Hi everyone and hope you've been having a great time since the last post. It's been intensely busy over here this week sorting out video uploads for the upcoming Better Than The Book - Hopes and Dreams album (amongst other things), and in case you missed it last week, check out the lyric video for the lead single Meteor Shower (courtesy of World Beyond's Vladimir Kuznetsov) below:

And remember that the Hopes and Dreams album is available now for pre-order on Bandcamp (​betterthanthebook.bandcamp.com/album/hopes-and-dreams). In case you can't wait though, you can get early access and hear/download the full album now when you sign up for $5 or more on the Nick Standing Patreon Page (​www.patreon.com/NickStanding), and remember that you'll get the entire BTTB discography when you sign up too. Neat!

Onto new things and more news this week, today I have another animation to share with you from Fun Station 4 Kids, and while I'm not mixing this one like I usually do, I did compose all the background music for it! Enjoy this short educational lesson from a brand new character Smarty Moose about how a locomotive works, and I hope you learn something new! 

That about wraps things up for this post. It's set to be more busy times in the coming week sorting the various video uploads as well as other preparations for the next single which releases 2 weeks tomorrow. Time sure is flying past! Until the next post though, I hope you have a great week filled with good times and thanks as always for supporting Better Than The Book, JabunAudio and my various projects. Enjoy the new video and take care! 

Hello everyone and hope you've all been having a great week since the last post! It has been an intensely busy week over here at JabunAudio as you can probably tell from the title of this post, so let's get straight to it with this week's big news!

Firstly and headlining this week, after tonnes of hard work and preparation, the lead single from the new Better Than The Book - Hopes and Dreams album , "Meteor Shower", has finally been released accompanied by a stunning lyric video courtesy of my great friend and musical collaborator, Vladimir Kuznetsov of World Beyond! Cheers Vlad! Check out the video below and prepare yourselves; this is BTTB's heaviest and most experimental track to date! I hope you enjoy "Meteor Shower"!

Head over to Bandcamp to pick up a download of Meteor Shower and pre-order the Hopes and Dreams album now:

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

Or get even more when you become a monthly subscriber on Patreon! This month, the $1+ patrons will receive an mp3 download of Meteor Shower + the album art, $2+ patrons will additionally receive the lossless CD quality WAV file for Meteor Shower, $5+ patrons will receive the ENTIRE Hopes and Dreams album (artwork, mp3s and WAVs) right now, over 2 months before the public release, as well as press photos for the album launch campaign, and $10+ patrons will receive all that + an in-depth look into the making of track 01 of the album "The Hardest Part", as well as a special thanks in the album credits for Hopes and Dreams!

Not only that, but when you sign up, you'll gain access to the entire history of rewards for your tier including the complete Better Than The Book discography (including the One Small Step EP and Two Years On albums) + many Patreon exclusive bonus tracks and more! There's never been a better time to subscribe to Patreon than today!

www.patreon.com/NickStanding

With the first single now released for the new album I also think it's finally time to reveal the schedule of what's to come, another two single releases, the album release + all the associated rewards on Patreon:

When the lead single is released and album pre-orders open (May 10th):
- $1 / $2 patrons will receive the lead single Meteor Shower
- $5+ patrons will get the full Hopes and Dreams album + press photos
- $10+ patrons will receive a WIP+Demos package for "The Hardest Part"  

When the 2nd single is released (June 7th):
- $1 / $2 patrons will receive the 2nd single
- $5+ patrons will get something else to share
- $10+ patrons will receive another WIP+Demos package

When the 3rd single is released (July 5th):
- $1 / $2 patrons will receive the 3rd single  
- $5+ patrons will get something else to share  
- $10+ patrons will receive another WIP+Demos package  

When the full album is released (July 19th):
- $1 / $2 patrons will receive the full album + all $5 tier extras shared

After that I'll be taking a little break before we go back to our usual Wednesday schedule sharing the Jabun music back-catalog starting for the $5+ patrons on August 28th, and the following Wednesday (September 4th) for the $1 / $2 patrons. It's certainly going to be a busy and fun few months! I hope you're excited as I am :)

Next this week, I thought it'd be cool to share some of the press that Meteor Shower has already received since its release less than a week ago including some kind words from my good friend and musical collaborator Vladimir Kuznetsov (as well as the various fans on the World Beyond YouTube Channel). Check out the various press features below:

May 10, 2019 - Vladimir Kuznetsov of World Beyond on Meteor Shower and the Hopes and Dreams album (Pre-release insight)
​May 13, 2019 - Meteor Shower lyric video featured on the World Beyond YouTube Channel (+ a nice write-up)
​May 13, 2019 - Better Than The Book's Meteor Shower lyric video featured on ThePunkSite.com

Next for this blog post, Mental Health Awareness Week has come around on the calendar once again, and as is the BTTB tradition, and also being aware that I've been very much overworking myself lately, I wrote a post about the importance of taking breaks even if it's away from something you're passionate about. You can read on the BTTB Facebook page, but I'll also post it up here too. I hope you find it insightful:

"It's Mental Health Awareness Week and despite the new album coming very soon filled with lyrics to inspire people to be true to themselves and follow their dreams, I'm very aware that I have been working WAY too hard recently and should take a proper break.
          "It's a great thing when you're passionate about what you do, as I sure am, but you've got to pace yourself and take care of yourself along the way to be able to keep that passionate fire burning. Don't burn yourself out for your dreams; keep tabs on how you're feeling and know your own signs that you're going at it too hard. If you're not feeling it, take a break; play some guitar, watch some cartoons, play some video games, brew a tea, just get away from work. Come back fresh later and you'll work better. A relaxed and balanced mind makes for better judgement and decision making which is essential for making your own path to your dreams. Sure, every decision you make may not be a good one, but at least you'll have made it out of balanced thought and not external stresses.
          "Time for lunch, a break, and to slow things down a bit until the next single release. 'It's not a sprint; it's a marathon. Just keep moving forward, another day, another step.'"

And in the spirit of taking breaks, following last week's 505 Day celebrations, I had another synth jam to get away from the BTTB admin and press work for the album which you can watch below! It's just a quick camera audio video, but it was great fun to take a break and get on the synths again. I hope you enjoy the little clip:

 
And for those of you interested, the equipment used was:
Korg Volca Keys (Melodies) and SQ-1 (Triggering the Moog) 
Roland Tr-08 (Drums)
Moog Werkstatt-01 [Modded] (Bass line)

Finally this week I have another amazing animation to share with you from Fun Station 4 Kids, a dinosaur remix of my favourite childhood fairy-tale: The Three Billy Goats Gruff! Unfortunately, I'm not doing the sound mixing for this one, but it still includes my track "See Ya Later" as the credits music. Nevertheless, the animation is as stunning as ever and I hope you enjoy T-Rex's latest adventure with some new 3 horned acquaintances! Presenting. The Thee Triceratops Gruff:

Hi everyone and hope you're having a great week since the last post! It's been a super busy one over here getting everything prepared for the launch of the lead single from the new Better Than The Book - Hopes and Dreams album, "Meteor Shower", (more on that in a moment) as well as celebrating some other special things throughout the week too! Lots of things to share this time so let's get started!

Let's start with news of what's to come. After much hard work and preparation, I'm super excited to finally announce that the lead single from the upcoming Better Than The Book - Hopes and Dreams album, "Meteor Shower" will be launching this Friday 10th May at 6pm BST on YouTube along with a fantastic lyric video courtesy of my good friend and collaborator, Vladimir Kuznetsov of World Beyond! Not only that, but at the very same time pre-orders will be opening for the Hopes and Dreams album on Bandcamp, as well as the album cover art finally being revealed to the public! Come join the premier via the YouTube video link below (This will become a proper video once the premier has started), and keep an eye on the Better Than The Book Bandcamp page to see the new album art, album credits, and pre-order Hopes and Dreams:

https://betterthanthebook.bandcamp.com/

Remember too that the Hopes and Dreams album has already been released to the $5+ monthly patrons over on Patreon, so if you can't wait to hear the rest of the album, head over to Patreon to receive early access to the album over 2 months before it releases to the public! I hopes you enjoy it!

https://www.patreon.com/NickStanding

Next this week, a bit of a different celebration for the 5th of May, which I'd decided this year to make an unofficial 505 Day honouring the Roland TR-505 drum machine, an unsung hero in Roland's synth history! The rest of the Roland X0X machines get a lot of love with the TB-303, TR-808, TR-909 and more recently the SP-404 having their own dedicated days of celebration by the Roland Corporation, either sharing articles or launching new products on these special days to celebrate their technology which has made a huge mark on the music industry. The TR-505 hasn't made quite as big an impact as it's siblings but is undoubtedly a charming drum machine in its own right, and on this 5th of May, the first that's come now that I actually own a TR-505, I thought it'd be nice to make some short videos to remind people of this lovely instrument an its quintessentially 80s digital character! The one I'm playing of course was a 29th birthday present from my twin brother Eamon last month, my first instrument older than I am (1986), and while I'm still getting used to programming it properly, I thought I'd do some finger-drumming for 505 Day and share it with the world. Check out the video below:

[For those interested, the TR-505 was recorded in mono through the Korg ESX Electribe (Red machine above it) adding a touch of reverb and valve saturation, before heading to my Akai MPC 1000 to capture the audio which was then synced to the video in post editing].

Here's another extra video from the same session, though this time it's just the camera mic:

Whether you're an avid drum machine fan or you've only heard about the TR-505 today, I hope you enjoy the videos above and I look forward to recording with it properly soon! ​No doubt this gem will be on the next Jabun album which I aim to start working on later this year. Anyways, a belated Happy 505 Day to you all, and I look forward to 808 day when I'll likely be doing a similar video with my TR-08 reissue of the classic machine (unless I get 606 or 707 in the mean time)! Fun times!

Lastly this week, a big celebration for the 4th of May as my debut chill / electronic album as Jabun, Daydream, celebrates 2 years since its release! Man how the time flies! If you've yet to hear it, then feel free to sit back, relax and have a listen via the player below (make sure to start from track 01) and feel free to pick up a copy on Bandcamp if you like it. It's been a while since I've worked on similar chill vibes, but once the BTTB - Hopes and Dreams album is out, and after another brief excursion, I hope to get back to it and start on another Jabun EP or album later this year. Looking forward to it, and while you wait, enjoy Daydream:

That about wraps thing up for this post! I hope you're all excited as I am for the "Meteor Shower" lyric video launch tomorrow so come join the premier on YouTube and check out the BTTB Bandcamp page as soon as you're done to read more about the upcoming album, check out the cover art and pick up a pre-order! I'm sure you'll love it! No doubt that next week will be busy with the promo work for the new single but there'll definitely be more to share in the next blog post so look forward to that. Until then I hope you have a great week and thanks as always for support JabunAudio, Better Than The Book and my various music projects. Take care until then, and I hope you enjoy the new and old music and videos! 

Hi everyone and I hope you've had a great few weeks since the last post and a nice Easter break if you had one. It feels like the calm before the storm at the moment with not much going on over here since I got back apart from catching up on things and finishing the preparations for when the lead single of the upcoming Better Than The Book - Hopes and Dreams album drops next Friday (10th May). I say calm, but it feels more frantic than anything as there is still much to do! Although there isn't much to report JabunAudio-wise this time, as I've only been back a few days, my time away over the past 2 weeks has been filled with many great things, so let's talk about that instead!

​The first half of my time away was barely a break at all as from day one it was right back into hard work commencing with a photo shoot in Brighton for the upcoming Better Than The Book - Hopes and Dreams album's press release. We truly lucked out on the weather that day getting some great shots in glorious sunshine which I'll be editing this week, though one of my chosen locations was having renovation work done, and the back-up one had been built over since I was last there?! Overall a great but busy day hanging with friends (to ease my nerves and generate genuine smiles). A huge thanks to Roxy, Sam and Eamon for all their help!
          Onto the next day (Saturday), it was finally time to reveal the album to my family and some close-to-the-project-former band-mates with a cup of tea and and a listening party and it seems like the album has a big thumbs-up from them! Interestingly, a popular consensus is that the singles while great are NOT the biggest gems on the album (but are probably more radio-friendly), with the very different "You've Got A Lot To Say" stealing the spotlight in many of their hearts. I shall say no more, you can decide for yourself when the album comes out, but from their reactions and involuntary headbanging, I can safely say this one's gonna be a banger! The album art was well received too (always a plus)!
          Sunday was a family day with cousins, grandparents, aunts, uncles, parents and siblings, eating and talking well into the night, and Monday was a visit to more family further away as well as playing with adorable dogs in their garden. Always great to see everyone and catch up! Tuesday was a trip to the dentist (fun...) before Eva arrived in the evening ready for 29th birthday celebrations with my twin and I on Wednesday, which was the first lazy day of trip and much needed. We ended up spending the day watching Avengers: Infinity War ready for Endgame on Thursday, before a nice meal out in the evening. 
          As with every birthday there was an exchange of gifts and this year was an amazing one. From Eva I finally received the Vox Bass Amplug (Gen1) that she'd outbid me on eBay around Christmas time which sounds lovely and has been great for quiet practicing with that full amp'd tone (no doubt I'll be using it for recording later too), and from my parents, tickets to Alice Cooper at the Brighton Center which are sure to take me back to my teen years! My brother Eamon as usual outdid my present to him with something simply incredible but more on that in a moment. Last year he'd bought a compact drum kit which he's been slowly adding to but said is getting a bit too big to carry solo now, so I thought I double his sounds from it by getting him some double ended mallets for timpani tom hits and soft cymbal swells, quickly switchable back to regular drum stick tone and he loved them! Eva completed the present ensemble with a stick bag to hold his new sticks and other drum hitting/tuning gear. I finally got to see the kit in full this trip too and it's great fun! I've not drummed in around 7 years (not that I was great back then) but doesn't seem like I've lost the little skill I had which is nice! I also got him an album which as an avid Green Day fan he should really have got over a decade ago, the phenomenal American Idiot. Always nice to have more music!
          So onto Eamon's gift to me, he seemed determined to spread it out and present it to me in parts just to mess with my head (as usual), but no words can even come close to how amazing it was. First he handed me an envelope labelled fragile with a message telling me to empty my bowels before opening and welcome to the club. Cryptic! Inside was a very home-made looking plastic object which on close inspection I figured out must be a battery cover? The next wrapped parcel I could tell from the shape and weight was clearly a pack of AA batteries, confirming my thoughts on the previous object. Finally he presented to me a HUGE UPS box and told me to open it. I carefully cut open one side and pulled out lots of protective packaging to reveal a much smaller slightly battered red hard flight-case. Excited and with no idea what could be inside, I flipped open the metal catches to open it and was instantly speechless. Inside was an undoubtedly gigged but beautifully vintage Roland TR-505 drum machine (1986), my first vintage synth and the first piece of gear I owned that was older than me. Eamon had used his crazy good sales skills to snag a deal on eBay then spent the last month restoring and testing it with more of his crazy skills, making a new battery cover and printing off a manual for it. The club he'd been referring to was the vintage synth club of which Eamon has been a member since our teen years when he bought a broken Korg Polysix off eBay and restored it to it's amazing 80s glory, and has since amassed a small museum's worth of vintage synths and gear. It was an amazing gift and I really can't wait to make some music with it! With Vlad saying that Jabun should do a synthwave album next and the TR-505 being pretty much THE quintessential drum machine for the job, as well as Eamon egging me to make some synthwave too, I guess the new Jabun album is gonna be a synthwave one! The ideas are already brewing and I can't wait to get started!
          Onto Thursday, more fun was still yet to come as Andy the drummer from my very first band came over for a catch-up (after seeing Avengers: Endgame in the morning and having to hold is tongue VERY carefully!). It so happens that we all share the same birthday too (although he's a year younger than my twin and I), and it was great to catch up on everything and meet up in person again. Even though he'd not played drums in about as long as I had (though he's MUCH better than me) we managed to persuade him onto Eamon's compact kit and while hesitant to start with it was clear he was having fun within the first minute or so. It wasn't long before Eamon had grabbed a guitar and I'd dragged my small bass amp from the other room and we were jamming and playing the old songs from our teen years again, and though understandably rusty (having been over a decade since we'd last played together, and me trying to figure out the bass parts I didn't even play back in the day since I played guitar in that band), it was so much fun! It was a shame Sam (the aforementioned) couldn't be there to play bass and have the band all together again, but we had a great time nonetheless, jamming out Black Sabbath, Kiss and Blue Oyster Cult, as well as some of our own old Crow's Wing tunes. Approaching dinner, more friends came over and we made our way to town for as is tradition the best burger place in Burgess Hill: Uncle Sam's, before hanging out at 'Spoons for some drink then splitting off for the rest of us to see Endgame at the Orion cinema. No spoilers here (and don't post any in the comments either), but what a film! I shall say no more! 
          Friday was another lazy day ending with a less rushed than Thursday friends meet-up and dinner at 'Spoons which was great! I love those guys! Saturday commenced with the usual family coffee meet-up, which was nice as always then a lazy afternoon and evening before backing up on Sunday to head back to the flat with Eva (reading the TR-505 manual on the train). Overall it was a busy but lovely trip, with the only nagging thing being my hay-fever flaring up for most of the week (thankfully after the photo shoot), and I can't wait to put those presents to good use making music once I've sorted everything for this upcoming album's release. It's back to busy that's for sure!

There's not a lot else to report this week but I hope you enjoyed that recap of what I've been up to! Let's finish off with the usual monthly reflections! Here were the goals for April:

1) Complete my tax return
2) Renew the JabunAudio website (name and service provider)
3) Finish the album as a product and get all preparations finished for the release
4) Prep a Patreon post for when I'm away

So looks like I did well! 1), 2), and 4) are done and sorted, and 3) is mostly done, I've just got to finish editing the photo shoot which I'm aiming to be done by the end of the week. There's still a lot to prepare on the admin side of things though (prepping Facebook / Twitter posts / emails) for the album, so let's set some new goals for May with that in mind:

1) Finish editing and send off press photos
2) Make a detailed promo plan from May until September and finish preparations for the single release on May 10th
3) Sort all streaming uploads for the new album (YouTube, SoundCloud, Newgrounds, etc...)
4) Upload the JabunAudio catalogue to AdRev (less urgent)

It's mainly admin goals for the next month, but hopefully I can get back to some music making once the urgent stuff for the album release is done (while I continue with the promotional schedule of course). It's undoubtedly going to be a busy month, so wish me luck and I hope you have a great and productive time too! 

That's it for this blog post! I'll be finishing off editing those press photos and sorting out the promo plan in the coming week ready for the single launch on Friday 10th, but maybe I'll get some time to start making music again too? We'll see how it all goes. Until next week, I hope you have a great time whatever you're up to and thanks as always for supporting JabunAudio and my various projects. See you for more news in the next blog post and take care! 

Hi everyone and I hope you've all been having a splendid week! As always it's been another busy one here at JabunAudio preparing for this latest Better Than The Book album release and wrapping things up before the 11 day downtime over the Easter period. Exciting times it has been though and I'm happy to confirm that as of Saturday, the JabunAudio website has been renewed for another year of services and portfolio archives. Horray! I also had the pleasure this week of sending out JabunRecords' first royalty cheque which was an exciting milestone for me. Onto the main event for this post though, I have some HUGE news for you today so let's get straight into it!

After much hard work and preparation, I am ecstatic to announce that Better Than The Book's 2nd full-length studio album “Hopes and Dreams” is finally complete and ready to share with the world! The lead single is due to be released on May 10th, along with an album art reveal and pre-orders opening on Bandcamp, and after another 2 singles over the next few months, the full album will be released to the public in July! Exciting times! If you can’t wait to hear it all though, early access has now opened to my supporters on Patreon, and with this month’s rewards posted out last weekend, it’s really never been a better time to join the pre-release party than now! 

If you're a $5+ tier patron, then you'll be receiving the full 10 track (39 minutes) Hopes and Dreams album, Mp3s, WAVs and artwork a whopping 90+ days before it's released in full to the public in July (such is the promo schedule)! For the $1+ patrons you'll be receiving the full sized cover artwork for the album before the public reveal with the lead single in a month's time, as well as the singles and album as they are released to the public over the next few months.

If you're a $10+ patron, then this month I'm continuing from where we left off last time for an in depth look into how the Hopes and Dreams artwork was made, as well as some alternative artworks which weren't used for the final cover. Don't forget too that as a $10+ patron you'll also get your name mentioned in the special thanks section of the album credits (if you'd like)!

I'm also sharing with my patrons the release schedule for the singles and album (as well as their associated rewards) before it goes out to the public with the lead single on May 10th.

With so much going on, it's never been a better time to join Better Than The Book and my other projects on Patreon and remember that when you sign up, you'll receive all the previous rewards for your tier including the entire rest of the Better Than The Book discography with Patreon exclusive bonus tracks, demos and much more. Sign up for as little as $1 a month, or $5 to pick up the new Hopes and Dreams album now (as well as the entire BTTB back catalogue) before it's released to the public. I hope you enjoy it! 

Join the pre-release party today: https://www.patreon.com/NickStanding

And for a taste of what you'll be getting and what to expect from the new album, check out the Better Than The Book discography on bandcamp:

https://betterthanthebook.bandcamp.com/

That about wraps things up for this post! After such a busy time since the start of the year and before, I'm looking forward to the extended break next week, but after that I'm sure it'll be back to hard work on the album promotion before the lead single is launched on May 10th! Big things to come when I get back but I hope you have a great time until the next post and as always thanks for supporting JabunAudio, Better Than The Book and my various music projects. Take care and see you in 2 weeks!

Hello everyone and hope you're having a great week so far! As always it's been a busy time over here, this time finishing off the upcoming Better Than The Book - Hopes and Dreams album and sorting out the various extra things for its release. It'll only be a short blog post this week with some updates on how things are going, so let's get straight to it!

So first of all, I'm super happy to announce that the Better Than The Book - Hopes and Dreams album is now official finished as a product! Artwork is done, master audio WAVs have been exported and checked to perfection, and the mp3s have been converted and tagged with all the metadata! ISRCs and UPCs have been secured and are in the process of registration at the moment, and the album is in the process of being uploaded to distributors too. I've also been working closely with the PR people and we've selected the 3 singles for the album and sorted a rough release date / schedule too (to be set in stone when the first single is released in May). Photo shoots have been booked and some extra stuff is in the process of being sorted too! All in all super busy but super exciting times! Since the album is finished now I'll be uploading it to Patreon within the week as a reward for the $5+ Early Pigeons and patrons, so if you want to be the first to hear it even before it's officially announced with the lead single, now would be a great time to sign up to Patreon for the $5 of higher tiers, and you can pick up the rest of the BTTB discography and more when you do. I hope to see you there!

https://www.patreon.com/NickStanding

As well as those exciting updates on the album, I've also been busy this week with the usual yearly admin for JabunAudio. Tax returns have been completed (and much better results than last year which is nice), and the JabunAudio website domain has been renewed for another year (the website service itself will be renewed this coming Saturday). All in all a very productive week, though I'm looking forward to getting back to making music when all the admin work is done, as well as a break when I go away in a week's time.

And that about wraps things up for this post! I'll be busy over the next 7 days before I go away finishing off as much as possible for the album release (and much more), and next week will be the final blog post until I return at the start of May. Until then I hope you have a great time whatever you're up to and thanks as always for supporting JabunAudio, Better Than The Book and my various projects. See you next week and take care!

Hi everyone and hope you're having a great start to April (and weren't caught out by too many April Fools' pranks)! It's been a busy week for me cutting the final master exports for the upcoming Better Than The Book - Hopes and Dreams album and finishing off the cover artwork, as well as helping sort out some more super exciting things for the release, along with the less exciting admin side of things too! A quick reminder that there aren't any new Patreon rewards going out this week, but more great stuff will be coming very soon when the album is complete and that any new patrons will still gain access to all the previous rewards for their tiers when they sign up too (www.patreon.com/NickStanding). In the mean time, I still have some exciting news to share with you at the beginning of this month, so let's get straight to it!

Firstly this week, it's the beginning of the month which means I've just sent out another JabunAudio music production newsletter. There's no new topic to discuss this time, but instead I have a special announcement for you! As many of you already know, over the past year I've been sending out this monthly music production article to those who have signed up on the JabunAudio homepage and the series so far has covered many topics ranging from mastering, my favourite genres of pop-punk and ska-punk, to many more tips and discussions which can be applied to almost any genre of music. In this final newsletter (for now at least), I'm proud to introduce the JabunAudio Music Production Article Archives, a collection of all the articles from this series in an exclusive hidden section of this website. You can sign up for free on the JabunAudio homepage to get all the access and I hope you enjoy reading them if you haven't already. For those of you who've been keeping up with it over the past year (or if you've just signed up and read through), which was your favorite article? I hope to get back to the series at some point in the future, but for now I'll be taking a bit of a break to concentrate on other things and gather more ideas. Thanks for all the support!

Sign up on the JabunAudio Homepage <<< Click here

Next this week, a heads up for some seasonal downtime. JabunAudio will be closed for the Easter break from Thursday 18th April to Monday 29th April, during which I will be unable to carry out any audio work. Any communications during this period may also receive delayed responses, though feel free to message me and I'll get to any messages by Monday 29th April. Apologies in advance for any inconvenience, and I look forward to working with you when I get back! Of course the blog post will be on hiatus during that period too meaning the last blog post before the break will be on Thursday 18th April before a 1 week break and returning on Thursday 2nd May! Hope you don't miss me too much and I look forward to sharing more music with you all when I get back!

Finally this week, as is the monthly tradition, let's look back at March's goals and set some more for April. Here's what we had for March:

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

So I can't quite yet say that these are done, but they're teetering over the edge of competition! The master WAVs for the album have been exported and are just awaiting final approval from a few trusted ears, and it's a similar case for the artwork. The album is essentially complete, though, literally a tickbox of approval away! With that said let's set some new targets for April! I'll not bother re-setting the ones above since they'll be included in some of the new goals:

1) Complete my tax return
2) Renew the JabunAudio website (name and service provider)
3) Finish the album as a product and get all preparations finished for the release
4) Prep a Patreon post for when I'm away

April is always a busy month with the start of the new tax year, my birthday and (most years) Easter as well, so it's looking to be a busy one as usual. The first 2 goals should be fairly easy admin tasks to complete, and similarly 4) should be easy to sort out too. 3) will be the most difficult as on top of the album being finished audio+art-wise, there's also the mp3s to convert and tag, some other exciting stuff to finish though I'll keep that a secret for the moment, a press photo shoot to organise and edit, pre-orders to set up, ISRC + UPC registrations to make, and much liaising with PR people to do; it's going to be super busy, especially since I'm not here for much of the month! The aim is to be all prepared to release the album to the early pigeons ($5+ tier) on Patreon before I head off, then have all the preparations made ready to release the lead single and launch pre-orders in May. We'll see how it all goes!

That about wraps things up for this week! No doubt this coming week for me is going to be filled with admin work and finishing off the album as a product, but we'll see where else the wind takes me. Until next time, I hope you have a great week and thanks as always for supporting Better Than The Book, JabunAudio and my various projects! Take care and see you in the next post!

Hello everyone and hope you've had a great week so far. With the upcoming Better Than The Book - Hopes and Dreams album audio pretty much finished, I've been working intensely this week on the album's cover artwork which is coming on well but taking a bit longer than I predicted. Still, it was over a year working on the songs and audio for the album, so spending a bit more time on the artwork seems justified at this point. No point rushing these last few hurdles, and I positive the wait will be worth it! Onto other news this week, there's just a few little things to share, so let's get to it!

First of all, Fun Station 4 Kids has released another Dinosaur animation right on time for March: Dinosaur March! While I wasn't directly involved with the production of this one, it features my track "See Ya Later" as the credits music and it was great to see all the dinos being drawn behind the scenes too. With a whopping 33,000 views in the first 36 hours since release, it's been the quickest start in views to any of the FS4Ks projects to date! Simple but effective! Check out the video below and what's you're favorite dinosaur in the video? Mine is Moschops. He so chonky! Enjoy!

Next and finally for this post, just a quick Patreon update. Although yesterday was the final Wednesday of the month, the Hopes and Dreams album is so very close to completion that I've decided to hold off the rewards for a few weeks so that the next set of $5+ rewards will be the finished product. I've also made a patron only post detailing the schedule for the next few months of rewards which will focus around the upcoming album. You can read it by becoming a patron for as little as $1 a month, but don't worry, the schedule will become public once all the dates are set in stone. Head over to Patreon for more details:

www.patreon.com/NickStanding

That about wraps up this shortish post! I'll be continuing to work on the album art until it's done, then it'll be time to finish preparing the album as a finished product ready for the tonne of admin work surrounding its release! It's going to be a busy time for sure, but we'll see if there's more exciting news to share in the next post. Until then, thanks as always for supporting JabunAudio and my various projects and I hope you have a great week whatever you're up to. Enjoy the dinosaurs and take care!

Hi everyone and hope you're having a great week! It's been a busy one over here doing some client mastering work (more on that in a moment), whilst working through feedback to finish off the audio for Better Than The Book's upcoming Hopes and Dreams album. I'm super pleased to announce though that after a few minor tweaks (and seems like 3rd time's the charm as usual), the new album audio has passed the test of my musical production peers and has been declared ready for release! All that's left to do is export and check the final audio files, create the artwork, which I'm currently busy working on, and then a whole bunch of admin work to get the finished product ready for going out into the world! Super exciting times, and hopefully I should be on track for getting the album (as a product) completely finished by the end of the month or thereabouts. Onto the main news for this week, there's a couple of cool things to share so let's start off with a big celebration!

First of all, a huge congratulations to the Fun Station 4 Kids team for surpassing 1 Million views on YouTube with our quirky Humpty Dumpty animation! This one was a whole load of fun to work on as while I was on audio post-production duties as usual, Vlad from World Beyond was commissioned to do the score music which was spectacular! If you've yet to see it, feel free to watch the video below, and once again a huge well done to FS4Ks for yet another video surpassing 1 Million views on YouTube! Amazing!

Next and lastly this week, I wanted to share with you this track I mastered for Zelazon, which was a load of fun to work on. You can read more about it in the description on SoundCloud, and if you're in need for audio mastering on your own tracks/albums, send me a message and I look forward to working with you! Without further wait I hope you enjoy" Fated":

And that's about it for this week! I'll be concentrating on artwork for the new BTTB album until it's finished, after which it'll be time to make those final master exports and finish off the album completely! Whether that'll all get done in the next 7 days I'm not so sure, but we'll see how it all goes and whatever else pops up in the coming week. 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 music projects. Take care and see you in the next one!

Hi everyone and hope you're having a great week! Just one thing to report for this blog post so it's going to be a short one, but that one thing is that the first full-album master test for the upcoming Better Than The Book - Hopes and Dreams album is finally complete and has been sent out for feedback! Unless any problems are brought to my attention to address, the album is pretty much complete audio-wise, which means it's time to get back to some artwork. Exciting times!

And that's it for this blog post! Short, sweet but good news I think. Looks like I have some client mastering work to get on with this coming week too so along with working on the BTTB album art, it looks to be another busy one. Until next time, thanks as always for supporting Better Than The Book, JabunAudio and my various projects and I hope you have a great time whatever you're up to in the coming week. Take care and see you in the next one!