Hello everyone and it's another short post this week with just a few updates on the upcoming Better Than The Book album. Hope you've been keeping cool in this hotter than ever weather the UK seems to be having. As for me, it's been a pleasant and long overdue long weekend away from work, so I've not been up to as much music stuff as the previous week. Onto the BTTB updates: as it currently stands only 2 tracks of lead guitars / solos remain and it looks like it'll almost certainly be all be sorted by the next blog post (along with the keys). Horray! Apart from that, not much to report, but I'm looking forward to tackling some horn parts in more detail next month. Things are really shaping up! 

That's about it for this week. It's going to be another busy week for me finishing off these guitars, keys, and if there's time, starting on some more horn parts and extra stuff for the album. We shall see where the time takes me. Until then, I hope you have a great week whatever you're up to, stay cool, and thanks as always for supporting JabunAudio and my various projects. See you in the next post, and take care!

Hi everyone and hope you're having a good week whatever you're up to. It's gonna be a short blog post this time as while it's been a very busy and productive week, there's not really much to talk about in terms of what's been going on. I'm super happy that my finger is finally (pretty much) fully healed, at least to a point where I can use it as normal so it's been a fun time getting back to guitar. In terms of news, there's just a few updates on the Better Than The Book album to report, so let's get straight to that!

Another week goes by and this one especially has been a very intense time working on the album. Since last time I've just about finished all the keyboard parts (there's one track which I'll need to reassess once the lead guitar and horns are added), got 5/10 tracks of lead guitar and guitar solos recorded, and I even managed to sort one tracks worth of horns too, meaning that one is all recorded now. Just 5 tracks of lead guitar & 9 tracks of horns to go, then it'll be onto finalising the arrangements, making any edits, putting together any interlude tracks, then mixing and mastering. Exciting times!

And that's about it for this week. Next week is looking to be quite busy with personal stuff so I'm not sure how much time I'll get to work on the album, but we'll see how it goes (I aim to get at least one track of lead guitar recorded. Until next time, I hope you have a great week whatever you're up to and thanks as always for supporting JabunAudio and my various projects. Take care!

Hello everyone and I hope you've had great week in the sun and managed to stay hydrated since the last blog post. It's been a busy time for me working on the new Better Than The Book album and despite the injured finger I think it's been very productive (more on that in a moment). Speaking of which, it's been a week and a half now since I first slammed the middle finger of my fretting (left) hand between the fridge door and the kitchen surface and understandably it's still got a way to go before it's normal again, but it's healing up pretty well so far. Still tender so no guitar playing yet unfortunately (I tried; it hurt), but I have managed to get some keyboarding done, albeit avoiding the use of that finger. Not a lot else to report other than updates on the upcoming Better Than The Book album, so lets get straight to that.

And some great updates there are! For starters, as of Tuesday this week, all the gang vocals for the album are done, which means that apart from some possible adlibs and non-lyrical stuff to add when finalising the arrangements before mixing, all the vocals are recorded for the album! Horray! On top of that, as of yesterday 3 out of 5 of the keyboard parts have been recorded successfully too (thank lord for 1 finger ska basslines), and although I had to overdub some of the more complex left hand parts, I'm very pleased with the way it's all sounding. Just 2 tracks of keyboards left to now which hopefully should be done just in time for my finger to be healed enough for some guitar solos? Perhaps wishful thinking, but I can dream! Here's a picture of the keyboard rig for this album: my Yamaha Reface CP controlling software on the new computer! I wish I had a real Hammond & Farfisa (or organ in general) to hand, but these emulators sound great (and take up no space at all)!

I also managed to sort out a couple of the edits and samply things in the album which are really bringing some of the tracks to life! Hopefully I should have the keyboard parts all finished by the next blog post, but we'll see how it all goes.

And that about wraps things up for this time. I'll just be working hard on this album for the moment, so expect more updates on that next week. Other than that, we'll see where the wind takes me (if there is any). I hope you have a great week whatever you're up to, and thanks as always for stopping by and supporting JabunAudio and my various projects. Looking forward to sharing more updates next week and take care until then!

Hello everyone and I hope you've had a good and not too hot week since the last blog post. It's been a time of mixed emotions for me, but we'll get onto that later in the post. On a positive note, JabunAudio sent out its first newsletter article this week and it's all about metering! If you sign up this month, you'll get it straight into your inbox + the usual sign up article about preparing for mastering. You can sign up for the JabunAudio monthly music production article on the home page of this website! Some great feedback on the first article so far so I'm looking forward to sharing more stuff with you soon. With that said, let's get onto the main updates for this week.

Starting with updates on the Better Than The Book album, it's been a mixed but mostly productive time since the last blog post. As of Friday, all the main vocal parts have been finished, and as of yesterday, there's only 2 out of 5 tracks of gang vocals left to finish too! It's been a very hot week though and my vocal endurance has been weakened by the heat and trying to stay hydrated so progress in that department has been slower than I'd have hoped. I should hopefully have it all finished soon. In other news, I've also migrated the project to the newly fixed up desktop computer and MAN OH MAN, this machine has power I couldn't have fathomed before! Very exciting! I've taken some time too this week to start sorting some of the extra production details such as 808 booms, claps and samples too which has been quite the adventure. Now onto some bad news this week...

If everything had gone according to schedule, June was supposed to be a month for guitar solos and keyboard recording would have been a job for July. Illness and other things pushed everything month ahead, making July the new month for guitar solos as well as keyboards. Unfortunately on Sunday in an act of carelessness, I sheared the end of the middle finger of my fretting hand between the fridge door and the kitchen surface it sits under, a major ouch both physically and mentally. I don't think I have much option other than to just let it heal which may take a few weeks but it's difficult to tell at the moment how long it might be until I can get back to it. Guitaring is currently out of the question, but I'll try to go through the keyboard parts as I can do them with my right hand only (overdubbing any left hand parts with my right hand afterwards). Overall, not a great start to the month, but nothing much I can do about that. I'll keep you updated on progress as and when I can and I hope to be back to it properly soon. Thanks for your patience.

Finally this week, let's go through June's goals, see how I did, then get to setting the goals for July. Here's what I had down for June:

1) Finish 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)

So it's been a reasonably successful month. There's just 2 tracks of gang vocals to do which should hopefully be finished by the next blog post, and goals 2) 3) & 4) despite some hitches have been completed well. The low priority 5) and 6) I've yet to make progress on. Setting some new goals for July, here's what I'd like to get done: 

1) Finish recording vocals for the new BTTB album (2 tracks left)
2) Finish lead guitar and solos for the BTTB album (10 tracks)
3) Finish keyboard parts for the BTTB album (5 tracks)
4) Sort out the Patreon Page *
(* indicates low priority)

Now due to injury, goals number 2) and 3) are very much dependant on the speed of my recovery, but I really hope I can get all the album stuff sorted ready to move onto horns next month, which'll put things back on the original schedule. The Patreon Page is still waiting on a video, but I really want to make sure I stay on track with the album as a high priority. I also have a fair few non-JabunAudio goals to sort this month, so we'll see how those do as well. Any goals you'd like to share? Feel free to leave them in the comments to keep yourself committed!

And that's about everything to report for this week. Hopefully finishing off the vocals and making a start on keyboard parts in the following week for me, and hopefully my finger will be all healed and ready for some guitaring soon too. Until the next blog post, hope you have a great week whatever you're up to and thanks as always for supporting JabunAudio and my various projects. Take care!