It's been a pretty admin-heavy week here at JabunAudio with the usual end of project things to sort out and the monthly archive and computer clean-up, though it's been a fun and slightly more relaxed than usual one, so I'm thankful for that. A nice change of pace before it gets busy again! As promised last week, there's two new tracks to share too, with the appropriate details + some more updates and news as usual. Lets get started!
Firstly this week, I'd like to share with you the 4th annual collaboration with my good Bob Axell (AKA Cyberdevil)! It's always a pleasure working (and conversing) with Bob, and this track was a cool challenge for both of us in terms of writing, production and performance. As opposed to our usual heavy guitar filled Rock/Hiphop anthems, this one's a stripped back free-time piece featuring just punchy vocals and heavy rock drums (+ some 808 booms). Bob's in charge of the mic (though see if you can spot my vocal cameo too!) and I'm on the drum pads and production/engineering! Hope you enjoy it and feel free to click on the track to see Bob's own words on the project on SoundCloud! Speaking of SoundCloud, my Jabun page is getting very near to maximum capacity, and with an over 30 minute Jabun album due for release early next year, I'm having to have a SoundCloud cleanout to make some room. This being the case, over the next few weeks, all the Cyberdevil collaborations will be transfered to the Cyberdevil SoundCloud Page instead, after which they'll be removed from the Jabun page and simply shared to the Jabun page from the Cyberdevil one. Similarly, all the Better Than The Book music has been reuploaded to the specific BTTB SoundCloud page, and so in time these projects will be removed from the Jabun page too. Of course this will produce some errors / missing links over this website, so I aim to go through and fix any broken links throughout the main pages, but not in the previous blog posts. I'll keep you all updated on progress as and when things are moved / removed, but don't worry, all of the music will be available on SoundCloud somewhere! And onto the next new track this week, I'm happy to present to you another soundtrack piece "Noir"! This piece was composed for the ADAM Audio Soundtrack Competition 2016 which ended earlier this week and the results are due to be published on Decemeber 14th. In short, the brief was to compose a 30 second piece of music with an elaborated stereo image for this picture (Apologies that I can't post it here due to copyright restrictions...). For me the picture told the story of a frustrated detective at his lowest point during a case, depressed and standing in the nightime rain, and I hope that the piece below reflects that interpretation to you too. Competition prizes: ADAM audio is famous for building world class monitor speakers with exepctional stereo imaging, and the grand prize for this competition was a one of a kind pair of custom AX77 monitors for your studio (and they look lovely!) 2nd place is a pair of their mid level Ax7 monitors, and 3rd place is a pair of their more entry level F7 monitors. Some fantastic prizes and for 30 seconds of music and some wonderful inspiration, I couldn't resist going in for it! Fingers crossed and I'll let you know how I get on when the results are announced! Also, once the competition is over, I'll be making this piece available for use in your own projects, so please feel free to buzz me if you'd like to use it after December 14th! Enjoy! Next, just some more updates on the Jabun Album. Last weekend was a super productive one, and now the album has surpassed 30 minutes in length with a fair few more tracks in progress or planned. Adding "Dreaming Pts. 1 - 3" to the tracklist mentioned last time, and I hope to be working on "Dreaming Pts. 4 - 6" soon! Still no concrete release date for the album yet, or even a confirmed title, but I'll keep you all updated as things progress! Unfortunately, I darn goofed this week which hopefully won't put too much delay on this project, but is a good life lesson, so I wish to share it! One thing I love to do when I'm not making music or doing animation audio is cooking. It's always a pleasure! But word to the wise, don't daydream while slicing things with sharp knives! It's been a LOOOONG time since I did something silly like this (last time it was with a stanley knife and much worse), and it's always the same place too, but I was daydreaming and sliced my thumb as well as the tomatoes while cooking the other day. Nothing too deep (I won't go into details) but it's certainly not in the most comfortable condition at the moment. I think I should be fine for piano playing and drums, but guitaring might need to take a rest for a bit. Hopefully it won't take too long to heal though, and it's far from my heart so all is ok! Looking forward to having a healthy thumb again though, and for sure I'll be more careful next time! And that's about it for this week! I'm aiming to do some more work on the Jabun album this weekend, though probably no guitar recording! It's going to be another tense wait until the competition results are announced on the 14th too and fingers crossed again. Oh! Before I forget too, JabunAudio will be closed this year during the Christmas / New Years break from December 21st to January 3rd (2 weeks), since I'll be visiting family for the holidays and I no longer have a studio set up locally to them. This being the case if you'd like any audio done before Christmas (depending on what it is), please get your orders in by December 16th at the very latest. I'll still keep the contact lines open during the Christmas break for work due to begin in Janaury, though I'll not be able to start anything until the 3rd, and I'll not be as active on the emails as I'll be spending time with family. This being the case too, the last JabunAudio update for the year will be on the 23rd, and will likely be a short one. There'll be a week's break and I hope to be back on January 6th with another short update. Anyways thanks as always for supporting JabunAudio and I hope you enjoy the new tracks! Hope you all have good weeks until next time and take care!
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It's been a fair few weeks since the last JabunAudio update, mostly due to moving places and getting the new studio set up (more on that soon) and project progress has understandably slowed down to fit the busy times. Apologies for that, but after some hard work a lot of invested time, everything's all carefully tuned to how I like it and I'm back to my usual productive self ready to take on any audio challenge sent my way! Lots of things to say this week, and with 3 weeks since the last blog post, I'm sure you're ready to hear it! Let's get straight to it: Firstly and probably the biggest news this week, I'd like to welcome everyone to the new JabunAudio Bamboo Forest studio in Margate! In contrast to my mobile set-up in Herne Bay, I once again have a dedicated and acoustically calibrated space to work and record (not just D.I. and headphones!). A huge thanks to my brother and dad who helped bring up my equipment from Sussex and made the move a lot less stressful, as well as my darling Eva for letting me make this spare bedroom my own space and being my amazing companion throughout this journey. The only unfortunate goodbye I had to say during this move was to my old desk chair which doesn't sound like much but has been my comfy support for over 4 years of making many many pieces of music and animations. A new chair, a new studio and a new chapter opens in the history of JabunAudio this month and I have a lot of great memories to be thankful for. I look forward to bringing you my best work so far from these four walls, and certainly even more when it comes time to move again. JabunAudio is back in business, and welcome to the Bamboo Forest! If you're interested in why "Bamboo Forest", the answer is pretty simple! Since this is a rented place for only 6 months, I'm not allowed to make permanent alterations to the room, so instead of sticking these wonderful acoustic tiles to the walls directly, I have constructed a frame of bamboo to which I can attach them. Looks pretty cool in my opinion, and certainly it makes a HUGE difference to the sound of the room having all the panels there! Love it! And hey, look at my plushie JabunAudio mascot, Sir Pigeon, in the chair! That's very cool! Anyway onto music news! Since even before the move, I've been hard at work on a number of musical projects: Firstly, it's been a while since I gave an update on the in-progress (and very first) Jabun album. Needless to say the move and other things have delayed production a little bit, but as it currently stands I have 6 tracks equating to about 24 minutes of music written and recorded so far, putting the album just past the halfway mark (in terms of writing and recording) for my target length! Not really sure how to describe it musically at the moment, but I think the general vibe resembles a strange cross between the instrumental work of Pink Floyd and Gorillaz? Something like that... Needless to say, it's been a pleasure to tap into that part of my musical identity again, and I look forward to sharing it with you all in the hopefully not to distant future. Unfortunately, as things stand I don't think it'll be complete by the end of the year now as I'd have hoped, since one of the plans was to do the mixing and mastering over the Christmas break in JabunAudio Studio1, but that no longer exists! This being the case, I'm aiming for an early 2017 release and will keep you updated on progress as best I can. No album title yet, but I'll let slip some track (working) titles right now to get your attention! Morning Distance Anxiety Palindrome Home (Morning reprise) Teasers will be shared before the year is over so keep an ear out! Onto the other main musical focus this month, as of yesterday, the new "Cyberdevil's Back (2016)" collaboration with the one and only Bob Axell is complete and due for release this coming Monday 28th! It's been a fun challenge working on this short and sweet rap track, and I'm looking forward to sharing it with you all! Bob's just sorting out the artwork at the moment, then after that, it'll just be a case of uploading and sharing. Funky and heavy rock drums, big 808 bass hits and of course some sweet rhymes from Bob (+ a little cameo from me) to come this Monday, and for sure I'll be sharing it on next week's blog post too! Get ready! Finally this week, a fleeting opportunity led me to work on yet ANOTHER short music project in just this past week. Due for release before the end of the month, it's a little 30 second track for the ADAM Audio Soundtrack Competition 2016, and I'll talk more about it soon when I share the track on next week's blog. Long story short, there's some fantastic prizes up for grabs and for just 30 seconds of composition (and a ton of inspiration) I couldn't help myself but give it a shot! All will be revealed next week so stay tuned and hope you enjoy it. That's it for this week! With the Bamboo Forest up and running, I'll be back to taking commissions and work in again next week and more before the Christmas break, but also working on the Jabun album when I can too! Hoping to create another track by this time next week (maybe two), but we'll see where inspiration goes and how busy things get. Anyway, hope you didn't miss me too much while I was moving and be sure to tune in next week for Cyberdevil's Back 2016 and the ADAM Soundtrack Competition piece too! Hope you all have good weeks and thanks as always for support JabunAudio and my projects. Take care!
It's been a busy 2 weeks since the last update. Apologies for the lack of one last Friday and due to future events which I'll cover later in this post, there'll likely not be one next week either... Hopefully this one will more than make up for it though! Lots to say and share this time as I've some new music I'm super excited to show you, a belated BTTB Halloween giveaway in case you missed it last week + some important announcements from Better Than The Book as well as JabunAudio. Let's get started!
Firstly this week, I finally finished my composition for the A P O T H E O S I S game's Level 3! This has undoubtedly been one of my most epic and challenging productions to date featuring I think the largest track count I've ever worked with in Ableton, my signature distorted bass tone (back by popular demand) played live with my home-build & horrendously gritty bass fuzz, a virtually created pipe organ and harpsichord (the 2nd of which I worked with the company to create it a few years back) consisting over over 4000 manually collated samples between them, and finally fusing the genres of trance, rock, glitch electronic, ambient and of course a hefty dose of neoclassical/baroque! Nothing less would be sufficient to give life to the final level before fighting for a place among the gods (as the game's story says!). Anyway, hope you enjoy this piece, I'm super happy with the way it turned out, and although it'll be a while until the game gets updated to include this one, please go to check out and download the demo of A P O T H E O S I S, it's great fun and featured all the previous music so far. Happy gaming and get ready to fight some monsters! Next on the list for this week, some Better Than The Book news! Firstly I'd like to say a huge thank you to everyone (and a little "Woo Hoo!") for helping BTTB reach 50 likes on Facebook and over 200 followers on Twitter! It means so much that people have lent there support and are more interactive than ever about the project and what it stands for! On top of that, in case you missed it last week due to the lack of blog post, Better Than The Book is giving away free downloads of "Undead Education" this weekend too. Just message them on Facebook or Twitter with your email and they'll drop a download link into your inbox! If you've yet to hear Undead Education, feel free to listen below, and a belated Happy Halloween to you all! As a final note from Better Than The Book for this post, earlier this week it was National Stress Awareness Day, and there's a post from the BTTB Facebook page I'd like to share. As a person who's suffered from stress myself as you will read below (as well as other mental illnesses), I think it's important not only to break down the stigmas associated with mental unwell but also CHALLENGE the conventions about it that seem hammered into us by the media, mainly the negative aura that surrounds topics such as stress. I hope this post makes you think a little differently about the subject, and will make a positive change in your thoughts and life. It's pretty long so I won't post it in full here, but thanks in advance for reading, and if any of you need someone to talk to about it feel free to buzz me. This isn't something you should face alone. Click here to read the full post: "Today is #NationalStressAwarenessDay..." Finally this week, I'm happy to announce that JabunAudio is moving! Again! So I'm sure you'd have read in some of the past updates about the problems I've had with the current place in Herne Bay, but we've now found a new place in Margate instead (just down the coast). JabunAudio will be stationed there for at least 6 months this time and due to the nature of the place, I'll hopefully be able to re-open a lot of the services I had to put on hold for a while, such as acoustic recording. We shall see and I'll keep you updated on any progress. The move is due to happen a week tomorrow, so the likelihood is that there won't be an update next week as everything will be packed away! In any case, I'll definitely miss Herne Bay and my current condensed set-up, but I sure won't miss the pigeons living in the walls, road noise, etc...! See you next time from JabunAudio Headquarters 2.1! That's it for this week and as stated above it'll likely be 2 weeks until the next update. What's in store while that's going on, you ask? Well now that the A P O T H E O S I S track is finished, I'm working now on a new collaboration with Cyberdevil (Bob Axell), which is very exciting! Should be finished by the end of the November, so keep your ears and eyes out for the announcements, I'll keep you all updated! Still working on the Jabun album too, when I've had the chance, but at the moment, it's taking a bit of a back seat. Anyways, I hope you all have a great 2 weeks and thanks as always for supporting JabunAudio and all my projects. See you from the new place and take care! |
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