Hi everyone and looking back it's been a super busy week here at JabunAudio! My time's been spent finishing off a Better Than The Book bonus track for next month's Patreon rewards (all finished now), doing some proof listening for World Beyond's upcoming album, (which is sounding fantastic), and starting the mixing process for my own upcoming Better Than The Book album, which I'm super pleased with so far. I also have a photo to show you, my entry for the Fender Upgrade Contest which is going on until the end of the month. A few cool things to share this week so let's get straight to it!

First of all, some updates on the Better Than The Book album! As mentioned above, I've just started mixing the first track of the upcoming album, and this month, I wanted to take some time to concentrate on just one track to establish a new sound for these new songs, a contrast, but continuity from Two Years On! It's still very much in the pop-punk / ska-punk / J-rock esq genre, but unlike the more atmospheric and natural nature of Two Years On, I want this album to be more in your face and larger than life, and after only 3 days of mixing so far, I'm super pleased with the results! I'm sure I'm on track for finishing this track within the month, and I really can't wait to share this with you all in the new year! Get ready!

​And that about wraps things up for this week! I'll be back to mixing this afternoon and hopefully have a first draft of the new BTTB mix ready to send out for feedback by the next blog post. With the World Beyond album so close to completion too, I'm expecting an announcement about that before the end of the month, so look forward to that soon too! Until next time, I hope you have a great week and thanks as always for supporting JabunAudio and my various projects! I really can't wait to share with you all the music that's coming over the next few months from various projects, and until then, sit tight, get ready and I hope you enjoy the ride! Take care! ​

Hello everyone and hope you've had a great time since the last blog post. It's been another super busy week for me, first of all in the studio, but then away for a nice (but busy) break in my hometown for family festivities (always fun)! Since I've been away for most of the week, there's really not much to report so this'll be a short one. Let's get straight to it!

First of all, as of Friday, all ten tracks for the upcoming Better Than The Book album "Hopes and Dreams" are finally fully edited, optimised and ready for mixing! Exciting times! Before I can get started on the mixing process though (hopefully at some point next week), I've a fair few things on my to do list I NEED to get done, so the album stuff will have to wait for a few days. I'm very much looking forward to getting started on it when I can though.

Next and finally this week, just a quick notification to say that as of yesterday (the first Wednesday of the month), I've just sent out rewards to the $1 & $2 patrons, mp3s and artwork (and WAVs for the $2 Hi-Fi Pigeons) for Better Than The Book's cover of "Heartbeats" by The Knife, and 2015 collaboration with Jabun "GG [Good Game]". If that sounds good to you, then become a patron for as little as $1 a month to gain access to this music and all previous rewards for your tier including last month's One Small Step EP, and I look forward to sharing more music with you next month!

https://www.patreon.com/NickStanding

And that about wraps things up for this week (told you this'd be short). The coming week for me looks to like it'll be mostly spent sorting out various admin things I've got to do + finishing off next month's Christmas BTTB bonus track, and hopefully getting started on mixing the upcoming album? It looks like I've got a little bit of World Beyond work to do too which I'm very excited about, but I'll have to keep that a secret for the moment. 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 other audio projects. Take care! 

Hi everyone and hope you've had a great time since the last post (Happy Halloween for yesterday too!). It's been another intensely busy week at JabunAudio working on the upcoming Better Than The Book album, as well as sorting the latest batch of rewards for Patreon! Lots to report this week so let's get straight to it.

Firstly, the Patreon updates: Yesterday was the final Wednesday of the month which means it was time to send rewards out to the $5+ patrons! This month I'm sharing Better Than The Book's cover of "Heartbeats" by The Knife and the BTTB/Jabun collaboration "GG [Good Game], which you can get Mp3 and WAV downloads for, as well as album art and some other bonus things (depending on your subscription tier) when you contribute this month! If that sounds all good to you then become a $5+ patron to access the rewards above instantly or wait until next week on Wednesday 7th November when these rewards will also be sent out to the $2 Hi-Fi Pigeons (everything) and $1 Pigeons (Mp3s and artwork only). If you aren't already a patron, remember that you'll also be able to access all the previous music downloads for your tier too when you sign up, including last month's One Small Step EP! For the $10+ patrons too, you'll receive a download package to take you on a journey through the production process of track 06 "Get a Haircut" from the upcoming Better Than The Book album "Hopes And Dreams"! I can't wait to share the final track with you soon!

Read the full update on Patreon here, and I look forward to sharing more music with you when you become a patron for as little as $1 a month today:

www.patreon.com/NickStanding

[Note: Patreon charges on sign-up AND on the 1st of each month, so to keep the cost low for you folks, be sure to wait for the start of the new month before signing up or changing your subscription tier. Many thanks for the support!]

Next this week, some quick updates on the upcoming Better Than The Book album. It's been an intense time since the last post, but as of earlier this week, all 10 tracks are finally fully edited! I'm currently just in the process of freezing down some of the processing ready for mixing, and as of yesterday it's 5 tracks finished with the mix sessions set-up, and 5 left to go. I'm hoping to have them all ready to start mixing by the next blog post. Exciting times!

Thirdly on the news, it's the beginning of another month which means another JabunAudio music production newsletter has been sent out! This month I'll be discussing various methods of recording electric guitar and their advantage/disadvantages before sharing with you my own hybrid recording technique for achieving a great and flexible in the mix guitar tone and performance without potentially annoying your neighbours! 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!

Finally for this blog post, it's time as usual to reflect on last month's goals and set some new ones for November. Let's look back at October's goals and see how I did!

​1) Launch and run the promotion plan for the Patreon page
2) Finish editing all the tracks on the BTTB album ready for mixing in November

And I'm pleased to say that I think goal 1) was a big success so far! Great to have the Patreon page finally launched after all this time in the making. Goal 2) is aaaaaaalmost there, but not quite yet... Editing is finished, but only 5/10 tracks are actually ready for mixing at the moment. I'm sure it'll not be long until this goal is completed though!

With that reflection done, let's set some new goals for November!

1) Finish editing all the tracks on the BTTB album ready for mixing
2) Finish the mystery bonus track for Patreon!
3) Make 1 solid mix for the new album

Goal 1) is simply carried over from last month and I don't think that'll take too long. The mystery bonus track in goal 2) I don't think should take too long to finish either, but it does need some attention. Looking forward to sharing that with you all in December as a Better Than The Book Christmas bonus for the year! Goal 3) was an interesting one to think of. I'm away for much of this month as well as being very busy sorting other things, so I'll definitely not be able to finish mixing the upcoming album this month. Ideally I'd like to have all the mixes to a point where I'm sending them out for feedback by the time I close up JabunAudio for the winter break, though I'm not sure if that'll be possible either. With that in mind, I figured it'd be great to get just one great mix sorted for the album this month so that there's a good target to mix all the other tracks too. Anything extra will be a bonus! Wish me luck and if there's any goals you'd like to share, feel free to in the comments below. All the best with this next month to you too!

And that about wraps things up for this week's post! I'm away for most of next week, but I hope to be able to get those final 5 tracks ready for mixing when I have time. I'll have to see how it all goes. Anyways, I hope you have a great week until next time and thanks as always for supporting JabunAudio and my various music projects! Looking forward to sharing some more music with you all soon, and take care!

Hi everyone! It's been another intensely busy week of editing the upcoming Better Than The Book album for me (more on that in a second) + I have a huge milestone I'd love to share with you. It's not going to be a long post this week, but let's get straight into it!

Firstly some updates on the Better Than The Book album. As it currently stands 8/10 tracks have been edited ready for some final freezing down of processing before mixing, and the 9th track is mostly there too (just the lead vocal takes and associated harmonies left to sort though). It's been admittedly very intense, so I'll likely take a little break after the editing to let my ears refresh ready for mixing. Seeing how it's all currently going, I recon I can finish the edits by the end of the month, then have all the freezing done by the end of the first week of November, ready to take a break in the weekend and get started mixing on Bonfire night (well not the night, but the day)! That's the plan for the moment anyway, but we'll see how it all goes and these are certainly things that can't be rushed. Wish me luck!

Onto the next piece of news this week, super exciting times as my first ever animation audio post-production job from back in 2014, "3 Little Raptors and the Big Bad Rex" by Fun Station 4 Kids (the sequel of which was featured in the Patreon intro video) just hit a whopping 10 MILLION views on YouTube! A huge congratulations to Fun Station 4 Kids and the rest of the 3 Little Raptors team on this awesome achievement! Amazing! If you have no idea what I'm talking about, go check out the animation below, and send FS4Ks some YouTube love! Enjoy!

Finally this week, just a quick note to say that the new Patreon rewards schedule starts next Wednesday 31th on Halloween! For all the $5+ patrons, they'll be receiving downloads of Better Than The Book's cover of Heartbeats by The Knife, as well as the 2015 Better Than The Book & Jabun collaboration GG [Good Game]! For those on the $1-2 tier, they'll be receiving their rewards on the following Wednesday in November, and for those on the $10+ tiers, look forward to a sneak peek into the creative process behind another of the tracks on the upcoming album! (though I've yet to decide which track). If any of that sounds exciting to you, then head over to Patreon (<<< Click here) to get a piece of the action (be sure to pick up the One Small Step EP from earlier this month too) and I look forward to sharing this music with you soon!

That's all for this week! I'm aiming to get the last 2 tracks of the album edited by the next blog post, and some if not all of the tracks frozen and ready for mixing too, but we'll see how it all goes. Until then, I hope you all have a great week and thanks as always for supporting JabunAudio and my various audio projects. All the best, and take care!

Hi everyone! It's been a super busy time here at JabunAudio with the Patreon launch, but I've finally been able to get back to working on the new Better Than The Book album too! It's only going to be a short post this time, so let's dive straight into it!

First of all, a Patreon update and celebrating a great first week on the new platform! Thanks so much to everyone who's contributed so far as well as all the kind people who've shared & tweeted about the page and intro video to their friends and followers, it really means a lot. This first week has been a great start and after just over a week we've already almost reached halfway towards the first goal (which is basically just covering basic running/maintenance costs not including rent/utilities). A huge thanks to the 6 patrons who've made that happen and perhaps at this rate, we might make that first goal within the month? One can dream! If you've yet to check it out, head over to Patreon to see what all the fuss is about and pick up the One Small Step EP and more when you sign up! Also, if you've yet to see it, have a look at the special Patreon intro video I made to celebrate launching the campaign. I'm sure you'll enjoy it, and I look forward to seeing you over on Patreon!

https://www.patreon.com/NickStanding

Onto the next and last piece of news for this week, over the last 7 days I've finally got back to editing the tracks for the upcoming Better Than The Book album ready for mixing! As of Wednesday that's 5/10 edited, 5 to go, though I still need to go though and "freeze" down some of the processing (such as noise reduction) before mixing, just to keep things running smoothly. Hopefully that shouldn't take too long though and I'm still aiming to be mixing by the first week of November. Things are certainly sounding great so far though, and I really can't wait to share this album with you all soon! It's all coming together!

That's it for this week! Next week is looking to be more editing for the new album for me + some continued promotion of the new Patreon page too. Again, if you've yet to check it out please take a look and if you're able to, sharing the page or intro video with anyone you think would be interested would be a huge help to spreading the word. Hoping to bring some more music to you soon, and as always thanks for supporting JabunAudio and my various projects! I hope you have a great week until the next post, and until then, take care!

Hi everyone and hope you're having an amazing week! It's been intensely busy over at JabunAudio, perhaps the busiest it's been in a long time preparing for and launching the new Patreon campaign to help fuel my music projects! Certainly exciting times and there is much to tell so let's get straight onto that!

So after tons of hard work and planning over the past few months, on Monday I finally launched a Patreon page for my music projects Better Than The Book & Jabun (amongst other musical things)! 

https://www.patreon.com/NickStanding

For those of you unfamiliar with it, Patreon is an online platform where patrons can pay a monthly subscription to support creators and their creations in exchange for various rewards. In my case your contribution will go towards fulfilling larger goals and requests for my music which I simply can't finance alone, such as CD and vinyl pressings, music videos, and later down the line, even touring, as well as giving me more time to focus on writing away from my client work as JabunAudio. Of course I still intend to keep helping other creators as JabunAudio, as well as write my own music in my spare time, but my hope is that with your support, we can allow these projects to blossom in ways that I wouldn't be able to your help, and create a musical experience that'll surpass the Hopes and Dreams of everyone who has supported my music so far.

​To start my own Patreon adventure off with a massive BANG, everyone who contributes will receive the full debut EP from Better Than The Book: "One Small Step"! That's 4 songs + album art + a couple extra edits, all for just $1! Every month thereafter you’ll receive more music downloads and album art (many of which will be Patreon exclusives), and depending on your subscription tier you’ll get even more content and perks including early access to content, never before released demos, work in progress tracks and behind the scenes stuff, and at the highest levels, one-to-one mentoring for your own music and more!

While I'm busy finishing Better Than The Book's new album "Hopes and Dreams", I'll be uploading a couple of tracks from the BTTB back catalogue each month, as well as some bonus tracks & exclusive downloads which I can't wait to share with you! For those of you on the DEMOlition Pigeon ($10) tier, prepare yourself for a deep dive into my creative process and a taste of what's to come in the new album, and I hope you're ready for some headbanging, skanking goodness soon!

If that sounds all great to you then head over to Patreon for all the details, goals, rewards, examples of the music you’ll be contributing to, and a personal introduction video which I’m positive you’ll enjoy watching! Many thanks for the support!

https://www.patreon.com/NickStanding

The keen-eyed among you will also have noticed the new Patreon tab on the navigation bar above, which contains the video above, as well as a link the campaign and a quick reminder of that it's all about! If you ever need to find the Patreon page in the future, but can't remember the web address, just click on the tab above, and I look forward to seeing you there!

Finally this week, yesterday was World Mental Health Day, and every year, I write something on the subject on social media as Better Than The Book. Having had my own problems throughout my life with anxiety, panic attacks, depression, and other problems, I know first hand how much of an important issue mental health is, and so I'd like to share with you the post I wrote on the BTTB Facebook page yesterday. These are things which need to be said:

"It's World Mental Health Day again, but be sure to remember that everyday should be Mental Health Awareness Day in that no matter what day or time it is, it's always important to take care of yourself, your own mental well being, and support those around you to the best of your ability if you're able to. We are not a solitary species; we're much stronger together than alone.

So not just on World Mental Health Day, but EVERYDAY remember:

It's ok to say "no" to stuff
It's ok not to always be ok
It's ok to take some time for yourself
It's ok not to be "perfect"
It's ok to be who you want to be
It's ok to ask for help. Asking for help is not a sign of weakness, but a sign of courage
Support each other as best as you can

Much love to you all and in the wise words of Bill S. Preston Esq. & Theodore Logan:
"Be excellent to each other" & "Party on dudes!""

Please take care of yourselves and your friends, family and colleagues. We're in this life together, so let's make it great and get through it together!

And that about wraps things up for this blog post! Just one piece of big news this time. It's finally time for me to get back to working on the album after almost a month away from it too. Editing and mixing next to do so it'll certainly be a busy week ahead, and I'll be continuing to promote the Patreon page throughout the month and beyond so I'm sure I'll have my work cut out for me over the next few weeks! Until the next blog post, thanks so much for reading and supporting JabunAudio as always and if you decide to join me on Patreon for this next chapter in my musical adventure then a look forward to seeing you there! Thanks again and take care!

Hello everyone and hope you didn't miss me too much over the last few weeks. It's been an intensely busy time for over the past month, both in the studio and away from it, as I've been travelling around the country on various trips, as well as spending most of last week ill in bed (thankfully, I'm mostly better now). My time in the studio has been spent working intensely on the long in the pipeline Patreon page, which I'll talk more about in just a second, as well as proof-listening to various snippets of the upcoming World Beyond album which is due for release in the near future and sounding fantastic so far! Really can't wait to share that with you all! It feels like too long since I've been working on the upcoming Better Than The Book album too, though in reality it's still on the track with the adjusted schedule looking like an early 2019 release now. Just the engineering side of things (and artwork / marketing) left to do, and I can't wait to get stuck in with that very soon. Onto the news for this blog post then, let's start with the Patreon page!

It's been a heck of a long time in the works (especially since I've been prioritizing work on the BTTB album this year), but the last few weeks has brought more progress to the Patreon page than the last few months! Since the last blog post, I've been busy scripting, filming and editing an introduction/information video about the Patreon page, and as of yesterday, the page, video, and various artworks for the campaign are pretty much finished. I'm just waiting on some last pieces of feedback before I start uploading things, but it looks like I'll be ready to make it live and start sorting out the marketing side of things by the end of this week. If everything goes smoothly, I should be announcing the launch in the next blog post, so be sure to keep an eye out for that next week, and if things don't go quite to plan, then I'm sure it'll be up by the end of the month. More information to come with the launch, but even if you're unable to contribute, I think you'll enjoy the video I put together for the campaign. I am by no means a professional video editor (give me sound any day), but I really think this video is the best solo video I've produced. On top of being an introduction for the Patreon page, I think it's a really nice step into the background workings and history of JabunAudio, as well as a nice view into the development of my life as a full-time musician/audio engineer. I hope you enjoy it when it's released, and I look forward to sharing it with you all soon.

Next on the news, it's the beginning of another month which means another JabunAudio music production newsletter has been sent out! This month I'll be discussing limiting vs clipping as a means to control audio peaks in mixing and mastering, which of them may be more appropriate/transparent in certain applications and why! 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!

Finally for this blog post, as has become tradition for the start of each month, let's look back on last months goals, see how we did, and set some new ones for this month! Here's what was set for September:

1) Write 3 more articles for the JabunAudio monthly music production email
2) Finish recording the interludes for the BTTB album (up to 4 tracks) 
3) Sort out the Patreon Page *
(* indicates lower priority)

And overall it's been a successful month I think! I've certainly completed my JabunAudio articles quota, and with the well thought out omission of interlude tracks in favour for some shorter sounds at the beginnings/ends of tracks on the BTTB album, goal 2) was completed too! While not live just yet, all components for the Patreon page are for all intents and purposes complete as well, and just need to be assembled, launched and marketed. With that I think setting the goals for the month will be pretty simple:

1) Launch and run the promotion plan for the Patreon page
2) Finish editing all the tracks on the BTTB album ready for mixing in November

Two goals doesn't seem like much for a month, but I think they'll both be a whole lot of work. The Patreon page should be easy enough to launch, but I've a lot of promotion / background work adding links to places etc... to do so I imagine it'll be a fairly busy time with that. With regards the edits for the BTTB album, there's also a lot to go through and check there too and while I think it's a good aim to have, I'm really not sure how long realistically it'll take to go though every part of every track and make sure it's ready for mixing. We'll just have to see how it goes and do it at a steady pace I think. Wish me luck! Any goals for you this month? Feel free to comment and share below, and all the best with your targets too!

And that about wraps things up for this week! The coming week will be dedicated to finishing off that Patron page ready for launch, then onto the vast amount of pre and post launch marketing to do. I think it's going to be busy. I'd also like to get started on the BTTB edits soon too, though I'll wait until after the Patron page is launched to get started on that. Looks like it's going to be a busy time for me this month, but for the first time in a while, it looks like I'll not be going anywhere so I can get stuck in and busy without distractions. I hope you have a great week until the next blog post and thanks as always for supporting JabunAudio and my various projects. Take care!

​One more thing! On the current draft of the Patron page, there are a number of limited membership reward tiers for your contribution. To show my thanks to all the close supporters of JabunAudio, Better Than The Book and my various other projects, I'll be opening the Patreon page and these tiers to my close friends and those subscribed to the JabunAudio or Better Than The Book newsletters first, before opening it to the general public. If you want to be first in line to see these limited tiers (including mentoring sessions) or the Patreon page, be sure to subscribe to the JabunAudio newsletter here on the JabunAudio website, or to the Better Than The Book Newsletter on the BTTB website to be first in line to get a space. Thanks again for your support and I look forward to interacting with you on the Patreon page soon! 

Whoaaa! Has it only been seven days since the last blog post?! So much has happened that it seems like ages ago. It's been such a jam packed week for me working on so many different things that it's probably best we just go through them one by one systematically without any intro. Let's get started!

Firstly some HUGE Better Than The Book news: Last week, I finished recording for the songs on the upcoming album and announced that it was time to move onto creating some interludes to bring everything together. A few days away from it and I came back to listen through the album in order for the first time, and I was super pleased. I had a play with some extended intros and interludes, but everything I seemed to add, removed from the feel and journey of the album. I sent the tracks out to some friends for their opinion and their thoughts were similar to mine. Unlike in Two Years On where the interludes were a fun and necessary addition for the journey of the album, there was no room for such things in this one that followed it. I ended up adding just a few sounds to the beginning/end of some tracks to help things flow, but as for interlude tracks, for the first time on a BTTB project. and in the spirit of all killer no filler, there will be none! 
          And with that said, I'm happy to announce that after 6 months of busy work, recording is officially finished for Better Than The Book's 3rd album! Next thing to do is the final edits and clean-up on certain things, then it's onto mixing! It's been an incredible journey so far and I feel like I've learnt and grown a lot as a musician throughout writing and recording this. I really can't wait to be able to share this with you all and I hope you're as excited as I am to hear it. Still no ETA on the release as there is much work left to do, but I'm excited to finally reveal the title and tracklist for this project I've been working on since Two Years On. Thanks so much for all the support so far, and looking forward to sharing more updates with you as and when I can. Without further wait, here's "Hopes and Dreams"

Better Than The Book - Hopes and Dreams
Tracklist:
01 The Hardest Part
02 Artificial Ignorance
03 And I Fear
04 Meteor Shower
05 Brighton
------------
06 Get A Haircut
07 (The Travelling To See Eva Song)
08 GG
09 You've Got A Lot To Say
10 Hopes and Dreams
(Approx length: 39 minutes)

And if you've yet to hear Two Years On (or even the One Small Step EP), head over to bandcamp to catch up, and I hope you enjoy it! Exciting times ahead!

Next this week, some updates on another album that's in the pipeline, this time from World Beyond! It's been quite a while in the making, and I still can't release much information on it, but this week I've been busy recording some final guitars and bass for it as well as taking photos for some of the promotional material. It's certainly the biggest project I've worked on with World Beyond and I'm really looking forward to sharing more details with you as and when I can. More exciting times ahead with that!

Onto non-album related news, with the upcoming Better Than The Book album finished in terms of recording, and around 3 weeks ahead of schedule because of it, it seemed like finally a good time to get back to working on the Patreon page again! On top of all the other things that have been going on this week, I've been tidying up the campaign page, adjust a few things here and there, scripting videos and recording some video, though I must admit that speaking in front of a camera is a skill I've yet to fully master... Still, it's the first signs of progress in a few months now, and with a few weeks left in September, I'm hoping to be able to finish it in time to launch at the beginning of October. It's definitely going to be a challenge, but I think I can just about do it. Wish me luck!

Finally in this week's news, I just wanted to share with you a little bit of fun I had on Sunday morning which also happened to be #909Day, a celebration of the famous Roland TR-909 drum machine which although a commercial failure at the time later became one of the most sought after pieces of music technology after its invaluable influence on the development of electronic dance music, techno, house, and acid. 
          After 6 months of concentrated recording for Better Than The Book's new ska punk album, it was great to clear my desk (and head) and spend some lazy time jamming on my synths again with no purpose other than to just relax, make some noise, and have fun! There were no 909s or even emulators of the great machine, but there was a whole host of other little synths all connected with a criss-cross of patch cables. It's nothing super special music-wise but I thought it'd be nice to share a little clip from my phone before I packed it up for the day. I definitely look forward to getting back to some electronic Jabun music again in the near future when I have a chance, and I hope you enjoy this little sneak peek into my inspiration and ideas gathering process!

​
And that's about it for this week! The next couple of weeks are set to be pretty busy with non-work related stuff, but I'll be focusing on the Patreon page with all the time I can. It's mainly just a video intro to produce now, though that's going to take a fair bit of work in an area I'm not so familiar with (video picture editing) so that'll definitely be a challenge. 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 projects. See you next time and take care!

Hello everyone and hope you've had a splendid week since the last blog post! It's been a busy but exciting time here at JabunAudio finishing off song recording for the upcoming Better Than The Book album (more on that in a moment) as well as writing some more articles for the JabunAudio newsletter (more on that in a moment too!). Fun times! With that said, let's dive straight into this week's news!

First up, a huge milestone update on the upcoming Better Than The Book album. On Sunday, after many busy months of plucking strings, pressing keys, programming synths, and belting at microphones, along with illness, injured fingers and lots of unexpected happenings, recording was finally finished for the 10 new Better Than The Book songs on the upcoming album! It's been quite the journey so far, and there's still much of the journey left to traverse! Although the songs are recorded, now it's time to turn this collection of songs into an album with some interludes to bring it all together, before I get started on the final edits, mixing and mastering. Thanks for all the support so far and I can't wait to show you how far things have come since "Two Years On"!

Next on the news, ​it's the beginning of another month which means another JabunAudio music production newsletter has been sent out! This month I'll be discussing dynamic vs condenser microphones for recording vocals in the studio, why I opt for a Shure SM58 stage microphone for recording the majority of my vocals, and why you might want to do the same depending on your situation! If that sounds interesting to you, sign up for free on the JabunAudio.com home page, I hope you enjoy it, and be sure to share it with anyone you think would be interested! With this article being sent out, it's come time again to write some more, so I look forward to sharing more music production knowledge with you soon in the coming months!

Finally for this blog post, as has become tradition for the start of each month, let's look back on last months goals, see how we did, and set some new ones for this month! Here's what was set for August:

1) Finish recording the songs for the BTTB album (6 tracks to do)
2) Plan the interludes for the BTTB album (up to 4 tracks) *
3) Sort out the Patreon Page *
(* indicates lower priority)

Overall not a bad month considering that I was away or busy with other urgent work for much of it! 1) although a day late was successfully completed on Sunday and while I haven't started recording the interludes 2) yet, I have started gathering samples and planning them out roughly. Of course the Patreon page remains on the back burner... hopefully I'll be able to finally get back to that soon. So setting goals for September, let's try to keep things simple but challenging:

1) Write 3 more articles for the JabunAudio monthly music production email
2) Finish recording the interludes for the BTTB album (up to 4 tracks) 
3) Sort out the Patreon Page *
(* indicates lower priority)

I've already started writing the monthly articles, and aim to have those finished by the end of the week which gives me almost 3 weeks to work on recording the interludes. I'm really not sure how difficult finishing 4 full tracks in that amount of time will be, since they're only short, but will require a fair amount of recording, programming and creative sampling. There's also the issue that much like last month, I'll be away for a few extended weekends as well so I'll have to be efficient with my time during the week. We'll see how it all goes. Again the Patreon page will be a low priority goal this time as I want to keep ahead on the album's production schedule. Wish me luck! Any goals for you this month? Feel free to comment and share below, and all the best with your targets too!

That's it for this week! The following week for me will undoubtedly be busy finishing off writing those articles before getting stuck in with some BTTB interludes. Should be busy! 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!

Hello again! It's been a fun and very busy few weeks since the last blog post, and I've only been in the studio for about half of that time! Long weekends away on trips and deadlines to meet during the weeks, I've not had time to post the blog over the last couple of Thursdays, so in this blog post, I'll share some of the fun holiday stuff I've been up to as well as the exciting audio work I've been doing during the week. Let's start with highlights of the summer holidays!  

So the first trip was back to my home town, visiting friends and all that jazz, and heading up to London for the final date of Iron Maiden's Legacy of the Beast tour with guest support Killswitch Engage. It was the 5th time I'd seen Iron Maiden live, and I'd been wanting to see Killswitch for well over a decade too so I was super excited for this gig which I'd had tickets for since last year! Simply put, it was the best Iron Maiden gig experience yet, both bands completely exceeding my already high expectations for them and everything about the night was stunning!
          Starting with Killswitch engage, I think the only songs I didn't know were the first 2 they played (which were from the new album), but the rest of the awesome set-list I was singing and screaming along to. Fantastic performances all around, then for "The End of Heartache" Jesse Leach (the current and original vocalist) invited the former vocalist Howard Jones who brought the band into the mainstream to the stage to sing it in duet with him!!! Apparently it was only for the 2 London dates of the tour, and it was emotional, magic and brutal! Not my camerawork, but here's footage of the moment! Amazing!
          Iron Maiden really had to pull out all the stops to follow that performance, and they didn't hold back at all on making an absolutely fantastic show, undoubtedly the best one yet! Everyone was as energetic as ever (including the audience), and Bruce was on top form running around and leaping around the stage, with a whole treasure chest of costumes and props throughout the concert! There was the usual walk on Eddie, the big behind the stage Eddie for "Iron Maiden", TONS of pyrotechnics including Bruce dual wielding 2 flamethrowers for "The Flight of Icarus", and lots of changes of the stage from battlefield to church settings, and more! The set-list was a fantastic mix of old, middle and recent (It was a greatest hits tour), and the opening was as epic as ever, Churchill's WWII speech going into Aces high with a SPITFIRE SUSPENDED ABOVE THE STAGE!!! WHAT A NIGHT! My dad got some great footage of the opening of the gig too (They always play Doctor Doctor over the PA just before they come on stage)! Fantastic!
          The following weekend was special in a completely different way as my girlfriend Eva and I celebrated 5 years together with a trip to Buxton in the Peak District. We walked / climbed the various hills near Castleton, the main and steepest one being the "Mother Hill": Mam Tor, explored Buxton's Pavillion Gardens, Pooles Cavern Caves (guided rather than free exploring), climbed the hill above the caverns to Solomon's Temple, explored the town itself where I found and playing on an old foot pumped reed organ in a bookshop, and ate more tasty food than I think we needed! Overall a fantastic trip! Love you, Eva!

Onwards from trips and onto audio news, The week after Iron Maiden was spent busy recording some final guitars for the upcoming World Beyond album, as well as giving feedback on the current mixes, discussing track order and many other things. It's been a while in the making, but I'm positive the wait will be worth it as it is sounding simply fantastic at the moment. Still no ETA just yet, but I'll let you know when I have something to share. Looking forward to it! Onto the week following the Buxton trip, I was busy mastering another techno track for Dutch DJ/Producer Oakwood ready for a gig the following weekend. The track hasn't been officially released just yet, but I'll be sure to share it here when it drops as it's another great and hard hitting banger! More music to look forward to!

Finally for this week, some updates on the Better Than The Book album. Since it's been such a busy few weeks and weekends, I haven't had a whole lot of time to work on finishing these last few tracks and interludes, but I'm happy to say that as it currently stands, 9/10 tracks are now fully recorded and awaiting final editing / mixing! There's still the interludes to sort out too (up to 4 of them), though after a long sample hunt during last weekend, it's proving more difficult than first anticipated to find the right usable and available samples, so I may cut back on these. I'll focus on the last song first though, then have another sample search soon! Looks like next month will be a month of interludes!

And that's about it for this week! I hope you didn't miss the blog too much in my absence but things should be back to the usual schedule now for a little while at least. As September comes around next week, I'll be sending the next JabunAudio music production email out soon (sign up on the home page if you're interested), and next week's blog post will no doubt be the usual beginning of the month reflective post. As for audio work this week, I'm aiming to get the final BTTB song of the album finished recording before the next blog post, though there's lots of beginning of the month admin and other stuff to do too, so we'll see how that goes. Until then, I hope you have a great week and thanks as always for supporting JabunAudio and my various projects. Take care!