Hello everyone, and hope you've had a great week whatever you've been up to! There's not a whole lot to report on this post, just a few little updates on the Better Than The Book album + some other small things, but it's been a busy week for me nonetheless arranging horns for these upcoming BTTB tracks. Fun times! Anyways, without further wait, let's get started with those updates!

So firstly, updates on the BTTB album. This week I managed to finish all the recording for another 2 tracks, meaning that as of yesterday 6/10 songs are fully recorded and just awaiting final edits before mixing etc...! 4 more tracks to go, then it'll be onto sorting some interludes. I'll be aiming to have another 1 or 2 tracks done by the next blog post, though I'm away for much of this coming week, so we'll see how it goes. All in all though, progress is going well! I've even started sending out demos to my usual beta testing team and praise for the album is high so far even though I haven't mixed it yet! A great sign to say the least, and I'm looking forward to getting stuck in with the engineering side of things soon to really polish these tracks up. Exciting times!

Lastly, and a little bonus thing for the post today, yesterday was 808 Day celebrating one of the most famous drum machines of all time (as well as my personal all time favorite), the Roland TR-808! You can read my post about it on the JabunAudio Facebook page if you so desire and if you're in need of some 808s in your life, why not have a listen again to my debut album as Jabun - Daydream for some punchy 808 drum fun on almost every track! Anyways, a happy belated 808 Day to you all, and here's to 35 years of music history saying that the 808 is here to stay! Have a great day!

And that's about everything for this week! I'll be busy doing the next few horn arrangements today and tomorrow, then it's a long weekend away seeing Iron Maiden for the 5th time as well as this times supporting act, Killswitch Engage! It's been almost a year since I've had the tickets and I cannot tell you how much I've been looking to this! Expect some more metal from me soon! Anyways, I hope you have a great week whatever you get up to and thanks as always for supporting JabunAudio and my various projects. Take care until next time and see you in the next blog post!

Hello everyone and hope you're having a great week whatever you're up to! It's thankfully a lot cooler than it has been over here, so my brain is frying with work overload rather than heat (is that any better?). I'm not sure whether it'll be staying cool for much longer though... Anyways, it's been a super productive week working on the Better Than The Book album, and as the calendar flips to the next month I have many exciting updates for you in this blog post. Let's start with some Better Than The Book album updates!

So as you can probably tell from the post's title, I'm super happy to announce that lead guitars, guitar solos, and keyboards for the new BTTB album have all been recorded now, which finally puts things back on track with the original schedule I set in March! Next it's time to finish off the recording for each of the 10 songs which means (where necessary) adding horns, synths and other extra samples and things to spice things up before I get deep into edits and mixing, etc... As of yesterday 4/10 tracks have been completely finished recording-wise, with another 6 to go over the course of the next month. Things are certainly shaping up! Just to break up the text, here's a quick photo of some synth sequences being recorded for the heaviest track of the album, "Meteor Shower". Gotta love the Korg Volca Keys! 

​Since I'm nearing the end of the recording phase for the songs, I've also started to plan out some interludes to really bring the album together. Many of them have been in the back of my mind since I started writing the album, and at the moment, it looks like there'll be a maximum of 4 depending on whether I can find the public domain samples to pull them off effectively. Looks like I'll be watching through lots of black and white movies and footage soon! I remember how difficult it was doing this for Two Years On, but listening back, I love how it brings everything together, rather than just being a collection of songs. Wish me luck!

Onto the next piece of news for this blog post, yesterday I sent out the 2nd JabunAudio music production newsletter, this time discussing different and effective ways to reference and listen to audio when mixing, mastering, and even composing music. It's focused around music production, but I'm sure many music makers in general (whether you're recording or not) will find it useful for coming up with effective arrangements when writing! If that sounds interesting to you, head over to JabunAudio.com's home page, sign up for the free newsletter using the form, and I'll drop the article in your inbox! I hope you find it useful, and if you have any feedback you'd like to share, I'd love to hear your thoughts. Enjoy!​ Thanks to everyone who signed up to read last month's newsletter about effective use of metering in audio production too. I look forward to sharing more articles with you soon!

Next, as it's the start of August, let's take the time to look back at July's goals, and set some new ones for the coming weeks ahead. Here's what was set:

1) Finish recording vocals for the new BTTB album (2 tracks left)
2) Finish lead guitar and solos for the BTTB album (10 tracks)
3) Finish keyboard parts for the BTTB album (5 tracks)
4) Sort out the Patreon Page *
(* indicates low priority)

So overall a successful month of catching up on recording, despite the injured finger! 1), 2) & 3) were fully completed! The Patreon page is still on the back-burner, and may well be for a while, but now that I'm back on track with the album, I can hopefully make some time to look into that again soonish. Next month is looking to be a busy one outside of music work too (more on that in a second), so let's set some goals for August with that in mind:

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

Goal 1) basically means sorting out all the horns, synths and extra things and assessing whether any additional recording needs to be sorted too. The horns especially will be tricky, but careful planning and referencing should help with this. Originally, August was supposed to be a month dedicated to just horns, with any extras to be done in September, but with almost half the songs finished already, I thought it'd be good to keep up the pace and try for finishing everything in the next 4 weeks. For 2) I'd like to say finish all the interludes, but I'm not sure if that's realistic since I'll be away for a fair bit of this month. We'll have to see how that goes, but even if they aren't finished, it'd be great to have them all planned and confirmed at least (maybe sort out a couple of them). 1) is definitely the priority though. The Patreon page again is on the back-burner but still in mind for completion soon.

Finally in this week's news, just a quick notification of some sporadic downtime throughout the month. Over the next few weeks I'll be travelling a lot and while it's just for a few days at a time, I may not be able to respond to messages as immediately as I usually do. JabunAudio will still be open for business and accepting work though, so don't hesitate to send me a message and I'll aim to get to it as soon as possible. Many thanks for your patience.

And that about wraps things up for this week! I'll be continuing to grind through the album until next time, and hopefully there'll be another couple of tracks completed by the next blog post. Until then, I hope you have a great time whatever you're up to and thanks as always for supporting JabunAudio and my various music projects. Enjoy the summer and take care! ​

Hello everyone and it's another short post this week with just a few updates on the upcoming Better Than The Book album. Hope you've been keeping cool in this hotter than ever weather the UK seems to be having. As for me, it's been a pleasant and long overdue long weekend away from work, so I've not been up to as much music stuff as the previous week. Onto the BTTB updates: as it currently stands only 2 tracks of lead guitars / solos remain and it looks like it'll almost certainly be all be sorted by the next blog post (along with the keys). Horray! Apart from that, not much to report, but I'm looking forward to tackling some horn parts in more detail next month. Things are really shaping up! 

That's about it for this week. It's going to be another busy week for me finishing off these guitars, keys, and if there's time, starting on some more horn parts and extra stuff for the album. We shall see where the time takes me. Until then, I hope you have a great week whatever you're up to, stay cool, and thanks as always for supporting JabunAudio and my various projects. See you in the next post, and take care!

Hi everyone and hope you're having a good week whatever you're up to. It's gonna be a short blog post this time as while it's been a very busy and productive week, there's not really much to talk about in terms of what's been going on. I'm super happy that my finger is finally (pretty much) fully healed, at least to a point where I can use it as normal so it's been a fun time getting back to guitar. In terms of news, there's just a few updates on the Better Than The Book album to report, so let's get straight to that!

Another week goes by and this one especially has been a very intense time working on the album. Since last time I've just about finished all the keyboard parts (there's one track which I'll need to reassess once the lead guitar and horns are added), got 5/10 tracks of lead guitar and guitar solos recorded, and I even managed to sort one tracks worth of horns too, meaning that one is all recorded now. Just 5 tracks of lead guitar & 9 tracks of horns to go, then it'll be onto finalising the arrangements, making any edits, putting together any interlude tracks, then mixing and mastering. Exciting times!

And that's about it for this week. Next week is looking to be quite busy with personal stuff so I'm not sure how much time I'll get to work on the album, but we'll see how it goes (I aim to get at least one track of lead guitar recorded. 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. Take care!

Hello everyone and I hope you've had great week in the sun and managed to stay hydrated since the last blog post. It's been a busy time for me working on the new Better Than The Book album and despite the injured finger I think it's been very productive (more on that in a moment). Speaking of which, it's been a week and a half now since I first slammed the middle finger of my fretting (left) hand between the fridge door and the kitchen surface and understandably it's still got a way to go before it's normal again, but it's healing up pretty well so far. Still tender so no guitar playing yet unfortunately (I tried; it hurt), but I have managed to get some keyboarding done, albeit avoiding the use of that finger. Not a lot else to report other than updates on the upcoming Better Than The Book album, so lets get straight to that.

And some great updates there are! For starters, as of Tuesday this week, all the gang vocals for the album are done, which means that apart from some possible adlibs and non-lyrical stuff to add when finalising the arrangements before mixing, all the vocals are recorded for the album! Horray! On top of that, as of yesterday 3 out of 5 of the keyboard parts have been recorded successfully too (thank lord for 1 finger ska basslines), and although I had to overdub some of the more complex left hand parts, I'm very pleased with the way it's all sounding. Just 2 tracks of keyboards left to now which hopefully should be done just in time for my finger to be healed enough for some guitar solos? Perhaps wishful thinking, but I can dream! Here's a picture of the keyboard rig for this album: my Yamaha Reface CP controlling software on the new computer! I wish I had a real Hammond & Farfisa (or organ in general) to hand, but these emulators sound great (and take up no space at all)!

I also managed to sort out a couple of the edits and samply things in the album which are really bringing some of the tracks to life! Hopefully I should have the keyboard parts all finished by the next blog post, but we'll see how it all goes.

And that about wraps things up for this time. I'll just be working hard on this album for the moment, so expect more updates on that next week. Other than that, we'll see where the wind takes me (if there is any). I hope you have a great week whatever you're up to, and thanks as always for stopping by and supporting JabunAudio and my various projects. Looking forward to sharing more updates next week and take care until then!

Hello everyone and I hope you've had a good and not too hot week since the last blog post. It's been a time of mixed emotions for me, but we'll get onto that later in the post. On a positive note, JabunAudio sent out its first newsletter article this week and it's all about metering! If you sign up this month, you'll get it straight into your inbox + the usual sign up article about preparing for mastering. You can sign up for the JabunAudio monthly music production article on the home page of this website! Some great feedback on the first article so far so I'm looking forward to sharing more stuff with you soon. With that said, let's get onto the main updates for this week.

Starting with updates on the Better Than The Book album, it's been a mixed but mostly productive time since the last blog post. As of Friday, all the main vocal parts have been finished, and as of yesterday, there's only 2 out of 5 tracks of gang vocals left to finish too! It's been a very hot week though and my vocal endurance has been weakened by the heat and trying to stay hydrated so progress in that department has been slower than I'd have hoped. I should hopefully have it all finished soon. In other news, I've also migrated the project to the newly fixed up desktop computer and MAN OH MAN, this machine has power I couldn't have fathomed before! Very exciting! I've taken some time too this week to start sorting some of the extra production details such as 808 booms, claps and samples too which has been quite the adventure. Now onto some bad news this week...

If everything had gone according to schedule, June was supposed to be a month for guitar solos and keyboard recording would have been a job for July. Illness and other things pushed everything month ahead, making July the new month for guitar solos as well as keyboards. Unfortunately on Sunday in an act of carelessness, I sheared the end of the middle finger of my fretting hand between the fridge door and the kitchen surface it sits under, a major ouch both physically and mentally. I don't think I have much option other than to just let it heal which may take a few weeks but it's difficult to tell at the moment how long it might be until I can get back to it. Guitaring is currently out of the question, but I'll try to go through the keyboard parts as I can do them with my right hand only (overdubbing any left hand parts with my right hand afterwards). Overall, not a great start to the month, but nothing much I can do about that. I'll keep you updated on progress as and when I can and I hope to be back to it properly soon. Thanks for your patience.

Finally this week, let's go through June's goals, see how I did, then get to setting the goals for July. Here's what I had down for June:

1) Finish recording Vocals for the new BTTB album
2) Write up the next 3 months of articles for the JabunAudio newsletter
3) Sort out & update all my ISRC registrations (Not exciting but it needs to be done)
4) Finish sorting out the new Desktop computer ready to make music on it
5) Get started on lead guitar for the BTTB album *
6) Sort out the Patreon Page *
(* indicates low priority)

So it's been a reasonably successful month. There's just 2 tracks of gang vocals to do which should hopefully be finished by the next blog post, and goals 2) 3) & 4) despite some hitches have been completed well. The low priority 5) and 6) I've yet to make progress on. Setting some new goals for July, here's what I'd like to get done: 

1) Finish recording vocals for the new BTTB album (2 tracks left)
2) Finish lead guitar and solos for the BTTB album (10 tracks)
3) Finish keyboard parts for the BTTB album (5 tracks)
4) Sort out the Patreon Page *
(* indicates low priority)

Now due to injury, goals number 2) and 3) are very much dependant on the speed of my recovery, but I really hope I can get all the album stuff sorted ready to move onto horns next month, which'll put things back on the original schedule. The Patreon Page is still waiting on a video, but I really want to make sure I stay on track with the album as a high priority. I also have a fair few non-JabunAudio goals to sort this month, so we'll see how those do as well. Any goals you'd like to share? Feel free to leave them in the comments to keep yourself committed!

And that's about everything to report for this week. Hopefully finishing off the vocals and making a start on keyboard parts in the following week for me, and hopefully my finger will be all healed and ready for some guitaring soon too. Until the next blog post, hope you have a great week whatever you're up to and thanks as always for supporting JabunAudio and my various projects. Take care!

Hello everyone and I hope you've been having a great week whatever you've been up to since the last post. Not a whole lot to report this week so I'll keep this short, but it's been super busy nonetheless. Busy and HOT! Hope you've been keeping cool and hydrated!

The new computer is all completely fixed up now including installing a dedicated graphics card which is very nice. I've also taken the time to write up the next 3 months worth of articles for the JabunAudio newsletter, the first of which will be about the importance of metering in audio production which gets sent out next week! If you've yet to sign up, feel free to do so on the front page of this website and I look forward to sharing the article with you next week! Exciting times!

Finally just an update on the main thing going on for me this week, Better Than The Book vocals. It's been a busy week with that and as of today 9 out of 10 vocals tracks are all recorded now (apart from some gang vocals). Since there's more things to add to the arrangement, I may end up recording a few more parts in the future (or taking away some), but it's been a successful week catching up on vocal recording and I look forward to getting busy with guitar solos, keys and horns soon! Just 1 more track + 4 tracks of gang vocals left to do, which should all be sorted by the next blog post. Exciting times!

That's it for this week! Next week I'll be finishing off the BTTB vocals then getting started on lead guitar work if I have time. Other than that, I have no idea, but it'll be the beginning of July by the next blog post (dang...), so it'll be a usual time of reflecting on and setting goals. Hope you have a great week whatever you get up to and thanks as always for supporting JabunAudio and my various projects. Until next time, take care!

Hello everyone and hope you've had a great week since the last blog post! It's been straight back into the deep of it for me this week, with some great stuff as well as some absolute nightmares of frustration, but overall a very positive turnaround for the week. That's it for an intro, let's get straight into the news!

Firstly, I'm super happy to announce that after almost a month away from it, I'm back to recording vocals for the new Better Than The Book album! As of yesterday, 6 out of 10 tracks all have their vocals recorded (apart from gang vocals on a few which I'll do later), and man oh man does it feel great to be singing again! 4 left and I'm aiming to have those done by the first blog post of July, which at this pace should be juuuust about doable. I just have to make sure not to burn myself out like last time, so I'll be progressing with caution, while giving it my all in front of the mic. I'll keep you updated with progress in the next blog post!

Next, while I only started recording vocals on Monday this week, all previous days were dedicated to fixing/setting up the new desktop computer I was gifted as mentioned in one of the previous blog posts, and man oh man was that quite the ordeal... Starting with some strange RAM readings (8GB installed, but only 3.5GB usable), after many hours of diagnostics with a computer expert friend over the phone, we figured out that one of the 4GB RAM sticks was busted and would need replacing. A bit of a bummer, but nothing too much to worry about, and thankfully the local CeX had the exact same RAM stick in stock to fill in the slot. Fixed! So then came the long but necessary task of installing all my programs and plug-ins, authorizing them where necessary and all that jazz, then bridging over the 32-bit plugins using the mysterious software jBridge (more on that in a moment). By Friday night, everything was pretty much set up and ready, apart from waiting for a full download of the jBridge software, then I hit the next roadblock. Up until now the computer was super speedy, but Windows decided it would be a great idea to install an upgrade without my permission. It spent almost an hour booting up only for me to be greeted with a sluggish and over-featured (none that I'd use, or could remove) OS which made my old Vista laptop feel like a race car compared to a snail (my vista's pretty speedy though). Waking up the next morning and it still running horribly, I decided to use the option to revert back to the previous OS which was running perfectly before. That took an hour just to tell me that it had failed, I wouldn't be able to boot Windows and that I'd have to reinstalling the OS at factory spec from scratch, loosing all the work I put into installing and authorizing everything over the past few days... I genuinely felt sick... Well... after a weekend filled repeating much of last week's work instead of what I had previously planned, I finally got it back to the state it was in before the upgrade, and now I'm permanently disconnecting it from the internet so it can't repeat the same mistake! By now I'd received the full version of the jBridge software too, and everything was working smoothly apart from one plugin. I got in contact with the developer, and I must say it was some of the best customer service I've ever experienced. They ran me through diagnosing it myself, tested it on their end and we eventually managed to fix it. All for a 15 Euro plug-in, I was highly impressed. If you ever need to bridge 32-bit plugins to a 64-bit host like I did, I highly recommend jBridge! Overall, despite the turbulent week setting it up, I now have a very reliable, speedy and higher spec machine to make music on, all ready for action! I look forward to putting to good use soon! 

Lastly this week, just a little update on the JabunAudio newsletter. It's just under two weeks until I send out the first one, and I've started writing up the first article as well as planning the next few. It's not the most glamorous topic, but I thought I'd start by covering the importance of metering in music and audio production, what meters there are, when you'll want use them, how to use them effectively and my suggestions for some free ones if you need them. I hope you enjoy it and I look forward to sharing that article with you in the first week of July! Stay tuned, and if you've yet to sign-up (it's free!) feel free to do so on the JabunAudio homepage, and receive a free PDF article download to get you started. Hope to see you there!

That's about it for this week! My coming week will likely be filled with Better Than The Book vocals as well as writing articles for the JabunAudio newsletter this weekend. Anything else that happens is a bonus! Anyways, thanks as always for supporting JabunAudio and my various projects and I hope you have a great week until the next blog post. Take care!

Hello everyone, and after a rather busy previous month, I'm happy to announce that JabunAudio is back to its usual schedule! I've not been here for most of the previous week so the time I have been back has been spent sorting out all my ISRC registrations (all done) and fixing up the new desktop computer (getting there), along with some other admin type tasks. Exciting times! There's really not much else to report this week but I figured I'd just write this quick post to say that I'm back! Hoping to get back into recording the new Better Than The Book album in the next few days, along with setting up this new computer, and looking forward to sharing some more exciting updates next week. Thanks as always for supporting JabunAudio and my various projects and take care until next time!

Hello everyone and hope you've had a good few weeks since the last post. It's been intensely busy for me bouncing around the country for various trips whilst sorting as much admin stuff as possible on the few days I've had back in the studio. No news to report on theBetter Than The Book album, as I've simply not had time to work on it, but I hope to be back to it around June 12th after this upcoming final long weekend of downtime. Still though, there's a heck of a lot of exciting news to report this week so let's get to it!

First of all and it's a big one, JabunAudio has finally launched its music & audio production monthly email newsletter! You can sign up on the front page of the JabunAudio website to receive music and audio production tips sent straight to your inbox in the first week of each month + you'll also get my free PDF article "10 Essential Things To Do Before You Send Your Music For Mastering and WHY" when you sign up. I know there are tonnes of articles for learning music production out there already so I’ll only be sharing advice and tips which have helped me personally and I’ve not seen anywhere else. Topics will focus on mastering, my favourite genres of ska punk & pop punk, as well as advice that can be applied to all styles and the occasional tangent. I hope you enjoy reading, and I look forward to sharing more audio production advice with you at the start of July! As per usual, let me know if you have any questions in the comments below! The launch of the new newsletter has also prompted me to update all the email links on this website with the new nick@jabunaudio.com address, though as previously discussed, feel free to continue using jabun@hotmail.co.uk, as I have no plans to stop using that one.

Next on the news this week, it's another huge one! After almost 10 years on my trusty Vista 32-bit Dell Laptop, I'm finally getting a "modern" desktop computer! For this I extend a massive thanks to a great family friend and musician Martin who has supported me in making music since before I could even play the guitar. Over the years he's been incredibly generous with advice (as shown in the credits of the One Small Step EP), as well as lending and often giving his "old" equipment to my brother and myself (including our first gigging PA). Clearing out his home studio for an upgrade, he's passed to me his "old" music production PC, which is an amazing gift and something I'll treasure making music with for years to come. Thanks so much Martin and I look forward to putting this machine through its paces soon! Martin and I have different DAW / plugin preferences so I'm currently in the process of uploading my usual software onto the new machine. Ableton 8 is live on there as well as my associated library, samples and offline analysis software. Now comes the tricky part of installing my VST plugin collection! Of course, I'll continue to use my laptop for mobile recording sessions and some other tasks due to convenience, but the new desktop will be a powerful extension to the digital workstation of my studio!

Next this week, I just wanted to take a moment to share some music I mastered a while back for techno artist Oakwood which was released last week. This'll be the second track I've mastered with him and it's always a pleasure to work on his hard hitting electronic vibes, not something people usually associate me with, but something I enjoy working on frequently. Hope you enjoy it, and if you'd like any of your music mastered, just send me a message and I'll be happy to listen! Here's Battlecries!

Finally this week, as has become a tradition this year, it's time to look back at May's goals and see how I did at getting through them:

1) Launch a JabunAudio monthly newsletter (this includes various sub goals I need to sort out)
2) Launch the Patreon page
3) Release a 2018 Mastering Demo Reel
4) Get more involved in the online audio community (Facebook groups & Newgrounds, etc...)
5) Finish recording (Vocals) for the new BTTB album. (Vocals is the hope but if things aren't looking great at the beginning of next week I'll look into working on lead guitar / solos or something else instead) 

So it looks like 1) & 3) have successfully been implemented and having joined and become active in 3 Facebook groups and upped my involvement in the Newgrounds community, I think I can tick off 4) as well. 5) as previously discussed has been difficult due to business, illness and other factors, but I've managed about half of the vocals for the album. Again due to similar reasons 2) the Patreon page as also been neglected this month. Overall, not the best month for goals, though given the circumstances I think the progress is reasonable.

Onto setting some goals for ​June then, some will rollover from May and I have a few new ones I'd like to sort as well:

1) Finished recording Vocals for the new BTTB album
2) Write up the next 3 months of articles for the JabunAudio newsletter
3) Sort out & update all my ISRC registrations (Not exciting but it needs to be done)
4) Finish sorting out the new Desktop computer ready to make music on it
5) Get started on lead guitar for the BTTB album *
6) Sort out the Patreon Page *
(* indicates low priority)

Some reasonable goals for the month though I've decided to concentrate on getting back on track with the album's production and studio/business maintenance rather than focus on the Patreon page for the moment, as it feels like that's the more important thing. Hopefully nothing will impede progress this month but I feel it best to take things easy and try to just get back on track. Wish me luck and as usual, if you'd like to share any of your goals for the coming month, feel free to in the comments below.

That about wraps things up for this week! I'm away again until Tuesday so there's likely not going to be much to report next week. I looks like I'll have some more bass recording to do for World Beyond shortly, and I hope to be getting back to BTTB vocals next week too. In the mean time, I'll just try to sort out all these ISRC spreadsheets... Joy! Hope you have a great week until next time and thanks as always for supporting JabunAudio and my various projects. Take care!