Ballet of Pain receives Front Page award on Newgrounds, Patreon rewards and the final JabunAudio email article sent out, BTTB Hopes and Dreams ready for mastering + setting & reflecting on some goals!

Hi everyone and I hope you've been having a great week and had a good helping of pancakes on Tuesday if you celebrated it! It's been another intense week here at JabunAudio mainly continuing with work on the upcoming Better Than The Book - Hopes and Dreams album, which is going very well (more on that in a moment). For the first time in a few months, there's no video to share from World Beyond this week, though I'm sure there are at least 3 left to go by my count. In any case there's still lots of news to cover so let's get started!

Firstly this week, a celebration as last week's game "Ballet of Pain" by Alex Clay received a front page feature on Newgrounds.com! A huge congratulations, and overall the game's reception has been successful so far. If you've yet to check it out, then you can play Ballet of Pain over on Alex's Webpage by clicking the picture below. We hope you enjoy the bittersweet adventure!

Next this week, some of the usual beginning of the month news to share! Yesterday was the first Wednesday of March which means I've just sent out rewards to the $1 /$2+ patrons, and this time I'm sharing another batch of Patreon exclusive downloads: a handful of demos from late 2011 / early 2012 for Better Than The Book songs before Better Than The Book was even a thing, which would later become tracks on the 2016 Two Year On album! 
          If that sounds good to you, then become a patron for as little as $1 a month to download this music and all previous rewards for your tier including the entire current BTTB discography! For those of you who decide to join (or have already joined) the $10 tiers or higher, this month I'll be sharing some work in progress draft artwork for the upcoming Hopes and Dreams album as well as a demo master for track 06 Get A Haircut! Enjoy the exclusive sneak peek!

https://www.patreon.com/NickStanding

Continuing with the beginning of the month news, I've just sent out another JabunAudio music production email article as well, and this one will be the 10th and final one in the series (for now at least). This time I'll be discussing my favourite methods for making a chorus (or equivalent section) sound bigger and hit harder to really make an impact whenever this important section of your song comes around! I'll be focussing on more traditional band arrangements, but many of these methods can be applied to various styles of music. If that sounds interesting to you, sign up for free on the JabunAudio home page, I hope you enjoy it, and be sure to share with anyone you think would be interested!

https://www.jabunaudio.com/

There'll still be one final email with a special announcement next month before I go on hiatus, but until then, let's make the most of more discussion!

​Next this week, some quick updates for the upcoming Hopes and Dreams album: as it currently stands, all the mixes have now been tweaked for maximum impact and the entire album is sequenced, trimmed and glowing with a lovely layer of mastering polish pretty much done! I just need to go through to check for errors and make any final tweaks if need be, then it'll ready to send off to some fresh ears for feedback! It's very VERY nearly there in terms of the audio and I'm aiming to certainly have it sent out before the next blog post, before I get back to working on the artwork while I wait for some feedback! Exciting times!

Finally this week, it's that time once again so let's look back at last month's goals and see how I did. Here's what was set:

1) Finish a first draft master of the album ready to send out for feedback before any final edits
2) Draft up the album art for the Hopes and Dreams BTTB album
3) Set aside ISRCs for the new Hopes and Dreams album and fill in all the information I can in my records (apart from the stuff I'll need to sort just before and after the release).

Looks like number 1) is almost but not quite done, but considering the busy and short month of February I don't think I'm unreasonably behind schedule for this one (a week or two at the most), and should have it done within a week for sure. 2) Is sort of done too, though I'd have liked to get an even better draft completed, or even started on the actual artwork. Still, the goal was technically completed, and the $10 tier on Patreon certainly has something to show for it. 3) was completed at the very beginning of the month so a big tick in the box to put there! Overall, I feel like I'm a little behind this month, but not too far. Let's set some new goals for March!

1) Finish the audio for the Hopes and Dreams BTTB album
2) Finish the artwork for the Hopes and Dreams BTTB album

Only two goals to set this month, but lofty goals they are! Essentially I want to have the content of album completed by the end of March / beginning of April, which I think is just about doable unless there are any major complications. I also have some other background and personal goals, some of which have already been completed pertaining to the JabunAudio Music Production Article, but all will be revealed next month. These two goal above are the big ones and the focus for the next 4 weeks! Any goals you'd like to share? Comment below and we can keep each other accountable!

And that about wraps things up for this week! I'll be busy doing the error checks and final tweaks for the Hopes and Dreams BTTB album over then next week, but other than that, I'll have to see what comes my way! Until next time, I hope you have a great week whatever you're up to and thanks as always for supporting JabunAudio, Better Than The Book and my various projects, whether here or on Patreon (or both!). Take care, and see you in the next post!