your attempts to defeat him, and the fabric of existence is crumbling around you, and this cinematic/metal mash-up/remix of the Phase 1 boss theme will accompany the final leg of the fight as you battle to achieve apotheosis! I hope you enjoy it, and I'm certainly looking forward to playing the next demo when it comes out! Feel free to play the current demo here and without further wait, here's The Final Boss Theme [Phase 2]:

And with that track done, that actually concludes this round of my A P O T H E O S I S work for the time being! I think there'll be one more track to come (credits music), then it'll just be the final checks, mastering and stuff before the game is finished and the soundtrack released! Exciting times, but I imagine it'll be a little while before I'll be composing for this again. Looking forward to it when the time comes though! This also concludes the weekly new tracks for a while (sad times I know), but I hoped you enjoyed all the new music these past few months, and with the upcoming Better Than The Book album currently in the works, it shouldn't be too long until there's new music to be shared again!

And on the topic of the new BTTB album, next and lastly this week, I have some updates on that for you all. As of today (Wednesday as I write this), 5/10 tracks of Rhythm guitars have been recorded and compiled ready for the next step! The end of last week had a number of mishaps and delays due to multiple power-cuts and some bad planning on my end (forgetting to make notes in the demo sessions...), so I'm a little behind schedule, but I hope to be all caught up by the end of the month ready to start recording bass (and possible acoustic guitars) in April! I'll keep you informed with how that's all going and feel free to follow Better Than The Book on Twitter for daily updates on the production progress! 

And that about wraps things up for this week. Kind of a short post compared to the last few, but such is the way. This upcoming week is sure to be filled with BTTB rhythm guitars for me, so I'll be busy with that and probably not much else until the end of the month I recon (but we shall see). Another little bit of exciting news with regards future music though, I finally invested in an extra boom attachment for my mic stand, so now I should be able to appropriately and simultaneously mic up my acoustic guitar and vocals (amongst other things) to do some proper high quality LIVE acoustic covers (In theory). It only arrived while I was typing this, and I still need to give it a proper test, but I'm excited at the new prospects! Anyways, I hope you enjoy the new music and as always, thanks for supporting JabunAudio and my various musical projects! I hope you have a great week until the next blog post and have fun whatever you're up to in the next 7 days. Take care!

Hello everyone and what an exciting week it's been over here at JabunAudio! After many months of writing and preparing I've finally started recording the 3rd Better Than The Book album, and I am so super hyped up with ska-punk energy at the moment, I feel I could explode! More on that in a second. Other than that, I've actually been away for a great deal of this week celebrating mother's day with my family and getting some fresh air and a little too much amazing food. Seeing my brother again too, I can finally share the crazy cool present he got me from Japan (and it sounds AWESOME! *Warning: serious fanboying ahead*). In all honesty it's been a jam packed an exciting week and with that there is TONNES to share so let's start with some new music as usual: the latest track for the A P O T H E O S I S  game!

So first of all this week, I'm super excited to share with you the latest piece for the A P O T H E O S I S  game: the first part of the final boss theme! I must say that this game has been a blast to compose for, but this final boss theme I'm especially proud of. The final boss fight is split into 2 main stages and the following track is to accompany the intro and phase 1 of the battle. The music for phase 2 is very nearly done, but I'm just waiting on some final checks (and possibly edits) before it'll be finished, so hopefully it should be out in the next blog post, but if not, I'm sure it'll be in the following one. Anyways, I hope you enjoy this mash-up of genres for the climax of the game and if you like what you hear, go play the demo for the full experience! Happy listening! (More like tense/suspense listening though...)

Next this week, as stated in the intro to this blog post, recording for the new Better Than The Book album has finally started, and as of right now, 3/10 tracks have their rhythm guitars sorted (which is the first stage of the recording process I've chosen). This album I'm trying a slightly different approach to the guitars using a wider variety/combination of my hardware and virtual amps/effects than ever before in my music, so it should be an interesting new soundscape for me, and I'm looking forward to having fun with it. Of course before any of the guitars could be recorded, they all needed a thorough service and restring which was good fun, but very time consuming (especially the double-neck). All worth it though and with that done, here are the electric guitars which will be taking the stage for this album!  

The last guitar there (The Pacifica II) I actually won't be recording at all with for this album, but its already been captured in the original guitar parts for GG [Good Game] for which there is a vocal version on the new album. It's gonna be strange not having that guitar with me (It's at my parent's house 200 miles away), as it was the sole guitar on the One Small Step EP (apart from on Woof Woof, Nag Nag), and my main guitar on Two Years On. Nevertheless, I think the other 3 are going to make for a lovely sonic soundscape for this next collection of 10 songs. Of course I still have my bass to service before recording too and there's the acoustic guitar to record, but I imagine that'll be in a few weeks! I'll keep you all updated with how progress goes!
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Third on this list of things this week, brace yourself for some intense fanboying as I struggle to contain my excitement for the amazing gift that my bro brought back for me from Japan: The Yui Hirasawa signature model VOX Amplug (1st gen)! A little background: The Vox Amplug series are a selection of compact headphone amps for practicing/recording and there are various models depending on what kind of music you play or tone you want (clean, classic rock, metal, acoustic sim, bass, etc...). This one was a special limited edition (1 of 3000) Japanese model to emulate the guitar rig/tone of the fictional lead guitarist Yui Hirasawa of the lighthearted Pop-Punk/J-Rock band Houkago Tea Time (HTT) from the anime K-ON, both of which I'm a huge fan of (in fact, my first bass I got was the same as the bassist from that band). Long story short, it sounds INCREDIBLE: like putting a Shure SM58 in front of a Marshall JCM stack (with adjustable, gain (from barely breaking up to Zakk Wylde levels of gain), tone and volume), with the optional extra of the most J-Rock echo preset I think I've ever heard! I've known that these existed for years, but after seeing the prices on eBay, thought I'd never get to see one let alone play one. Eamon however stumbled upon this in a second hand shop as cheap as chips and the rest is history! Thanks so much bro! I have no need for sleep now, as I can practice with amazing tone even when I can't crank my Marshall! (Oh, and it's already on the new Better Than The Book album). I'd like to do a video about it at some point as it's an intensely rare item and there aren't many demos of it on YouTube (not in English certainly), but we shall see! 

And I think that's my public fanboying quota used up for the rest of the year!

Next this week, I just wanted to share a post that my good friend and long term collaborator World Beyond made about one of our early collaborations. It's nice to look back at how far we've come and I hope you enjoy reading the story about how the track came to be:

Read: "Everything We Stand For by World Beyond feat. Nicholas Standing | Cinematic Orchestral Music from Winter Legend EP"

​Finally this week, it is with great pleasure that we can celebrate reaching 1 million views on YouTube for "3 Little Raptors and the Beanstalk", one of last year's Fun Station 4 Kids animations I did the mixing for. It's certainly been tough on YouTube over the past year, but I'm super happy to be able to celebrate this milestone. Well done to everyone involved and I look forward to working on the next animation when the time comes. 

And that about wraps things up for this week. Phew that was a long post! What's up for next week? Well I'm definitely going to be continuing with some Better Than The Book rhythm guitars and hopefully I'll be able to finish off and share the Final Boss (Phase 2) music for A P O T H E O S I S  (but we'll have to see). I can very much see it being another busy week ahead, but it's the good kind of busy so I'm looking forward to it. Until the next blog post, I hope you have a great week and thanks as always for reading and supporting JabunAudio and my various projects. Take care!

Hello everyone! Hope you've had a great week and as usual it's been a busy time here at JabunAudio! The past 7 days for me have been spent working hard on the A P O T H E O S I S  soundtrack yet again (more on that in a moment), and doing some hard techno mastering work for a returning client (always fun to have some variety). There's not a whole lot to say in this blog post, but as usual there's a cover song and some small updates to share, so let's get straight to it!

Firstly on the news this time, after 8 long weeks, we've come to the final track of the acoustic cover songs I recorded as Christmas presents for my parents and girlfriend Eva, and to finish things off, here's an acoustic/rap version of a pop-punk favourite of mine, "The Juggernauts" by Zebrahead! Fun fact: the first gig I went to see with Eva was Reel Big Fish supported by Less Than Jake and Zebrahead at the Concorde 2 in Brighton! What a fantastic night! Anyways without further wait here's "The Juggernauts". Happy listening and I hope you enjoy it!

And with that, I conclude the latest batch of cover songs! To think I've been releasing a cover song here now for 18 consecutive weeks (a new record for me), and sadly, that's the last cover I have to share at the moment. Don't fret though as if everything goes to plan, the next 2 weeks will be filled with the latest hard hitting tracks from the A P O T H E O S I S soundtrack, so there's more music to be shared yet! If you want to revisit any of the past cover songs, feel free to explore the Covers Webpage, here on the JabunAudio site (or on YouTube), which as of yesterday has a new section added for the Unwrap With Caution EP. Hope you enjoy them, happy listening and I look forward to sharing more music with you all soon!

Finally this week, just a few little updates on various projects. First of all, as of yesterday, I have sent off the first mastered demo for the final track in the latest batch for the A P O T H E O S I S game soundtrack and if all is well, that'll be the latest batch finished and ready to share with you, and I REALLY can't wait to share them! In terms of news for the upcoming Better Than The Book album, I've been busy practicing for the imminent recording sessions, and as I write this, 1/3 of my guitars has been serviced ready for the task at hand. If all goes to plan, I should have started recording by this time next week! Exciting times, and feel free to follow Better Than The Book on Twitter for the latest updates on the project as well as daily tweets!

And that about wraps things up for this week! At the moment I'm just waiting for some feedback so I can finish off my current batch of A P O T H E O S I S work, but other than that and some end of project admin work (backing up files etc...) it looks like next week will be back on track for the Better Than The Book album! I'll be servicing guitars as soon as this post it out, and hope to be all set up and ready for recording by Monday at the latest! Exciting times. Anyways, I hope you have a great week whatever you're up to, and be sure to stop by next week for (hopefully) some A P O T H E O S I S music! As always thanks for supporting JabunAudio and all my projects and take care until next time. Have fun!

Hello all! It's been a jam packed week these last 7 days and while my time has been mostly spent working on the A P O T H E O S I S  soundtrack (more on that later), there is much to share in terms of both news and new music! It's the first of March too which means it's time to check in on some goals, and speaking of which, this week's been a bit of a break from the new Better Than The Book album as I'm trying to finish up some of the other projects I've been working on before I get back to it. There's a lot to say this week so let's start off with the next acoustic cover song to share.

First on the news this blog post, after last week's conclusion of the cover songs I recorded for Christmas for my parents, we move onto our next set of cover songs, a pair of acoustic rap tracks I recorded for my girlfriend Eva for Christmas! I'm not going to claim at all to be a fantastic rapper or anything so don't expect much, but I'm very happy with the way they turned out. First in the series is a mash-up version of Linkin Park's "Papercut/PPR-KUT", and next week we conclude this acoustic covers series with Zebrahead's "The Juggernauts". I hope you enjoy the tracks and without further wait, here's "Papercut/PPR-KUT"!

Speaking of waiting, after many delays, mishaps, and feeling like the whole universe was against us getting this finished and out, I'm super happy to finally be able to present to you my first collaboration with Indian musical chameleon Subu Nomo, a Black Sabbath esq old-school metal track: "Saboteur"! Despite all the production problems, this track was really fun to make and really brought me back to my early teen years of playing Black Sabbath with my mates in a band after school. I think the wait was definitely worth it! If you like it, go show Subu your support by visiting his YouTube Channel and pick up a free download of "Saboteur" on SoundCloud or Newgrounds. I'm sure this'll be just the first of many collaborations to come! Credits are as follows, and here's "Saboteur":

               Written and recorded by Subu Nomo & Nick Standing 
               Vocals, Bass, Guitars, Guitar Solo #2: Nick Standing
               Lyrics, Additional Backing Vocals, Guitars, Guitar Solo #1: Subu Nomo
               Mixed by Subu Nomo 
               Mastered by Nick Standing

Next this week, some updates on the A P O T H E O S I S  soundtrack! ​As I'm sure you're well aware by now, over the past month I've been working hard on the climax of the game, the final boss fight! The fight itself is split into 2 sections, an intro cutscene, phase 1 of the fight and phase 2, and as of this week, my music for the intro and phase 1 is complete, while phase 2 is well on the way, just needing a couple more elements added, some live electric guitars recorded and of course some good mixing and mastering. Since the intro and phase 1 are finished now I aim to upload a demo for those for your listening pleasure on March 14th, following the current series of acoustic cover songs, with phase 2 hopefully going up the following week on March 21st. We'll see how it goes and I'll keep you updated on how things are going, but hope you're looking forward to the most intense addition to the soundtrack yet! I can't wait to share it!

Next this week, just a little update. Having been making music for a fairly long time now, my SoundCloud page is starting to reach its upload limit (again), and so my oldest track on there "The Theme of Isabelle Samson" which I recorded and engineered for my brother DR Eamon Standing (before I even released Better Than The Book's One Small Step EP in 2012), has been moved to his own SoundCloud page, where you can find a small collection of other tracks. It's been a while since I worked with him and I very much hope we can work together again soon as he's got a whole library of amazing song which need to be recorded! Check out his latest demo here, go show him some love, and in the spirit of the hashtag that is #ThrowbackThursday, here's "The Theme of Isabelle Samson"!

Finally this week, another month has gone by (unsettlingly fast..) and we're at the start of March, so let's look back and reflect on what goals I set at the beginning of February:
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1) Have all the drums for the new BTTB album drafted out ready for recording.
2) Service all the guitars ready to start recording by the end of February.
3) Finish the A P O T H E O S I S  Final Boss Theme.

Soo... looking back at it, it's been a sort of successful month, but it could be better... Task 1) was complete, but delays in 3) (which is very much getting there), mean that I've yet to start on 2). On the bright side though, I managed to fulfill some more personal goals this month as well as release the long awaited "Saboteur", so while I didn't make all the targets I'd hoped, I wouldn't by any means think of this month as a failure, if anything, I'm just a week or 2 behind schedule. With that, let's set some new goals for March:

1) Service all the guitars ready to start recording.
2) Finish the A P O T H E O S I S  Final Boss Theme.
3) Record all the main rhythm electric guitar parts for the new BTTB album.

I think that's reasonable at the moment, though I may add stuff to the list later, and for sure I have some more personal goals to look into soon too. In any case, let's work through this together and feel free to share your own goals for the month below if you've got any in mind. I'll keep you updated on mine!

And that about wraps things up for this week! This coming week's looking to be more work on A P O T H E O S I S  for me and I'm hoping to get the track to a state where it's just mixing and mastering left to do by this time next week (if it's not already complete). Still got to service my guitars too, but I'll wait to do that until after all the recording is finished for A P O T H E O S I S! Looking forward to sharing those new tracks and we'll see where the wind (and snow) takes me in the next 7 days. Thanks as always for supporting JabunAudio and all my projects and hope you have a great week until next time. Take care and have fun!