Hello everyone and I hope you've been having a great week whatever you've been up to since the last post. Not a whole lot to report this week so I'll keep this short, but it's been super busy nonetheless. Busy and HOT! Hope you've been keeping cool and hydrated!

The new computer is all completely fixed up now including installing a dedicated graphics card which is very nice. I've also taken the time to write up the next 3 months worth of articles for the JabunAudio newsletter, the first of which will be about the importance of metering in audio production which gets sent out next week! If you've yet to sign up, feel free to do so on the front page of this website and I look forward to sharing the article with you next week! Exciting times!

Finally just an update on the main thing going on for me this week, Better Than The Book vocals. It's been a busy week with that and as of today 9 out of 10 vocals tracks are all recorded now (apart from some gang vocals). Since there's more things to add to the arrangement, I may end up recording a few more parts in the future (or taking away some), but it's been a successful week catching up on vocal recording and I look forward to getting busy with guitar solos, keys and horns soon! Just 1 more track + 4 tracks of gang vocals left to do, which should all be sorted by the next blog post. Exciting times!

That's it for this week! Next week I'll be finishing off the BTTB vocals then getting started on lead guitar work if I have time. Other than that, I have no idea, but it'll be the beginning of July by the next blog post (dang...), so it'll be a usual time of reflecting on and setting goals. Hope you have a great week whatever you get up to and thanks as always for supporting JabunAudio and my various projects. Until next time, take care!

Hello everyone and hope you've had a great week since the last blog post! It's been straight back into the deep of it for me this week, with some great stuff as well as some absolute nightmares of frustration, but overall a very positive turnaround for the week. That's it for an intro, let's get straight into the news!

Firstly, I'm super happy to announce that after almost a month away from it, I'm back to recording vocals for the new Better Than The Book album! As of yesterday, 6 out of 10 tracks all have their vocals recorded (apart from gang vocals on a few which I'll do later), and man oh man does it feel great to be singing again! 4 left and I'm aiming to have those done by the first blog post of July, which at this pace should be juuuust about doable. I just have to make sure not to burn myself out like last time, so I'll be progressing with caution, while giving it my all in front of the mic. I'll keep you updated with progress in the next blog post!

Next, while I only started recording vocals on Monday this week, all previous days were dedicated to fixing/setting up the new desktop computer I was gifted as mentioned in one of the previous blog posts, and man oh man was that quite the ordeal... Starting with some strange RAM readings (8GB installed, but only 3.5GB usable), after many hours of diagnostics with a computer expert friend over the phone, we figured out that one of the 4GB RAM sticks was busted and would need replacing. A bit of a bummer, but nothing too much to worry about, and thankfully the local CeX had the exact same RAM stick in stock to fill in the slot. Fixed! So then came the long but necessary task of installing all my programs and plug-ins, authorizing them where necessary and all that jazz, then bridging over the 32-bit plugins using the mysterious software jBridge (more on that in a moment). By Friday night, everything was pretty much set up and ready, apart from waiting for a full download of the jBridge software, then I hit the next roadblock. Up until now the computer was super speedy, but Windows decided it would be a great idea to install an upgrade without my permission. It spent almost an hour booting up only for me to be greeted with a sluggish and over-featured (none that I'd use, or could remove) OS which made my old Vista laptop feel like a race car compared to a snail (my vista's pretty speedy though). Waking up the next morning and it still running horribly, I decided to use the option to revert back to the previous OS which was running perfectly before. That took an hour just to tell me that it had failed, I wouldn't be able to boot Windows and that I'd have to reinstalling the OS at factory spec from scratch, loosing all the work I put into installing and authorizing everything over the past few days... I genuinely felt sick... Well... after a weekend filled repeating much of last week's work instead of what I had previously planned, I finally got it back to the state it was in before the upgrade, and now I'm permanently disconnecting it from the internet so it can't repeat the same mistake! By now I'd received the full version of the jBridge software too, and everything was working smoothly apart from one plugin. I got in contact with the developer, and I must say it was some of the best customer service I've ever experienced. They ran me through diagnosing it myself, tested it on their end and we eventually managed to fix it. All for a 15 Euro plug-in, I was highly impressed. If you ever need to bridge 32-bit plugins to a 64-bit host like I did, I highly recommend jBridge! Overall, despite the turbulent week setting it up, I now have a very reliable, speedy and higher spec machine to make music on, all ready for action! I look forward to putting to good use soon! 

Lastly this week, just a little update on the JabunAudio newsletter. It's just under two weeks until I send out the first one, and I've started writing up the first article as well as planning the next few. It's not the most glamorous topic, but I thought I'd start by covering the importance of metering in music and audio production, what meters there are, when you'll want use them, how to use them effectively and my suggestions for some free ones if you need them. I hope you enjoy it and I look forward to sharing that article with you in the first week of July! Stay tuned, and if you've yet to sign-up (it's free!) feel free to do so on the JabunAudio homepage, and receive a free PDF article download to get you started. Hope to see you there!

That's about it for this week! My coming week will likely be filled with Better Than The Book vocals as well as writing articles for the JabunAudio newsletter this weekend. Anything else that happens is a bonus! Anyways, thanks as always for supporting JabunAudio and my various projects and I hope you have a great week until the next blog post. Take care!

Hello everyone, and after a rather busy previous month, I'm happy to announce that JabunAudio is back to its usual schedule! I've not been here for most of the previous week so the time I have been back has been spent sorting out all my ISRC registrations (all done) and fixing up the new desktop computer (getting there), along with some other admin type tasks. Exciting times! There's really not much else to report this week but I figured I'd just write this quick post to say that I'm back! Hoping to get back into recording the new Better Than The Book album in the next few days, along with setting up this new computer, and looking forward to sharing some more exciting updates next week. Thanks as always for supporting JabunAudio and my various projects and take care until next time!

Hello everyone and hope you've had a good few weeks since the last post. It's been intensely busy for me bouncing around the country for various trips whilst sorting as much admin stuff as possible on the few days I've had back in the studio. No news to report on theBetter Than The Book album, as I've simply not had time to work on it, but I hope to be back to it around June 12th after this upcoming final long weekend of downtime. Still though, there's a heck of a lot of exciting news to report this week so let's get to it!

First of all and it's a big one, JabunAudio has finally launched its music & audio production monthly email newsletter! You can sign up on the front page of the JabunAudio website to receive music and audio production tips sent straight to your inbox in the first week of each month + you'll also get my free PDF article "10 Essential Things To Do Before You Send Your Music For Mastering and WHY" when you sign up. I know there are tonnes of articles for learning music production out there already so I’ll only be sharing advice and tips which have helped me personally and I’ve not seen anywhere else. Topics will focus on mastering, my favourite genres of ska punk & pop punk, as well as advice that can be applied to all styles and the occasional tangent. I hope you enjoy reading, and I look forward to sharing more audio production advice with you at the start of July! As per usual, let me know if you have any questions in the comments below! The launch of the new newsletter has also prompted me to update all the email links on this website with the new [email protected] address, though as previously discussed, feel free to continue using [email protected], as I have no plans to stop using that one.

Next on the news this week, it's another huge one! After almost 10 years on my trusty Vista 32-bit Dell Laptop, I'm finally getting a "modern" desktop computer! For this I extend a massive thanks to a great family friend and musician Martin who has supported me in making music since before I could even play the guitar. Over the years he's been incredibly generous with advice (as shown in the credits of the One Small Step EP), as well as lending and often giving his "old" equipment to my brother and myself (including our first gigging PA). Clearing out his home studio for an upgrade, he's passed to me his "old" music production PC, which is an amazing gift and something I'll treasure making music with for years to come. Thanks so much Martin and I look forward to putting this machine through its paces soon! Martin and I have different DAW / plugin preferences so I'm currently in the process of uploading my usual software onto the new machine. Ableton 8 is live on there as well as my associated library, samples and offline analysis software. Now comes the tricky part of installing my VST plugin collection! Of course, I'll continue to use my laptop for mobile recording sessions and some other tasks due to convenience, but the new desktop will be a powerful extension to the digital workstation of my studio!

Next this week, I just wanted to take a moment to share some music I mastered a while back for techno artist Oakwood which was released last week. This'll be the second track I've mastered with him and it's always a pleasure to work on his hard hitting electronic vibes, not something people usually associate me with, but something I enjoy working on frequently. Hope you enjoy it, and if you'd like any of your music mastered, just send me a message and I'll be happy to listen! Here's Battlecries!

Finally this week, as has become a tradition this year, it's time to look back at May's goals and see how I did at getting through them:

1) Launch a JabunAudio monthly newsletter (this includes various sub goals I need to sort out)
2) Launch the Patreon page
3) Release a 2018 Mastering Demo Reel
4) Get more involved in the online audio community (Facebook groups & Newgrounds, etc...)
5) Finish recording (Vocals) for the new BTTB album. (Vocals is the hope but if things aren't looking great at the beginning of next week I'll look into working on lead guitar / solos or something else instead) 

So it looks like 1) & 3) have successfully been implemented and having joined and become active in 3 Facebook groups and upped my involvement in the Newgrounds community, I think I can tick off 4) as well. 5) as previously discussed has been difficult due to business, illness and other factors, but I've managed about half of the vocals for the album. Again due to similar reasons 2) the Patreon page as also been neglected this month. Overall, not the best month for goals, though given the circumstances I think the progress is reasonable.

Onto setting some goals for ​June then, some will rollover from May and I have a few new ones I'd like to sort as well:

1) Finished recording Vocals for the new BTTB album
2) Write up the next 3 months of articles for the JabunAudio newsletter
3) Sort out & update all my ISRC registrations (Not exciting but it needs to be done)
4) Finish sorting out the new Desktop computer ready to make music on it
5) Get started on lead guitar for the BTTB album *
6) Sort out the Patreon Page *
(* indicates low priority)

Some reasonable goals for the month though I've decided to concentrate on getting back on track with the album's production and studio/business maintenance rather than focus on the Patreon page for the moment, as it feels like that's the more important thing. Hopefully nothing will impede progress this month but I feel it best to take things easy and try to just get back on track. Wish me luck and as usual, if you'd like to share any of your goals for the coming month, feel free to in the comments below.

That about wraps things up for this week! I'm away again until Tuesday so there's likely not going to be much to report next week. I looks like I'll have some more bass recording to do for World Beyond shortly, and I hope to be getting back to BTTB vocals next week too. In the mean time, I'll just try to sort out all these ISRC spreadsheets... Joy! Hope you have a great week until next time and thanks as always for supporting JabunAudio and my various projects. Take care!