Hi everyone and I hope you've all been having a splendid week! As always it's been another busy one here at JabunAudio preparing for this latest Better Than The Book album release and wrapping things up before the 11 day downtime over the Easter period. Exciting times it has been though and I'm happy to confirm that as of Saturday, the JabunAudio website has been renewed for another year of services and portfolio archives. Horray! I also had the pleasure this week of sending out JabunRecords' first royalty cheque which was an exciting milestone for me. Onto the main event for this post though, I have some HUGE news for you today so let's get straight into it!

After much hard work and preparation, I am ecstatic to announce that Better Than The Book's 2nd full-length studio album “Hopes and Dreams” is finally complete and ready to share with the world! The lead single is due to be released on May 10th, along with an album art reveal and pre-orders opening on Bandcamp, and after another 2 singles over the next few months, the full album will be released to the public in July! Exciting times! If you can’t wait to hear it all though, early access has now opened to my supporters on Patreon, and with this month’s rewards posted out last weekend, it’s really never been a better time to join the pre-release party than now! 

If you're a $5+ tier patron, then you'll be receiving the full 10 track (39 minutes) Hopes and Dreams album, Mp3s, WAVs and artwork a whopping 90+ days before it's released in full to the public in July (such is the promo schedule)! For the $1+ patrons you'll be receiving the full sized cover artwork for the album before the public reveal with the lead single in a month's time, as well as the singles and album as they are released to the public over the next few months.

If you're a $10+ patron, then this month I'm continuing from where we left off last time for an in depth look into how the Hopes and Dreams artwork was made, as well as some alternative artworks which weren't used for the final cover. Don't forget too that as a $10+ patron you'll also get your name mentioned in the special thanks section of the album credits (if you'd like)!

I'm also sharing with my patrons the release schedule for the singles and album (as well as their associated rewards) before it goes out to the public with the lead single on May 10th.

With so much going on, it's never been a better time to join Better Than The Book and my other projects on Patreon and remember that when you sign up, you'll receive all the previous rewards for your tier including the entire rest of the Better Than The Book discography with Patreon exclusive bonus tracks, demos and much more. Sign up for as little as $1 a month, or $5 to pick up the new Hopes and Dreams album now (as well as the entire BTTB back catalogue) before it's released to the public. I hope you enjoy it! 

Join the pre-release party today: https://www.patreon.com/NickStanding

And for a taste of what you'll be getting and what to expect from the new album, check out the Better Than The Book discography on bandcamp:

https://betterthanthebook.bandcamp.com/

That about wraps things up for this post! After such a busy time since the start of the year and before, I'm looking forward to the extended break next week, but after that I'm sure it'll be back to hard work on the album promotion before the lead single is launched on May 10th! Big things to come when I get back but I hope you have a great time until the next post and as always thanks for supporting JabunAudio, Better Than The Book and my various music projects. Take care and see you in 2 weeks!

Hello everyone and hope you're having a great week so far! As always it's been a busy time over here, this time finishing off the upcoming Better Than The Book - Hopes and Dreams album and sorting out the various extra things for its release. It'll only be a short blog post this week with some updates on how things are going, so let's get straight to it!

So first of all, I'm super happy to announce that the Better Than The Book - Hopes and Dreams album is now official finished as a product! Artwork is done, master audio WAVs have been exported and checked to perfection, and the mp3s have been converted and tagged with all the metadata! ISRCs and UPCs have been secured and are in the process of registration at the moment, and the album is in the process of being uploaded to distributors too. I've also been working closely with the PR people and we've selected the 3 singles for the album and sorted a rough release date / schedule too (to be set in stone when the first single is released in May). Photo shoots have been booked and some extra stuff is in the process of being sorted too! All in all super busy but super exciting times! Since the album is finished now I'll be uploading it to Patreon within the week as a reward for the $5+ Early Pigeons and patrons, so if you want to be the first to hear it even before it's officially announced with the lead single, now would be a great time to sign up to Patreon for the $5 of higher tiers, and you can pick up the rest of the BTTB discography and more when you do. I hope to see you there!

https://www.patreon.com/NickStanding

As well as those exciting updates on the album, I've also been busy this week with the usual yearly admin for JabunAudio. Tax returns have been completed (and much better results than last year which is nice), and the JabunAudio website domain has been renewed for another year (the website service itself will be renewed this coming Saturday). All in all a very productive week, though I'm looking forward to getting back to making music when all the admin work is done, as well as a break when I go away in a week's time.

And that about wraps things up for this post! I'll be busy over the next 7 days before I go away finishing off as much as possible for the album release (and much more), and next week will be the final blog post until I return at the start of May. Until then I hope you have a great time whatever you're up to and thanks as always for supporting JabunAudio, Better Than The Book and my various projects. See you next week and take care!

Hi everyone and hope you're having a great start to April (and weren't caught out by too many April Fools' pranks)! It's been a busy week for me cutting the final master exports for the upcoming Better Than The Book - Hopes and Dreams album and finishing off the cover artwork, as well as helping sort out some more super exciting things for the release, along with the less exciting admin side of things too! A quick reminder that there aren't any new Patreon rewards going out this week, but more great stuff will be coming very soon when the album is complete and that any new patrons will still gain access to all the previous rewards for their tiers when they sign up too (www.patreon.com/NickStanding). In the mean time, I still have some exciting news to share with you at the beginning of this month, so let's get straight to it!

Firstly this week, it's the beginning of the month which means I've just sent out another JabunAudio music production newsletter. There's no new topic to discuss this time, but instead I have a special announcement for you! As many of you already know, over the past year I've been sending out this monthly music production article to those who have signed up on the JabunAudio homepage and the series so far has covered many topics ranging from mastering, my favourite genres of pop-punk and ska-punk, to many more tips and discussions which can be applied to almost any genre of music. In this final newsletter (for now at least), I'm proud to introduce the JabunAudio Music Production Article Archives, a collection of all the articles from this series in an exclusive hidden section of this website. You can sign up for free on the JabunAudio homepage to get all the access and I hope you enjoy reading them if you haven't already. For those of you who've been keeping up with it over the past year (or if you've just signed up and read through), which was your favorite article? I hope to get back to the series at some point in the future, but for now I'll be taking a bit of a break to concentrate on other things and gather more ideas. Thanks for all the support!

Sign up on the JabunAudio Homepage <<< Click here

Next this week, a heads up for some seasonal downtime. JabunAudio will be closed for the Easter break from Thursday 18th April to Monday 29th April, during which I will be unable to carry out any audio work. Any communications during this period may also receive delayed responses, though feel free to message me and I'll get to any messages by Monday 29th April. Apologies in advance for any inconvenience, and I look forward to working with you when I get back! Of course the blog post will be on hiatus during that period too meaning the last blog post before the break will be on Thursday 18th April before a 1 week break and returning on Thursday 2nd May! Hope you don't miss me too much and I look forward to sharing more music with you all when I get back!

Finally this week, as is the monthly tradition, let's look back at March's goals and set some more for April. Here's what we had for March:

1) Finish the audio for the Hopes and Dreams BTTB album
2) Finish the artwork for the Hopes and Dreams BTTB album

So I can't quite yet say that these are done, but they're teetering over the edge of competition! The master WAVs for the album have been exported and are just awaiting final approval from a few trusted ears, and it's a similar case for the artwork. The album is essentially complete, though, literally a tickbox of approval away! With that said let's set some new targets for April! I'll not bother re-setting the ones above since they'll be included in some of the new goals:

1) Complete my tax return
2) Renew the JabunAudio website (name and service provider)
3) Finish the album as a product and get all preparations finished for the release
4) Prep a Patreon post for when I'm away

April is always a busy month with the start of the new tax year, my birthday and (most years) Easter as well, so it's looking to be a busy one as usual. The first 2 goals should be fairly easy admin tasks to complete, and similarly 4) should be easy to sort out too. 3) will be the most difficult as on top of the album being finished audio+art-wise, there's also the mp3s to convert and tag, some other exciting stuff to finish though I'll keep that a secret for the moment, a press photo shoot to organise and edit, pre-orders to set up, ISRC + UPC registrations to make, and much liaising with PR people to do; it's going to be super busy, especially since I'm not here for much of the month! The aim is to be all prepared to release the album to the early pigeons ($5+ tier) on Patreon before I head off, then have all the preparations made ready to release the lead single and launch pre-orders in May. We'll see how it all goes!

That about wraps things up for this week! No doubt this coming week for me is going to be filled with admin work and finishing off the album as a product, but we'll see where else the wind takes me. Until next time, I hope you have a great week and thanks as always for supporting Better Than The Book, JabunAudio and my various projects! Take care and see you in the next post!