Hi everyone and hope you're having a great week since the last post! It's been an incredibly busy and stressful one over here (and I don't say that lightly) with guitar service work and preparations to start recording guitars for the next Better Than The Book album, but thankfully everything's all sorted and just about ready now! As usual before starting any big recording project I took the time to service my guitars, give them a restring as needed and check the intonation etc... For my Jaguar and Modded Pacifica, it was a routine job, but for my homemade double-neck guitar, after putting it off for years, I decided to finally take the plunge and service the electronic controls as well, aaaand it was a bit of a disaster... From broken parts to ordering news ones, to some of those being broken, to refunds and replacements and the replacements being just as broken, eventually the problem was solved by simply drowning the old original pots (which I was convinced were beyond saving) in cleaning solution, and basically putting all the original parts back in (with a fresh set of capacitors and resistors), and re-soldering the whole guitar control cavity probably 3 times before it was done... Having said that, after an ordeal of a service job, it's sounding better than ever and I will not be making the same mistake again trying to fix it or replace parts unless COMPLETELY necessary. A whole load of wasted time, a bit of wasted money (though I have to commend and thank the shop for the refund and being so understanding with the faulty parts), BUT I'm finally ready to start recording! Phew... let's pray that never happens again...

A brief history of my double-neck "Satin-X" for those of you interested, I built this guitar with my dad and brother (and tools lent by other family members and friends) when I was 15, half a life ago. It's been through a whole load of crazy adventures and repairs over the years (on top of the one above) with the most significant being when the 12-string neck's truss rod (the metal bar which counteracts the tension of the strings) snapped, me cracking the original 6 string bridge whammy block, me snapping a whammy bar and cracking another one if I recall correctly, and replacing the 6 string bridge completely as well as the 6 string tuning heads (the "new" bridge is AMAZING!). The Satin-X is my pride and joy and has been featured on most of my guitar heavy records. I wish it the best health for the years to come, and while this probably won't be the last time I need to repair it, I can always hope!

Back to recording news, my GF Eva gave me a wonderful early birthday present last week which was an IR loader box from recently founded tech company Sonicake! For those of you who don't know, IRs or Impulse Responses are a relatively new technology whereby you send a frequency sweep through a piece of equipment to map out its response then use a "deconvolver" to compare the input and output and generate a snapshot of the effect of the equipment you scanned. This only works for non-dynamic effects, but is ideal for accurately emulating speaker and mic set-ups and reverbs for instance! The technology has been around for a while in software, but this is the first time I'd seen it in hardware for the entry level market, and it does and amazing job! Marketed as a guitar cabinet IR loader (for recreating the sound of guitar speakers), the Sonicake IR box featured 11 slots which come pre-loaded with a nice selection of classic speakers, but in case you want to customise, you can load in your own speaker IRs via USB! I generally use cab sims in IK Multimedia's AmpliTube when recording but it's quite heavy on computer resources so I loaded IR snapshots my favorite AmpliTube cab settings into the IR box instead so I don't need to use the computer which will save me a load of time and computer resources! I can even take the IR box to a gig and D.I into the PA instead of micing a cab if I need to, and know that every place and time I'll be able to play with the same sound AND the sound which was used on the BTTB records (or close to it)! Sounds amazing and I can't wait to start recording with it!

Finally for this week some quick and cool news to share with you today as Jabun's "Turing Machine" (which was released a week ago on Monday) and the upcoming "Generation Supernova" album were featured in The Tank Tribune No. 36 on Newgrounds.com! Thanks so much for featuring the music and sharing the news fellow Newgrounds peeps and check out the issue below for a whole bunch of Newgrounds related news! Have you heard Turing Machine yet?

https://thetanktribune.newgrounds.com/news/post/1152194

Only a few weeks to go until Generation Supernova releases to the world! 

And that about wraps things up for this post! I'm hoping to start recording guitars for Better Than The Book very shortly, and next week will be the first post of the month, so I'm sure there'll be Bandcamp Friday news as well as the usual setting and reflecting on goals to do. Until then, I hope you have a great week, I hope my week's a bit more relaxed than the last one, and thanks as always for supporting JabunAudio and my various projects however you can! Take care, all the best and see you again on April Fools Day!

Hi everyone and hope you're having a great week so far! It's been an incredible one here at JabunAudio with both Jabun AND Better Than The Book working hard on new material at various stages! Drums for Better Than The Book's upcoming 3rd album are sorted (until it's time for mixing), and I've been getting deep into guitar recording experiments preparing the finest tones before I hit the red button, as well as learning about "cabinet impulse responses" which has been very interesting! Initially I was hoping to bi-amp my Orange and Marshall amps for some enhanced tones, but after much tweaking, turns out they sound VERY similar in context so I'll likely not bother, and stick with one or the other depending on the specific tracks. A package of components also just arrived in the post for some huge and LONG overdue guitar servicing jobs before I start recording too, so I'm excited to get on with those when I can (more on that when it's all done and fingers crossed everything goes smoothly)! Onto Jabun and the main news for this week, as you can tell by the title of this post, it's been a big week for Jabun's upcoming 3rd album, so let's get straight to it!

After last week’s big announcement of Jabun’s brand new 3rd album “Generation Supernova”, I’m super excited to share with you today the album’s pre-release single “Turing Machine” as pre-orders open on Bandcamp! Check it out below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YyXiy8MPAlk

A special thanks to everyone who stopped by for the premier and made for an exciting Monday evening too. Hope you all enjoyed yourselves!

Pre-order Jabun’s Generation Supernova album and pick up the pre-release single “Turing Machine” on Bandcamp:

https://jabun.bandcamp.com/album/generation-supernova

Generation Supernova is a 37+ minute collection of 4 tracks exploring generative music methods in the studio. Each track utilises a carefully designed system set up to generate a never-repeating and ever evolving soundscape which was conducted and guided to build an emotional and developing journey from the first note to the last.

The pre-release single “Turing Machine” utilises 4 evolving sequences generated using an initial input fed into a deck of cards and a coin flip acting as a very basic modular synth style Turing Machine. You can see the original handwritten manuscript including the sequences, generation rules, and more in this album’s bonus materials on Bandcamp and Patreon!

Generation Supernova was a fun and rewarding exploration into generative music methods, with each piece very much the result of the unexpected fruits of conducted chaotic experiments in the studio, much like the 15-4-20 album. Whether you sit down to listen intently, have it on in the background while doing something else, or simply immerse yourself in the sounds, I hope you enjoy these semi-ambient, generative experimental soundscapes, from the strange early months of 2020.

Now that pre-orders are open, you can also check out the full tracklist, album credits, special thanks and descriptions on the Jabun – Generation Supernova Bandcamp page! Read more below and I hope you have fun exploring:

https://jabun.bandcamp.com/album/generation-supernova

Generation Supernova will be released to the public on April 15th at 8pm BST, but of course my supporters on Patreon have lots of rewards to grab today in celebration of this new album and single launch!

For the $1 patrons, you’ve got the album cover art and an mp3 download of the pre-release single “Turing Machine” today + you’ll of course be getting the full mp3 album and all the additional artwork and bonus materials when they’re released on April 15th as well! Only a month more to wait!

$1 rewards: https://www.patreon.com/posts/46779666/

For the $5 & $10 patrons, in case you missed it last week, you’ve already been given early access to the full album download package! All 4 tracks (Mp3 & WAVs) and all artwork including a high resolution scan of the original handwritten Turing Machine Generation Manuscript! For the $10 patrons, you’ll also be getting an exclusive unreleased Jabun demo from the writing sessions of 2019/2020! Check out the rewards below:

$5 rewards: https://www.patreon.com/posts/46779658/
$10 rewards: https://www.patreon.com/posts/46779661/

If any of that sounds good to you, then become a patron today for as little as $1 a month and remember that you’ll be also getting access to all past rewards for your tier including the full Better Than The Book and Jabun discographies, many Patreon exclusive bonus tracks and more! I hope to see you there!

Become a patron: https://www.patreon.com/NickStanding
Explore past rewards: https://www.patreon.com/posts/44575319

That's it for today's post! Next week's looking to be heavy with preparing for recording guitars for Better Than The Book (as well as Jabun promo work and some other admin things), so should be an exciting one with more stuff to report next time! Until then, I hope you’re as excited as I am for the album launch on April 15th and I hope you have a great month ahead listening to “Turing Machine”! Thanks as always for supporting Jabun, Better Than The Book, JabunAudio and my various projects however you can and take care, all the best, and have a great time!

Hi everyone and hope you're having a great March so far! It's been an intensely exciting week here at JabunAudio mostly working on drums for Better Than The Book's in-progress 3rd full length album (just some final checks to do, then it's onto guitar recording), as well as prepping for this week's HUGE announcement from Jabun! Let's not wait any longer; onto the big news!

Following my improvised, semi-live, ambient and experimental 2nd album as Jabun – 15-4-20 (released December 2020), I'm super pleased to finally announce my next experimental studio album as Jabun – Generation Supernova which will be released on the 1st anniversary of 15-4-20's recording: April 15th 2021!

In the last few months of 2019, I started writing and gathering demos for what I’d hoped would be Jabun’s 2nd album, a continuation to my debut album Daydream in style which even included some repurposed ideas from those writing sessions back in 2016-17. It was an amazing feeling to be back to Jabun after all these years and I really couldn’t get enough of composing all this new music! At the start of 2020 however I had a week or so of being awfully ill, the worst I’ve felt in years, though this was before the whole COVID-19 situation really hit the UK. Lying in bed for the best part of a week, I was itching to keep composing and thought to myself “Boy would it be nice if the music just kind of wrote itself?” With no physical energy and nothing better to do, I spent my waking hours browsing the internet and researching and eventually stumbled upon, and fell down the rabbit hole of, the topic of “generative music”, the works of Brian Eno, Steve Reich, generative modular synthesis, Turing machines and more. It was an exciting and unknown world to me, and as soon as I was fit as a fiddle again, I was straight back to the studio to put some of the ideas I’d learnt into action!

The result was the first demo for a track which would eventually become Deep Space, track 2 on this album. Deep Space didn’t really fit in with the other demos I’d been working on at the time, and as I continued writing a mixture of generative ambient explorations alongside my more traditional Jabun works, eventually 4 generative pieces stood out from the others to form their own album which was soon titled Generation Supernova. Around this time I also had the inspiring semi-live ambient explorative evening session which would become the 15-4-20 album, and the rest of the year was spend polishing these 2 projects while I continued to write further demos as Jabun.

Generation Supernova is a 37+ minute collection of 4 tracks exploring generative music methods in the studio. Each track utilises a carefully designed system set up to generate a never-repeating and ever evolving soundscape which was conducted and guided to build an emotional and developing journey from the first note to the last.

Generation Supernova was a fun and rewarding exploration into generative music methods, with each piece very much the result of the unexpected fruits of conducted chaotic experiments in the studio, much like the 15-4-20 album. Whether you sit down to listen intently, have it on in the background while doing something else, or simply immerse yourself in the sounds, I hope you enjoy these semi-ambient, generative experimental soundscapes, from the strange early months of 2020.

The photo for the album artwork was taken looking out of the living room window from the flat in Rotherham where I was based in 2017-19. I’d been meaning to use this picture for another Jabun album ever since I took it, but I didn’t end up working on any Jabun during that time and the photo finally felt right for Generation Supernova. This Jabun album is the first where the cover photo wasn’t taken in the town where the album was completed.

Hi everyone and hope you're having a great start to March! Man is the year flying past and this week's been another busy one here are JabunAudio mostly working on drums for Better Than The Book's upcoming 3rd full-length album! Only 4 drum tracks left to go so it's almost time to start tracking rhythm guitars! More exciting times ahead (though I've got to service the guitars first). Onto the main news for this week, there's not a whole lot to report apart from the usual beginning of the month things: Patreon rewards, Bandcamp Friday and some goals to set and reflect on, so let's start with some Patreon news! 

Yesterday was the 1st Wednesday of the month which means it's time for some more $1+ Patreon rewards and this month we're going waaay back again to 2014 for 2 classic Nick Standing tracks: "Mr. Knife" and "I Won't Eat My Broccoli!!!". I'll also be sharing another exclusive sneak peek demo from Better Than The Book's upcoming album with the $10+ patrons! Read more about everything below and become a patron to download the tracks as well as my entire Patreon back catalogue so far (including the full Better Than The Book and Jabun Discographies and many Patreon exclusives). I hope you enjoy them all!

Find out more: https://www.patreon.com/posts/45792424/​
$1 rewards: https://www.patreon.com/posts/45792426/
Become a patron: https://www.patreon.com/NickStanding 
Discover the Reward Archive: https://www.patreon.com/posts/44575319

Next this week, building on the success of last year's campaign in support of musicians impacted by the coronavirus, Bandcamp is again waiving its revenue share fees on the first Friday of the month from midnight to midnight Pacific Time (that's tomorrow) for Bandcamp Friday! That means that if you purchase anything from Bandcamp this Friday 5th of March, the artists you support (including myself) will get more of the sales revenue than usual since Bandcamp doesn't take its cut, and you'll be able to support the music you love more directly than ever on the platform!
 
If you've been itching to pick up Jabun's recent "15-4-20" album, Better Than The Book's "Hopes and Dreams" or "Two Years On" albums or last month's Save The Ska Show compilation album, now's the best time to do so! Check out the Bandcamp pages below and thanks again for supporting my music in any way you can, it really means a lot:

Better Than The Book
https://betterthanthebook.bandcamp.com/
 
Jabun
https://jabun.bandcamp.com/
 
Nick Standing (< The sillier old stuff)
https://nickstanding.bandcamp.com/

Save The Ska Show:
https://theskashowwithbeefy.bandcamp.com/releases

And if you're not sure whether it's Bandcamp Friday in your time-zone, you can check using the tool right here:

https://isitbandcampfriday.com/

Finally for this week's post, it's time to do the usual reflecting on last month's goals and setting some new ones! Here's what was set for February:

1) Sort Patreon rewards for the next 2 months (related to Jabun's 3rd album)
2) Fully sort the Bandcamp page for Jabun's 3rd album
3) Sort all the streaming descriptions/tags/scheduling for the online uploads of the album (YouTube, Newgrounds, and SoundCloud teaser)
4) Finish assessing and finalising the 14 BTTB demos as mentioned earlier and set up a spreadsheet for the album production progress

​And a successful month it has been! 1), 2), 3) & 4) are done without much to comment on. Jabun's 3rd album is ready to be announced NEXT WEEK, though there is one tiny bit of admin work which seems to be stuck and waiting for tech support at the moment... (thankfully nothing which will hold up the release schedule though)! On top of finishing off the demos for Better Than The Book's 3rd full-length album, I've also recorded/programmed 10/14 of the drum parts so far, so lots of extra progress than I expected (I also just about kept up with my BTTB live practice too, though admittedly it's been a bare minimum). Pushing on forward for next month goals, here's what I'll be setting:

1) Announce Jabun's 3rd album and launch the pre-release single / pre-orders
2) Finish recording drums for BTTB's 3rd album (4 left + checks)
3) Test guitar recording set-ups and start recording rhythm guitars for BTTB's 3rd album
4) Design and source at least one piece of merch for BTTB and/or Jabun

I have a tonne of other personal goals to accomplish too, but these are the 4 JabunAudio goals I'll be setting myself publicly! 1) Should go on without a hitch, and I think 2) should be fine at the current pace things are going. 3) will be interesting. I'd like to try out a new guitar recording method for this album using both my Orange and my Marshall amps bi-amped in hopes of a fuller and more balanced tone. There will be technical things to sort to make sure everything works properly and it should be an interesting exploration! On top of that I'll need to service my electric guitars before recording with them, but I'll likely do them one-by-one as needed, rather than all before I start recording. Ideally I'd like to have at least 1 guitar serviced and some parts tracked before the end of the month, but we'll see how it all goes. Goal 4) is a sidestep from usual things. I've been meaning to set up a merch store for Better Than The Book and Jabun for a while now and after some good ideas and discussion, I'd like to start planning for it. Whether the stores get set up before the end of the month is unclear, but I'd at least like to have some solid designs ready and sources for merch sorted before the end of the month. Should be another interesting endeavour!

On top of these I'll be doing my best to keep up with Better Than The Book live practice and with the end of lockdown in sight I'm REALLY looking forward to jamming with the guys again (it's been over a year now since we were all in the same room). Since guitar recording means taking apart my live rig though, I'll have to get all my practice done BEFORE I start on the guitar recording tests, and practice will understandably be a bit disrupted while I track guitar parts for the album. A couple more things to sort too, but that'd secret for the moment. With all that said, wish me luck and I hope you have a good and productive month working on your goals too! Feel free to leave you goals in the comments and we can cheer each other on!

And that about wraps things up for this week's blogpost! Next week's going to be an exciting one as I formally announce Jabun's upcoming 3rd album, but I'm sure there'll be more to report on top of that as well! Until next time, I hope you have a great week to come, be sure to support your favourite artists (hint hint) for Bandcamp Friday tomorrow, and thanks as always for supporting my music and projects in all the ways you can! An exciting month to come and I look forward to sharing the journey with you as it unfolds! Take care and all the best!