A brand new Better Than The Book & Jabun track "1314" (the track I proposed with), October Patreon rewards (+ an 808 Day Jam for the $10 patrons), I built a spring reverb, project updates + setting and reflecting on monthly goals!

Hi everyone and hope you're having a great start to October so far! It's time for the monthly blog post and Patreon rewards, and this time I have a brand new track from Better Than The Book & Jabun "1314" (the track I proposed with) to share with you before some studio and project updates and the usual setting and reflecting on monthly goals. Let's start with the new single!

On August 22nd 2021, the night of our 100th full moon together, I proposed to Eva with a specially written song "1314", a mixture of my 2 musical personalities Better Than The Book & Jabun with influences from her favourite musicians too, and she said YES! WOOOOOT! A huge thanks goes out to Eva for being my everything buddy and now fiance, all her support during the ups and downs throughout the years, and for letting me share this track with you all. It was made for her ears but I hope you enjoy it too!

Thank you also to everyone else who's been a part of my musical journey and our relationship all these years so far too: all our family and friends, everyone who's played the music and spread the word, and my closest regular supporters on Patreon with special mention to the top tier contributors Michael White and Nathan Puray! We couldn't have got this far without all your support and I'm super excited to see (and hear) what comes next! My love to you all and thanks so much!

1314 is available now on Bandcamp and should be out on iTunes, Spotify, Amazon, etc... imminently if not already:

​https://betterthanthebook.bandcamp.com/album/1314-single

And you can also listen to the song on YouTube, SoundCloud and Newgrounds:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAUGCsr60kg
https://soundcloud.com/bttb_uk/1314a
https://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/project/1735813

But what does "1314" mean and what's the deal with the artwork?! If you want to know the full story behind the song then you'll have to become a supporter on Patreon, and with such a big release, there's a tonne of rewards out in celebration too! All patrons now have downloads for 1314 and full-resolution artwork, and for the $10 patrons I'm also sharing with you another ambient LIVE Jabun jam, this time from my 2021 808 Day celebrations! On top of this there'll be the usual monthly project/studio updates in which I'll be sharing with you some pictures and sounds from my newly completed homemade/recycled spring reverb unit (more on that in a moment)! If that sounds good to you then become a patron for as little as $1 and remember you'll be receiving the entire back catalogue of rewards for your tier too as soon as you sign up including the full Better Than The Book and Jabun discographies and MUCH more. Explore the posts below to see all the details:

$1 rewards: https://www.patreon.com/posts/55832143/
$10 rewards: https://www.patreon.com/posts/55832145/​
Reward Archive: https://www.patreon.com/posts/50344842

Onto some studio updates, I have something super exciting to share with you this month! Remember in the last blog post I mentioned I was building a reverb unit from recycled 1970s Yamaha organ parts? We'll it's now finally complete and ready to share with you! Introducing the JabunAudio "Vintage 'Verb":

And here's a peek under the lid at the electronics and spring too!

The Vintage 'Verb is a super simple single-spring mono spring reverb unit which you can run anything you like into for an instant and oldschool reverb effect; anything from the tiniest subtle added ambience to a complete surfy washout and everything in between! I thought I'd just show some pictures of it here, but for a full deep dive into all the controls as well as an exclusive jamming guitar demo of it, become a Patreon for as little as $1 for the full show and hope you enjoy my noodling! I can't wait to use it on some new tracks!

https://www.patreon.com/NickStanding

Onto some project updates and things, there were no new press features to share this month unfortunately, but that's ok because it's been a super productive month project-wise! I've just about got all the instrumental editing done for Better Than The Book's 3rd album (and then some) which means I can start recording vocals very soon! I've also set up all the horn sessions for tracks where that's applicable (so I can finish arranging and programming the final horn parts) and am currently going through the lyric sheets to make sure the words are top notch before I reach for the mic! There's plenty to get on with on the days I can record vocals, and lots to do on the days I can't too, so I'll definitely be busy with things and hopefully won't reach any roadblocks soon! Wish me luck and hopefully I'll have some vocal tracks recorded by this time next month, and maybe some horn parts done too! 

Finally this week, let's reflect on last month's goals and set some new ones for October! Here's what I set last month:

1) Finish consolidating edits and setting up sessions ready for BTTB vocal recording (5 tracks left)
2) Prep this new track from the proposal for public release and get everything scheduled ready for release.

And a productive month it has been! I wasn't actually expecting to get all 5 tracks done for goal 1) but looks like I'm back on track and on my way to the next steps of recording soon! 2) is all done too with the new track out now! All in all a good show! As for what to set for next month, here's what I had in mind:

1) Finish promo and updating websites etc... for the 1314 single
2) Finish at least one track of vocals for BTTB 
3) Finish arranging and finalise at least one horn part for BTTB
4) Finalise all the lyric sheets for the upcoming BTTB projects

I think these should hopefully be doable, though I'm not sure what the availability for recording will be and how smoothly things will go, so while I hope to get at least one vocal and horn part done, ideally things'll be a little more productive than that. Promo for 1314 is due to finish on Monday anyway so that should be done shortly, and while there are 12 lyrics sheets in total to sort, 4 are already done, so just 8 left to go (and things are mostly settled already too). Things are still a bit up in the air over here so we'll see how everything goes but wish me luck and I hope you all have a productive October too!

And that wraps things up for this month's blog post! I'm not sure what's on the horizon for the coming weeks, but there'll be at least some more Patreon rewards and goals to share with you next month. Until then, I hope you have a great October to come and thanks as always for supporting JabunAudio and my various projects however you can! Enjoy the new music, all the best and take care!