Hi everyone and hope you're having a great start to October! September really flew past and the past week has been an especially busy one at JabunAudio sorting various things. As of last Friday my local area has been placed into lockdown again due to high COVID cases which puts a few spanners in the works of future plans (more on that in a bit), but other than work related to that, I've been busy writing and developing more new Better Than The Book demos, promoting Patreon rewards and new music, and setting more goals for the coming month! No direct updates on the Yamaha organ repair to report, though unfortunately my hopeful source in the UK for that final obsolete IC has fallen through. I've since located a more promising source in the US though, so fingers crossed he's able to help! Anyways, there's a whole lot of things to report on this week so let's get started with the latest set of Patreon rewards!

Yesterday was the final Wednesday of the month which means I've just sent out more $5 and $10 Patreon rewards and this time we've reached the final piece in Jabun's discography (so far), Jabun's 2017 debut full-length album Daydream!
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After releasing Distance and Home in 2013 and 2014 respectively (which would be remastered for the Daydream album in 2017), I started formally working on the album which would become Daydream in summer 2016. After the high energy ska punk adventure that was Better Than The Book's Two Years On (released February 2016) and having just moved away from my parents to the seaside town of Herne Bay with Eva, I was ready to explore some experimental and chill vibes as Jabun once again from that makeshift IKEA coffee table studio which I've mentioned in past posts. Shortly before the move I'd bought myself a Yamaha Reface CP mobile keyboard which is basically a truckload of vintage electric pianos and effects in a 3 octave portable package and would be the most valuable player in much of my Jabun music to come! Along with my mpc1000, sm58 microphone and a few synths, I put together a lot of that album throughout the rest of the year, firstly from the floor of our Herne Bay flat, then later from my first purpose organised studio room in Margate. A photo of the Margate beach at sunset would become the cover for the album which was released on May 4th 2017, a heartwarming, chill journey which would be featured in many online zines / blogs, on YouTube music channels, and even a game on Newgrounds (along with some Newgrounds awards)! It's an album I hold close to heart and brings me back to those days living by the sea!

Included in the reward download packages are the full 10 track 43+ minute album (Mp3s and WAVs), album art and alternative album art, and a picture from day 1 of recording, my equipment spread out on the floor after recording track 07 Palindrome! I hope you enjoy Daydream!

Tracklist:
01 Dreaming (Parts I - III)
02 Morning
03 The Grind
04 Distance
05 Daydream
--------
06 Anxiety
07 Palindrome
08 Home
09 Evening
10 Dreaming (Parts IV - VI)

Listen to Daydream on Bandcamp:

https://jabun.bandcamp.com/album/daydream

For the $10+ patrons, you've also got an exclusive sneak peek at next year's 3rd Jabun album to look forward to! Become a $10 patron to access that and many more rewards now, and remember that you'll gain access to all historic rewards and posts for your Patreon tier too when you become a supporter including the full Better Than The Book and Jabun discographies and much more! With the REWARD ARCHIVE tag it's never been easier to catch up with all those posts and music downloads you've missed too! I hope you enjoy them!

$5 rewards : https://www.patreon.com/posts/40080123/
$10 rewards: https://www.patreon.com/posts/40080119/
Become a patron: https://www.patreon.com/NickStanding

That's it for this month's $5+ rewards, and the equivalent rewards will be out next Wednesday for the $1 patrons! With Daydream finally out to the patrons, that's the entire Jabun discography available on Patreon now! As such I'll be taking a short break to finalise things ready to announce Jabun's 2nd album in November, and you can bet that there'll be a tonne of Patreon rewards to celebrate that! Until then, I hope you enjoy all the music and thanks as always for supporting Jabun, Better Than The Book and my various projects on Patreon! I can't wait to show you Jabun's brand new 2nd album next time! Look forward to it! 

Next on the news this week, after many months of promo for Better Than The Book's Hopes and Dreams [Instrumentals] bonus album, we finally arrive to the last post of the series, and today's is just a quick one to say that Better Than The Book's Hopes and Dreams [Instrumentals] (Full Album) is now streaming on YouTube and Newgrounds! Check out the streams below:

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGDy94xGu_E
Newgrounds: https://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/966966

I've also curated playlists of all the individual tracks from Hopes and Dreams [Instrumentals] on YouTube, Newgrounds and SoundCloud too, so if you've missed any of the tracks, feel free to listen to them online via the playlists below, or on Spotify:

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLblIGQa1OFi6NGA101mVS4jdsOTi55Bjb
Newgrounds: https://www.newgrounds.com/playlists/view/2d399b083d2369a5b1f5fbf7a1e8b2cb
SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/bttb_uk/sets/hopes-and-dreams-instrumentals-album
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/4GUCmKQoIk3bNWGiXDGkrp

And if you like what you hear, pick up Hopes and Dreams [Instrumentals] on bandcamp along with the rest of the BTTB discography:

https://betterthanthebook.bandcamp.com/album/hopes-and-dreams-instrumentals

Or grab it along with last month's exclusive download for Jabun [Alternate Reality]'s Warrior when you become a supporter on Patreon for as little as $1! More $1 rewards coming next Wednesday! Find out more below:

https://www.patreon.com/posts/40080256
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That's it for this final promo post for Better Than The Book's Hopes and Dreams [Instrumentals]! I hope you've enjoyed listening to all the music over these past few months and I look forward to bringing you more Better Than The Book as soon as I can! As you've already heard, I've been back to writing recently, so hopefully I'll have more to report in the ska punk department next year! Looking forward to it!

And speaking of Bandcamp, in support of musicians impacted by the coronavirus, Bandcamp is once again waiving its revenue share fees on the first Friday of the month from midnight to midnight PDT (that's tomorrow)! That means that if you purchase anything from Bandcamp this Friday 2nd of October, 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 thinking of picking up Better Than The Book's "Hopes and Dreams" or grabbing Jabun's "Daydream" or one of my other tracks or albums, now's the best time to do so! Feel free to check out the Better Than The Book and Jabun Bandcamp pages below and thanks again for supporting my music in any way you can:

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

Next this week, some less fun but necessary updates. Due to the ongoing coronavirus situation, band members being heavily restricted due to local lockdowns (including myself as of Friday), and general concerns with regards public performance at this time, Better Than The Book will no longer be attending the upcoming gig with Sweet Jonny at The Cave in Addlestone (UK) on November 7th. Additionally, we will be postponing booking any further gigs indefinitely until the live music performance industry is up and running safely again.

Apologies for any disappointment, though the safety and comfort of our audience and the members of the BTTB live band are my top priority, and we all hope to be entertaining you again soon with some well needed and upbeat skapunk when the time is right and safe for it. I'll be working hard in the mean time, practicing the tunes and writing/recording some new ones, and I look forward to bringing an even better live show to you as soon as possible! Thanks as always for your support!

Finally this week, it's time for the usual reflecting on monthly goals and setting some new ones! Here's what was set for September:
​
1) Sort the Bandcamp page and online streams / distribution for Jabun's 2nd album
2) Make and sort a teaser announcement video for the above album
3) Sort Patreon rewards associated with the above album (for November and December rewards)
4) Finish the promo plans for Hopes and Dreams [Instrumentals] and Warrior
5) Get a first draft master sorted for Jabun's 3rd album, and sent out for feedback
6) Set up a project folder for the upcoming Better Than The Book album and complete another 3 demos

(I also wanted to make sure I keep up with the Better Than The Book live practice too)

​And overall I think it was a great month for goal accomplishments! 1) is done with the note that I'm still waiting on a response for my worldwide distributor for approval. 2), 3) & 4) are done with no problems. 5) is done and I'm just waiting to hear back from people, and 6) is done with 4 new Better Than The Book demos completed + a few of the previous ones polished more. I've also kept up with my BTTB live practice though it seems it'll be a while now until that gets put to good use unfortunately. On top of that I also did a whole lot of work restoring and fixing the vintage Yamaha organ, gaining back 2/8 dead notes and all the flute ranks as well as putting together much of a makeshift service manual! Still a little bit left to go, but it's a big win so far!

With that all said, let's set some new goals for October!

1) Finish the master audio for Jabun's 3rd album
2) Create at least a first draft for the cover art for Jabun's 3rd album
3) Write 3 more Better Than The Book demos or until the demos reach 39 minutes total
4) Finish first draft lyrics for 5 of the Better Than The Book demos
5) Fix the organ 100%
6) Finish the makeshift service manual for the organ
7) Fix my mpc1000
8) Update the Patreon page

And of course I'd like to keep up with Better Than The Book live practice too. An ambitious set of goals for this month though with ~6 weeks off of promo work until Jabun's 2nd album is announced mid November, I should have some extra time on my hands! 1) should be doable, though is dependent on when people get back to me with the feedback, and whether any major changes are needed. 2) should hopefully be ok though is more of an extra low-priority goal just to keep things moving forward. 3) might be tricky, though we'll see how it goes. I'd like to keep the album below 40 minutes, and reckon there's space for 2 or 3 more songs there, so I'd like to get 2 more done, but a 3rd I'm not so fussed about. 4) Should be a medium challenge as I've completed 1 so far, which means 4 left to finish, but some are pretty close. 5) is very much dependent on if and when I'm able to get that final part, but fingers crossed everything goes as planned. 6) should be doable as the main technical drawings are done, it's mainly title, contents and descriptions to do. 7) seemed like a good idea while I'm in a fixing things mood. Nothings too wrong with it, but after many years of use a few of the buttons are sticking and need replacing. Should be a simple fix to make the workflow a lot less frustrating than it has been in the past few months! Finally 8) should be just a day's work. It's just some minor updates for when the full Jabun discography is available on Patreon next Wednesday. I still intend to do a proper relaunch with a new video in the near future, but it can wait until next year I think. Lots to do and I want to try and keep busy while I'm trapped in lockdown for the foreseeable future, so hopefully it'll be an admin/promo-lite and productive month of maintenance and creativity! Sounds good to me, wish me luck and all the best with your own goals!

That about wraps things up for this blog post! More $1 rewards to come next week so I'll be reporting on that at the very least, and hopefully there'll be some more repair and writing related updates to share as well. Still waiting on some other exciting news to report in the pipeline too so hopefully that'll be out at some point next month too. Until the next one I hope you have a great start to October, keep warm, stay safe and sensible, enjoy the music, and thanks as always for supporting Jabun, Better Than The Book, JabunAudio and my various projects! Take care!

Hi everyone and hope you're having a great week so far! It's been a busy one here at JabunAudio finishing off sorting the next batch of Patreon rewards, as well as a doing some promo work, writing another 3 rough demos for the next Better Than The Book album (That makes 9 tracks total so far not including alternative versions), and finishing the first draft masters for next year's Jabun album ready to get some more ears on it! Super productive! Looks like I've found a good lead in sourcing that final component for fixing the Yamaha YC-25D organ too, so fingers crossed it all pans out. Been doing a fair bit of recording with that since last week's big repair session and it's sounding great! Other than that, there's not a lot of stuff to show this week, though as usual I've got the next track of Better Than The Book's Hopes and Dreams [Instrumentals] album to share with you today! Let's get to that!

So as has been the case for the past few months, it's just a quick one today to say that Better Than The Book's Hopes and Dreams [Instrumental] is now streaming on YouTube, Newgrounds and SoundCloud! That's all the tracks from the Hopes and Dreams [Instrumentals] bonus album uploaded for streaming online now, but I still have one more thing to share with you next week before I call the promo for this bonus album finished! Until then, check out Hopes and Dreams [Instrumental] below:

Hi everyone and hope you're having a great week so far! It's been a busy time over here, and crazy to think it's over halfway through the month already! I've been keeping busy writing up more Patreon posts, as well as working on something else which I hope to be able to share with you soon, but the big news for this week is that after many months of staring blankly at a service manual for a different Yamaha organ (the much larger YC-45D), everything suddenly makes sense now and I've been able to repair a great deal of my vintage YC-25D! I've even started drawing up my own partial service manual for my own records which should become useful in case of any future repairs (touch wood)!

Making a signal tracer, I found a dead transistor (and possibly capacitor), replaced those and finally gained all the flute voices back on the lower keyboard! It's been SOO nice having them working again as that was the thing I was most disappointed about being broken when I first bought it. I also managed to fix 2 broken wires and gained back 2 out of 8 of the dead notes in the lowest octave of the lowest voice of the lower keyboard too! The final 6 notes look to be from a faulty obsolete IC on the frequency divider board which I'm currently scouting out sources for. Fingers crossed for finding one soon, though if any of you have or know someone who has a spare YM001 / LM3211 / HD3111 6 stage divider IC, I'd be very much interested in purchasing one! Total cost of repairs so far £5.10 with 4 spare transistors, 4 spare capacitors + 10 reusable double ended crocodile clip wires I've been using for my diagnosis and repairs. Pretty darn pleased so far! Lets hope I can find the final piece of the puzzle and have it working at 100% soon!

Onto the only other news for this week, it's just a quick one to say that Better Than The Book's You've Got A Lot to Say [Instrumental] is now streaming on YouTube, Newgrounds and SoundCloud. New tracks from the Hopes and Dreams [Instrumentals] bonus album will be uploaded each Friday until the end of September (just 2 more weeks to go) and you can check out You've Got A Lot to Say [Instrumental] below:

Hi everyone and hope you're having a great week so far! It's been a pretty busy one here at JabunAudio sorting album credits, various online streams, announcement videos, and Patreon rewards for the upcoming 2nd Jabun album, as well as researching and preparing for finally getting my Yamaha YC-25D organ repaired, which is looking to be an ongoing personal project! Aiming to start on that later this week, and hopefully I'll see some successes and be able to diagnose the cause of some of the issues at the very least! Just a short blog post this week as while there's a lot in the pipeline (including some very exciting things I'll tell you about at a later date), it's just really the weekly Hopes and Dreams [Instrumentals] track to share with you today in terms of new music and projects! Let's get to it!

You know the drill by now: Better Than The Book's GG [Instrumental] is now streaming on YouTube, Newgrounds and SoundCloud! New tracks from the Hopes and Dreams [Instrumentals] bonus album will be uploaded each Friday until the end of September (that's 3 more weeks of these)! Check out GG [Instrumental] below:

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnD937m_8jM
Newgrounds: https://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/961930
SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/bttb_uk/gg-instrumental

And if you like what you hear, pick up Hopes and Dreams [Instrumentals] on Bandcamp along with the rest of the BTTB discography:

https://betterthanthebook.bandcamp.com/album/hopes-and-dreams-instrumentals

Or grab it along with the new exclusive download for Jabun [Alternate Reality]'s Warrior when you become a supporter on Patreon for as little as $1 a month! Find out more below:

https://www.patreon.com/posts/40080256
​
That about wraps things up for this week! Another BTTB instrumental track to share with you at the very least next time, but hopefully I'll have something else cool to share with you too (depending on the timing of things)! Looking forward to it and until next time, I hope you have a great week whatever you're up to and thanks as always for supporting JabunAudio, Jabun, Better Than The Book and my various projects! Take care!

Hi everyone and hope you're having a great start to September! It's been a jam packed week here at JabunAudio, firstly making the most of some free time at the end of the month to work on more Better Than The Book demos (6 rough demos fleshed out so far so it's going REALLY smoothly), then diving in deep with another hefty to-do list at the beginning of September releasing and promoting the debut track by Jabun [Alternate Reality]: Warrior (a Kesha metal cover)! Lots of cool stuff to share this week so let's start with that!

So yesterday was the first Wednesday of the month, and this time I had an extra special Patreon exclusive track to share with the $1+ patrons, the debut track from a brand new Jabun side project: “Jabun [Alternate Reality]”!

If you've not yet heard, Jabun [Alternate Reality] came about because there are things I’d like to release under the Jabun name which aren’t the chill or cinematic soundscapes you know me for, but are instead almost the complete opposite: Metal! I’ve been a metal fan and musician since my early teen years and it’s something that’s close to my heart but I certainly don’t feel fits under my usual Jabun or Better Than The Book banners which are more experimental/electronic/chill and ska punk respectively. I have plans to release more metal / metal inspired original music in the future, but to kickstart this project, I’m releasing a cover of Kesha’s “Warrior”, which being a mainstream pop song, gives a nice extra meaning to that “Alternate Reality” metal version I’m excited to share with you today!  

I’ve had this metal / metal core cover idea going through my head ever since I first heard Kesha’s Warrior years ago, and after seeing Killswitch Engage with Iron Maiden on August 11th 2018 and completing Better Than The Book’s 2nd full-length album in July 2019, I thought it was finally time to get this thing recorded! With some delays including moving house/studios, illness and more (not to mention this crazy 2020), I’m super happy to finally be able to share this first track as Jabun [Alternate Reality], the new not-so-chill side of Jabun! Enjoy Warrior!    

Jabun [Alternate Reality] - Warrior is an exclusive download for my supporters on Patreon only so if you like it, become a patron today for as little as $1 to grab Jabun [Alternate Reality] – Warrior:

$1 rewards (Mp3, Art): https://www.patreon.com/posts/40080255/ 
$5 rewards (Mp3, WAV, Art): https://www.patreon.com/posts/40080252/     

All original songwriting credits go to Kesha Sebert, Lukasz Gottwald, Max Martin, Pebe Sebert and Henry Walter with the original performance recorded by Kesha, and an extra special thanks to Vlad from World Beyond for lending his metal experienced ears during the mixing and mastering process! Couldn’t have sounded this good without your help!   

Arranged, performed and produced by Nick Standing   
Recorded, mixed and mastered at JabunAudio by Nick Standing   
Track artwork by Nick Standing   

For the $10 patrons we’re also taking a deep dive into the creation of Warrior with some WIP demos and a behind the scenes article! Become a $10 patron to access that and many more rewards now, and remember that you'll gain access to all historic rewards and posts for your Patreon tier too when you become a supporter! With the REWARD ARCHIVE tag it's never been easier to catch up with all those posts and  music downloads you've missed too! I hope you enjoy them!   

$10 rewards: https://www.patreon.com/posts/40080246/   
Find out more:  https://www.patreon.com/NickStanding     

And that's it for this month's Patreon rewards! Next time we’ll be back to complete Jabun’s current discography with the 2017 album Daydream! Until the next one, I hope you enjoy the brand new music and thanks as always for supporting Jabun, Better Than The Book and my various projects here on Patreon! 

Speaking of Better Than The Book, next on the news this week, just a quick one today to say that Better Than The Book's (The Travelling To See Eva Song) [Instrumental] is now streaming on YouTube, Newgrounds and SoundCloud! As I'm sure you know by now, new tracks from the Hopes and Dreams [Instrumentals] bonus album will be uploaded each Friday until the end of September! Check out (The Travelling To See Eva Song) [Instrumental] below:

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DWAd_it1IQ
Newgrounds: https://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/960196
SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/bttb_uk/the-travelling-to-see-eva-1

And if you like what you hear, pick up Hopes and Dreams [Instrumentals] on Bandcamp along with the rest of the BTTB discography (more about Bandcamp in a moment):

https://betterthanthebook.bandcamp.com/album/hopes-and-dreams-instrumentals

Or grab it along with the new exclusive download for Jabun [Alternate Reality]'s Warrior when you become a supporter on Patreon for as little as $1 a month! 

​Find out more:  https://www.patreon.com/NickStanding  

And speaking of Bandcamp, in support of musicians impacted by the coronavirus, Bandcamp is waiving its revenue share fees on the first Friday of the month from midnight to midnight PDT (that's tomorrow)! That means that if you purchase anything from Bandcamp this Friday 4th of September, 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 thinking of picking up Better Than The Book's "Hopes and Dreams" or grabbing Jabun's "Daydream" or one of my other tracks or albums, now's the best time to do so! Feel free to check out the Better Than The Book and Jabun Bandcamp pages below and thanks again for supporting my music in any way you can:

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

Finally this week, it's the beginning of another month which means it's time to reflect on some goals and set some new ones as usual. Here's what was set for August:
​
1) Sort Patreon rewards for the next 2 months
2) Keep up with BTTB guitar/vocal practice and learn THE guitar stage jump as I've planned
3) Finish preparations for releasing the mystery cover song and announcement it (ready for a September release)
4) Finish the admin work and make a promo plan for Jabun's 2nd album
5) Finished mixes and set up mastering for Jabun's 3rd album
6) Sort the global distribution problem for Hopes and Dreams [Instrumentals]

And woot woot, everything was done effectively! Patreon rewards are set and scheduled, I got a decent amount of BTTB practice done over the past few weeks including getting that jump under my feet, of course with Jabun [Alternate Reality]'s Warrior out now, everything was sorted for that, admin is all sorted and a promo plan made for Jabun's 2nd album, mixes finished and ready for mastering for Jabun's 3rd album, and Hopes and Dreams [Instrumentals] as of last week has FINALLY been approved for worldwide distribution! Great stuff! With everything done, it's a brand new goals list for September, so here's what I'm setting:

1) Sort the Bandcamp page and online streams / distribution for Jabun's 2nd album
2) Make and sort a teaser announcement video for the above album
3) Sort Patreon rewards associated with the above album (for November and December rewards)
4)Finish the promo plans for Hopes and Dreams [Instrumentals] and Warrior
5) Get a first draft master sorted for Jabun's 3rd album, and sent out for feedback
6) Set up a project folder for the upcoming Better Than The Book album and complete another 3 demos

I'd also like to make sure I keep up with the Better Than The Book live practice, though I'll not put that formally on the list (I think there's enough to do already). As you can see above there's lots of goals associated with promoting my recent releases, as well as getting ready for the announcement and release of Jabun's 2nd album at the end of the year, and carrying on production with other things at various stages in the pipeline. I think it's going to be a busy but doable one, though perhaps 3 more demos for BTTB might be overly ambitious depending on how much free time I have (though I did manage to pen 6 in just over a week, so not sure...). We shall see! Wish me luck and I hope you're able to have a productive time too! Feel free to share any goals in the comments!

And that about wraps things up for this blog post! A busy week ahead with promotional work for Jabun [Alternate Reality]'s Warrior and I've got a fair bit of other beginning-of-the-month things to sort such as backing up all projects and cleaning the studio too. Hoping to have time to work on some of the Jabun album preparation, or even mastering the next Jabun album, but we shall see. Next time we'll at least have the next track from Better Than The Book's Hopes and Dreams [Instrumentals] album to share, but I'm sure there'll be more to report too! Until then, I hope you have a great start to the month and thanks as always for supporting Jabun Audio, Jabun, Better Than The Book, and my various projects in any way you can. Enjoy all the new music and take care!