Hi everyone and hope you're having a great start to April and a fun April Fools' Day so far! No pranks or bonus tracks for me this year (for real), but it's been an exciting and busy week here at JabunAudio! Some big updates on upcoming projects as I've just started recording guitars for Better Than The Book's 3rd full-length album (not a whole lot to share on that front; I'm just working through it bit by bit, but it's great to be back to it), and a few things to share this week typical of a first-of-the-month blog post! Let's get to it!

Firstly this week, it's once again Bandcamp Friday tomorrow and in case you're not familiar with it, in support of musicians impacted by the coronavirus, Bandcamp is waiving its revenue share fees on the first Friday of the month from midnight to midnight Pacific Time, meaning that if you purchase anything from Bandcamp this Friday 2nd of April, the artists you support (including myself) will get more of the sales revenue than usual since Bandcamp doesn't take its cut, and you'll be able to support the music you love more directly than ever on the platform!
 
If you've been itching to pre-order Jabun's upcoming "Generation Supernova" album (which releases April 15th) or pick up one of my other albums as Jabun or Better Than The Book, now's the best time to do so! Check out the Bandcamp pages below and thanks again for supporting my music in any way you can, it really means a lot:

Better Than The Book
https://betterthanthebook.bandcamp.com/
 
Jabun
https://jabun.bandcamp.com/
 
Nick Standing (< The sillier old stuff)
https://nickstanding.bandcamp.com/

And if you're not sure whether it's Bandcamp Friday in your time-zone, you can check using the tool right here:

https://isitbandcampfriday.com/

Finally this week, it's time to reflect on the usual monthly goals! Here's what I set for March:

1) Announce Jabun's 3rd album and launch the pre-release single / pre-orders
2) Finish recording drums for BTTB's 3rd album (4 left + checks)
3) Test guitar recording set-ups and start recording rhythm guitars for BTTB's 3rd album
4) Design and source at least one piece of merch for BTTB and/or Jabun

And overall it's been a mostly successful month! Of course 1) was completed a few weeks back and I'm sure I reported the same for 2). 3) was completed as of this week, but the final goal 4) I didn't quite get done between all the promo work and turbulent guitar maintenance work in preparation for recording... Not to worry though as 4) was fairly low priority so it can wait until another time. I did however manage to keep up with my usual BTTB live practice though which is always good! Onto goals for April, on top of such exciting things as doing my taxes and renewing this website, let's set some new goals!

1) Release Jabun's Generation Supernova album
2) Update the Patreon Reward Archive posts ready to release in May
3) Finish recording electric rhythm guitars for the upcoming Better Than The Book projects
4) Service and start recording bass for ^^^

1) Should go smoothly as most of the stuff is already scheduled for that. 2) hopefully won't be too strenuous but will have to wait until after the 15th when the album is released. 3) Might be overly ambitious judging from my current progress and the other things which need sorting this month, but it'd be nice to try, and 4) very much depend on the progress for 3). Should be an interesting month for sure! Unlike the previous months, I'll be taking a break from Better Than The Book live practice until the guitars are recorded, just to make sure I savour all that freshly restrung guitar tone for recording, before I shred it away with practice, but I hope to be back to it in May after a productive month of recording! Wish me luck and I wish you the best with your own goals too!

That about wraps things up for this post and it's only 2 weeks now until Jabun's Generation Supernova album goes out to the public! Hope your as excited as I am for it, and hopefully it should be a productive week ahead recording and doing all that busy admin work for the start of the tax year! Until the next one, I hope you have a great start to April and thanks as always for supporting JabunAudio and my various project however you can (remember it's Bandcamp Friday tomorrow)! All the best and take care!

Hi everyone and hope you're having a great week since the last post! It's been an incredibly busy and stressful one over here (and I don't say that lightly) with guitar service work and preparations to start recording guitars for the next Better Than The Book album, but thankfully everything's all sorted and just about ready now! As usual before starting any big recording project I took the time to service my guitars, give them a restring as needed and check the intonation etc... For my Jaguar and Modded Pacifica, it was a routine job, but for my homemade double-neck guitar, after putting it off for years, I decided to finally take the plunge and service the electronic controls as well, aaaand it was a bit of a disaster... From broken parts to ordering news ones, to some of those being broken, to refunds and replacements and the replacements being just as broken, eventually the problem was solved by simply drowning the old original pots (which I was convinced were beyond saving) in cleaning solution, and basically putting all the original parts back in (with a fresh set of capacitors and resistors), and re-soldering the whole guitar control cavity probably 3 times before it was done... Having said that, after an ordeal of a service job, it's sounding better than ever and I will not be making the same mistake again trying to fix it or replace parts unless COMPLETELY necessary. A whole load of wasted time, a bit of wasted money (though I have to commend and thank the shop for the refund and being so understanding with the faulty parts), BUT I'm finally ready to start recording! Phew... let's pray that never happens again...

A brief history of my double-neck "Satin-X" for those of you interested, I built this guitar with my dad and brother (and tools lent by other family members and friends) when I was 15, half a life ago. It's been through a whole load of crazy adventures and repairs over the years (on top of the one above) with the most significant being when the 12-string neck's truss rod (the metal bar which counteracts the tension of the strings) snapped, me cracking the original 6 string bridge whammy block, me snapping a whammy bar and cracking another one if I recall correctly, and replacing the 6 string bridge completely as well as the 6 string tuning heads (the "new" bridge is AMAZING!). The Satin-X is my pride and joy and has been featured on most of my guitar heavy records. I wish it the best health for the years to come, and while this probably won't be the last time I need to repair it, I can always hope!

Back to recording news, my GF Eva gave me a wonderful early birthday present last week which was an IR loader box from recently founded tech company Sonicake! For those of you who don't know, IRs or Impulse Responses are a relatively new technology whereby you send a frequency sweep through a piece of equipment to map out its response then use a "deconvolver" to compare the input and output and generate a snapshot of the effect of the equipment you scanned. This only works for non-dynamic effects, but is ideal for accurately emulating speaker and mic set-ups and reverbs for instance! The technology has been around for a while in software, but this is the first time I'd seen it in hardware for the entry level market, and it does and amazing job! Marketed as a guitar cabinet IR loader (for recreating the sound of guitar speakers), the Sonicake IR box featured 11 slots which come pre-loaded with a nice selection of classic speakers, but in case you want to customise, you can load in your own speaker IRs via USB! I generally use cab sims in IK Multimedia's AmpliTube when recording but it's quite heavy on computer resources so I loaded IR snapshots my favorite AmpliTube cab settings into the IR box instead so I don't need to use the computer which will save me a load of time and computer resources! I can even take the IR box to a gig and D.I into the PA instead of micing a cab if I need to, and know that every place and time I'll be able to play with the same sound AND the sound which was used on the BTTB records (or close to it)! Sounds amazing and I can't wait to start recording with it!

Finally for this week some quick and cool news to share with you today as Jabun's "Turing Machine" (which was released a week ago on Monday) and the upcoming "Generation Supernova" album were featured in The Tank Tribune No. 36 on Newgrounds.com! Thanks so much for featuring the music and sharing the news fellow Newgrounds peeps and check out the issue below for a whole bunch of Newgrounds related news! Have you heard Turing Machine yet?

https://thetanktribune.newgrounds.com/news/post/1152194

Only a few weeks to go until Generation Supernova releases to the world! 

And that about wraps things up for this post! I'm hoping to start recording guitars for Better Than The Book very shortly, and next week will be the first post of the month, so I'm sure there'll be Bandcamp Friday news as well as the usual setting and reflecting on goals to do. Until then, I hope you have a great week, I hope my week's a bit more relaxed than the last one, and thanks as always for supporting JabunAudio and my various projects however you can! Take care, all the best and see you again on April Fools Day!

Hi everyone and hope you're having a great week so far! It's been an incredible one here at JabunAudio with both Jabun AND Better Than The Book working hard on new material at various stages! Drums for Better Than The Book's upcoming 3rd album are sorted (until it's time for mixing), and I've been getting deep into guitar recording experiments preparing the finest tones before I hit the red button, as well as learning about "cabinet impulse responses" which has been very interesting! Initially I was hoping to bi-amp my Orange and Marshall amps for some enhanced tones, but after much tweaking, turns out they sound VERY similar in context so I'll likely not bother, and stick with one or the other depending on the specific tracks. A package of components also just arrived in the post for some huge and LONG overdue guitar servicing jobs before I start recording too, so I'm excited to get on with those when I can (more on that when it's all done and fingers crossed everything goes smoothly)! Onto Jabun and the main news for this week, as you can tell by the title of this post, it's been a big week for Jabun's upcoming 3rd album, so let's get straight to it!

After last week’s big announcement of Jabun’s brand new 3rd album “Generation Supernova”, I’m super excited to share with you today the album’s pre-release single “Turing Machine” as pre-orders open on Bandcamp! Check it out below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YyXiy8MPAlk

A special thanks to everyone who stopped by for the premier and made for an exciting Monday evening too. Hope you all enjoyed yourselves!

Pre-order Jabun’s Generation Supernova album and pick up the pre-release single “Turing Machine” on Bandcamp:

https://jabun.bandcamp.com/album/generation-supernova

Generation Supernova is a 37+ minute collection of 4 tracks exploring generative music methods in the studio. Each track utilises a carefully designed system set up to generate a never-repeating and ever evolving soundscape which was conducted and guided to build an emotional and developing journey from the first note to the last.

The pre-release single “Turing Machine” utilises 4 evolving sequences generated using an initial input fed into a deck of cards and a coin flip acting as a very basic modular synth style Turing Machine. You can see the original handwritten manuscript including the sequences, generation rules, and more in this album’s bonus materials on Bandcamp and Patreon!

Generation Supernova was a fun and rewarding exploration into generative music methods, with each piece very much the result of the unexpected fruits of conducted chaotic experiments in the studio, much like the 15-4-20 album. Whether you sit down to listen intently, have it on in the background while doing something else, or simply immerse yourself in the sounds, I hope you enjoy these semi-ambient, generative experimental soundscapes, from the strange early months of 2020.

Now that pre-orders are open, you can also check out the full tracklist, album credits, special thanks and descriptions on the Jabun – Generation Supernova Bandcamp page! Read more below and I hope you have fun exploring:

https://jabun.bandcamp.com/album/generation-supernova

Generation Supernova will be released to the public on April 15th at 8pm BST, but of course my supporters on Patreon have lots of rewards to grab today in celebration of this new album and single launch!

For the $1 patrons, you’ve got the album cover art and an mp3 download of the pre-release single “Turing Machine” today + you’ll of course be getting the full mp3 album and all the additional artwork and bonus materials when they’re released on April 15th as well! Only a month more to wait!

$1 rewards: https://www.patreon.com/posts/46779666/

For the $5 & $10 patrons, in case you missed it last week, you’ve already been given early access to the full album download package! All 4 tracks (Mp3 & WAVs) and all artwork including a high resolution scan of the original handwritten Turing Machine Generation Manuscript! For the $10 patrons, you’ll also be getting an exclusive unreleased Jabun demo from the writing sessions of 2019/2020! Check out the rewards below:

$5 rewards: https://www.patreon.com/posts/46779658/
$10 rewards: https://www.patreon.com/posts/46779661/

If any of that sounds good to you, then become a patron today for as little as $1 a month and remember that you’ll be also getting access to all past rewards for your tier including the full Better Than The Book and Jabun discographies, many Patreon exclusive bonus tracks and more! I hope to see you there!

Become a patron: https://www.patreon.com/NickStanding
Explore past rewards: https://www.patreon.com/posts/44575319

That's it for today's post! Next week's looking to be heavy with preparing for recording guitars for Better Than The Book (as well as Jabun promo work and some other admin things), so should be an exciting one with more stuff to report next time! Until then, I hope you’re as excited as I am for the album launch on April 15th and I hope you have a great month ahead listening to “Turing Machine”! Thanks as always for supporting Jabun, Better Than The Book, JabunAudio and my various projects however you can and take care, all the best, and have a great time!

Hi everyone and hope you're having a great March so far! It's been an intensely exciting week here at JabunAudio mostly working on drums for Better Than The Book's in-progress 3rd full length album (just some final checks to do, then it's onto guitar recording), as well as prepping for this week's HUGE announcement from Jabun! Let's not wait any longer; onto the big news!

Following my improvised, semi-live, ambient and experimental 2nd album as Jabun – 15-4-20 (released December 2020), I'm super pleased to finally announce my next experimental studio album as Jabun – Generation Supernova which will be released on the 1st anniversary of 15-4-20's recording: April 15th 2021!

In the last few months of 2019, I started writing and gathering demos for what I’d hoped would be Jabun’s 2nd album, a continuation to my debut album Daydream in style which even included some repurposed ideas from those writing sessions back in 2016-17. It was an amazing feeling to be back to Jabun after all these years and I really couldn’t get enough of composing all this new music! At the start of 2020 however I had a week or so of being awfully ill, the worst I’ve felt in years, though this was before the whole COVID-19 situation really hit the UK. Lying in bed for the best part of a week, I was itching to keep composing and thought to myself “Boy would it be nice if the music just kind of wrote itself?” With no physical energy and nothing better to do, I spent my waking hours browsing the internet and researching and eventually stumbled upon, and fell down the rabbit hole of, the topic of “generative music”, the works of Brian Eno, Steve Reich, generative modular synthesis, Turing machines and more. It was an exciting and unknown world to me, and as soon as I was fit as a fiddle again, I was straight back to the studio to put some of the ideas I’d learnt into action!

The result was the first demo for a track which would eventually become Deep Space, track 2 on this album. Deep Space didn’t really fit in with the other demos I’d been working on at the time, and as I continued writing a mixture of generative ambient explorations alongside my more traditional Jabun works, eventually 4 generative pieces stood out from the others to form their own album which was soon titled Generation Supernova. Around this time I also had the inspiring semi-live ambient explorative evening session which would become the 15-4-20 album, and the rest of the year was spend polishing these 2 projects while I continued to write further demos as Jabun.

Generation Supernova is a 37+ minute collection of 4 tracks exploring generative music methods in the studio. Each track utilises a carefully designed system set up to generate a never-repeating and ever evolving soundscape which was conducted and guided to build an emotional and developing journey from the first note to the last.

Generation Supernova was a fun and rewarding exploration into generative music methods, with each piece very much the result of the unexpected fruits of conducted chaotic experiments in the studio, much like the 15-4-20 album. Whether you sit down to listen intently, have it on in the background while doing something else, or simply immerse yourself in the sounds, I hope you enjoy these semi-ambient, generative experimental soundscapes, from the strange early months of 2020.

The photo for the album artwork was taken looking out of the living room window from the flat in Rotherham where I was based in 2017-19. I’d been meaning to use this picture for another Jabun album ever since I took it, but I didn’t end up working on any Jabun during that time and the photo finally felt right for Generation Supernova. This Jabun album is the first where the cover photo wasn’t taken in the town where the album was completed.

Hi everyone and hope you're having a great start to March! Man is the year flying past and this week's been another busy one here are JabunAudio mostly working on drums for Better Than The Book's upcoming 3rd full-length album! Only 4 drum tracks left to go so it's almost time to start tracking rhythm guitars! More exciting times ahead (though I've got to service the guitars first). Onto the main news for this week, there's not a whole lot to report apart from the usual beginning of the month things: Patreon rewards, Bandcamp Friday and some goals to set and reflect on, so let's start with some Patreon news! 

Yesterday was the 1st Wednesday of the month which means it's time for some more $1+ Patreon rewards and this month we're going waaay back again to 2014 for 2 classic Nick Standing tracks: "Mr. Knife" and "I Won't Eat My Broccoli!!!". I'll also be sharing another exclusive sneak peek demo from Better Than The Book's upcoming album with the $10+ patrons! Read more about everything below and become a patron to download the tracks as well as my entire Patreon back catalogue so far (including the full Better Than The Book and Jabun Discographies and many Patreon exclusives). I hope you enjoy them all!

Find out more: https://www.patreon.com/posts/45792424/​
$1 rewards: https://www.patreon.com/posts/45792426/
Become a patron: https://www.patreon.com/NickStanding 
Discover the Reward Archive: https://www.patreon.com/posts/44575319

Next this week, building on the success of last year's campaign in support of musicians impacted by the coronavirus, Bandcamp is again waiving its revenue share fees on the first Friday of the month from midnight to midnight Pacific Time (that's tomorrow) for Bandcamp Friday! That means that if you purchase anything from Bandcamp this Friday 5th of March, the artists you support (including myself) will get more of the sales revenue than usual since Bandcamp doesn't take its cut, and you'll be able to support the music you love more directly than ever on the platform!
 
If you've been itching to pick up Jabun's recent "15-4-20" album, Better Than The Book's "Hopes and Dreams" or "Two Years On" albums or last month's Save The Ska Show compilation album, now's the best time to do so! Check out the Bandcamp pages below and thanks again for supporting my music in any way you can, it really means a lot:

Better Than The Book
https://betterthanthebook.bandcamp.com/
 
Jabun
https://jabun.bandcamp.com/
 
Nick Standing (< The sillier old stuff)
https://nickstanding.bandcamp.com/

Save The Ska Show:
https://theskashowwithbeefy.bandcamp.com/releases

And if you're not sure whether it's Bandcamp Friday in your time-zone, you can check using the tool right here:

https://isitbandcampfriday.com/

Finally for this week's post, it's time to do the usual reflecting on last month's goals and setting some new ones! Here's what was set for February:

1) Sort Patreon rewards for the next 2 months (related to Jabun's 3rd album)
2) Fully sort the Bandcamp page for Jabun's 3rd album
3) Sort all the streaming descriptions/tags/scheduling for the online uploads of the album (YouTube, Newgrounds, and SoundCloud teaser)
4) Finish assessing and finalising the 14 BTTB demos as mentioned earlier and set up a spreadsheet for the album production progress

​And a successful month it has been! 1), 2), 3) & 4) are done without much to comment on. Jabun's 3rd album is ready to be announced NEXT WEEK, though there is one tiny bit of admin work which seems to be stuck and waiting for tech support at the moment... (thankfully nothing which will hold up the release schedule though)! On top of finishing off the demos for Better Than The Book's 3rd full-length album, I've also recorded/programmed 10/14 of the drum parts so far, so lots of extra progress than I expected (I also just about kept up with my BTTB live practice too, though admittedly it's been a bare minimum). Pushing on forward for next month goals, here's what I'll be setting:

1) Announce Jabun's 3rd album and launch the pre-release single / pre-orders
2) Finish recording drums for BTTB's 3rd album (4 left + checks)
3) Test guitar recording set-ups and start recording rhythm guitars for BTTB's 3rd album
4) Design and source at least one piece of merch for BTTB and/or Jabun

I have a tonne of other personal goals to accomplish too, but these are the 4 JabunAudio goals I'll be setting myself publicly! 1) Should go on without a hitch, and I think 2) should be fine at the current pace things are going. 3) will be interesting. I'd like to try out a new guitar recording method for this album using both my Orange and my Marshall amps bi-amped in hopes of a fuller and more balanced tone. There will be technical things to sort to make sure everything works properly and it should be an interesting exploration! On top of that I'll need to service my electric guitars before recording with them, but I'll likely do them one-by-one as needed, rather than all before I start recording. Ideally I'd like to have at least 1 guitar serviced and some parts tracked before the end of the month, but we'll see how it all goes. Goal 4) is a sidestep from usual things. I've been meaning to set up a merch store for Better Than The Book and Jabun for a while now and after some good ideas and discussion, I'd like to start planning for it. Whether the stores get set up before the end of the month is unclear, but I'd at least like to have some solid designs ready and sources for merch sorted before the end of the month. Should be another interesting endeavour!

On top of these I'll be doing my best to keep up with Better Than The Book live practice and with the end of lockdown in sight I'm REALLY looking forward to jamming with the guys again (it's been over a year now since we were all in the same room). Since guitar recording means taking apart my live rig though, I'll have to get all my practice done BEFORE I start on the guitar recording tests, and practice will understandably be a bit disrupted while I track guitar parts for the album. A couple more things to sort too, but that'd secret for the moment. With all that said, wish me luck and I hope you have a good and productive month working on your goals too! Feel free to leave you goals in the comments and we can cheer each other on!

And that about wraps things up for this week's blogpost! Next week's going to be an exciting one as I formally announce Jabun's upcoming 3rd album, but I'm sure there'll be more to report on top of that as well! Until next time, I hope you have a great week to come, be sure to support your favourite artists (hint hint) for Bandcamp Friday tomorrow, and thanks as always for supporting my music and projects in all the ways you can! An exciting month to come and I look forward to sharing the journey with you as it unfolds! Take care and all the best!

Hi everyone and hope you've had a great few weeks since the last blog post! It's been a fairly busy one over here at JabunAudio working on another collaborative track of sorts (more to report on that when I can), as well as programming drum parts for Better Than The Book's upcoming 3rd full length album! 6 tracks done so far, so just a little short of halfway at the moment, but I think things are coming on nicely! Got a fresh batch of Ernie Ball strings in the post too, so I'll be servicing the guitars for some recording once these drum parts are sorted very soon. Busy busy! Onto the main news for the week, it's time for some more $5+ Patreon rewards so let's dive into that!

Yesterday was the final Wednesday of the month which means it's time for some more $5 and $10 Patreon rewards, and this time I have not one, but TWO classic Nick Standing songs to share with you (including some extra bonus content as well)!

Let's start with the earlier and lesser known of these two, a parody VERY rough punk rock song called "I Won't Eat My Broccoli!!!"! This was originally released on the same day as Sonnet For A Spider Girl: Halloween 2012 (according to the earliest dates I could find), and really was just me messing around recording for an afternoon to experiment (as I recall) with my newly homemade Super Fuzz pedal (which you'll be able to hear the bass guitar blasting though on this, as well as in some of my other discography)! I also wanted to try out getting some valve saturation and grit on the vocals which were recorded though my Korg ESX sampler for extra character. It was a fun afternoon with a silly song to show for it. Call me a phoney too, but full disclosure: I actually LOVE broccoli (probably one of my favourite veg), but those were the words which came to mind that afternoon, and so it's history now! The track was remastered for a Bandcamp release on May 7th 2014 and I've included both the original legacy version as well as the remaster as rewards for your enjoyment. Hope you enjoy a little silliness and you can listen to I Won't Eat My Broccoli!!! (the remaster) on Bandcamp:

https://nickstanding.bandcamp.com/track/i-wont-eat-my-broccoli

And speaking of silliness, we come to the next track which was released just one day after the IWEMB remaster on May 8th 2014: Mr. Knife! I've spoken about Mr. Knife in previous posts and for some reason, this Tiny Tim style track which was omitted from the original animation it was commissioned for has become one of my most popular tracks to date (I have no idea why)! To save some space on this already long post, you can read more about the creation of Mr. Knife on the 3rd part of this fantastic interview I took part in on Newgrounds which covers many aspects of my music philosophy and history and is my most detailed interview to date! Read more below:

https://theinterviewer.newgrounds.com/news/post/1119990

And I hope you enjoy the one and only Mr. Knife! Grab it as a reward on Patreon or listen below on Bandcamp:

https://nickstanding.bandcamp.com/track/mr-knife

For the $10+ patrons, you've also got an exclusive sneak peek demo from the upcoming next Better Than The Book album to look forward to! Become a $10+ patron to access that and many more rewards now, and remember that you'll gain access to all historic rewards and posts for your Patreon tier too when you become a supporter including the full Better Than The Book and Jabun discographies and much more! With the newly updated REWARD ARCHIVE it's never been easier to catch up with all those posts and music downloads you've missed too! I hope you enjoy them!

Become a Patron: https://www.patreon.com/NickStanding
Discover the Reward Archive: https://www.patreon.com/posts/44575319

That about wraps up the rewards for this time! Mp3s for these songs will be out for the $1+ patrons next Wednesday, and the next set of rewards after that will likely be a bit early and coincide with the announcement and pre-order launch for Jabun's upcoming 3rd album. Until then, I hope you have a great March to come and thanks as always for supporting my music, Jabun, and Better Than The Book! Take care and I can't wait to show you my latest tracks as Jabun!

And that it for this blog post! As mentioned above, next time I'll be sharing the $1 Patreon rewards and it's also Bandcamp Friday coming up next week as well as time to go through the usual monthly goals etc... at the very least! Always room for more excitement here at JabunAudio, but until next time, I hope you have a great end to February and thanks as always for supporting my projects in all the ways you can. All the best and take care!

Hi everyone and hope you're having a great week so far! It's been a fairly busy (and super cold) one here at JabunAudio sorting out all the Patreon rewards associated with Jabun's upcoming 3rd album, as well as the Bandcamp page and all the online streaming descriptions (YouTube Newgrounds etc...). A LOT of typing and copying and pasting, but it's all done now, and just one last thing to wait for until the pre-release admin work for the album is complete too. Almost there! On top of that I've also been going through all the pre-studio-recording demos for Better Than The Book's upcoming 3rd album and thankfully it's not taking nearly as long as I expected it would! Just one more left to go through then it'll be time to prep for recording for real! Fun times! That's about all the main updates for this week, but I do have just one little press feature to share with you this week, so let's finish off this post with that!

So on Monday this week I had an nice surprise when my Patreon page was featured in The Tank Tribune Newspaper on Newgrounds.com! A huge thanks to The Tank Tribune for sharing the page and you can check out The Tank Tribune NO. 30 below:

https://thetanktribune.newgrounds.com/news/post/1142472

If you're reading this and haven't done so yet, then come join me on Patreon for as little as $1 and get the full Better Than The Book & Jabun discographies (and much more) when you sign up to support my music for monthly rewards; it really helps me out to keep making all these tunes! Thanks for the love and hope to see you there!

https://www.patreon.com/NickStanding
​
And for a big list of all the past rewards you'll have access to when you sign up, check out the reward archive below I put together for the convenience of new patrons! There's a TONNE of stuff:

https://www.patreon.com/posts/44575319

That's it for this blog post! I'm sure I'll be busy finishing up that final Better Than The Book demo in the coming week, and perhaps it'll be time to order some new strings soon too! Time will tell and we'll see how it all goes, but until the next one, I hope you have a great week ahead whatever you're up to and thanks as always for supporting JabunAudio and my various music projects in any way you can! All the best and take care!

Hi everyone and hope you're having a great week and start to February so far! Boy has it been an exciting and busy one over here and there's a tonne of news to share with you as you can probably tell by the title! Let's dive straight into it with the release of the first compilation album to feature my music: The Ska Show with Beefy's "Save The Ska Show"!

Following the big announcement last week, I'm super pleased to tell you that the Save The Ska Show compilation album was finally released on Saturday and man is it a monster of a compilation! Featuring 64 ska bands from around the world in all sorts of ska flavours, this album will be acting as a fundraiser to help keep the great Ska Show with Beefy (proudly the 2nd most listened to Ska music show in the world) broadcasting during these crazy times. You'll even recognise my own contribution to the album on track 62: Better Than The Book's The Hardest Part! Check out the full album on Bandcamp below and I hope you enjoy it!

https://theskashowwithbeefy.bandcamp.com/releases

It's been an absolute honour to be part of this fundraising compilation (the first EVER compilation album I've been a part of in fact), and if you're a lover of ska music and/or the show, then that's 64 tracks from around the world for as little as 12 Australian Dollars (not even £7), with the option to donate more if you wish. Let's keep the skanking going and save this great show! Pick it up!

Next on the news this week, some more ska punk updates from Better Than The Book as I'm super excited to announce that songwriting for the project's next album (AND EP) are just about almost done! First draft lyric sheets are completed with rough demos of all tracks recorded as well; a total of 10 brand new tracks for the project's 3rd full length album (running in at ~35 minutes) + a subsequent EP of 4 bonus tracks including one new song + 3 alternative versions from the main album (running in at ~13 minutes)! Of course I also plan on making instrumental releases for these projects too, so that's 4 Better Than The Book releases (at least) to look forward to over the next few years! Due to restrictions from the pandemic, as well as general project timescales, I'm doubtful I'll be able to release the first of these before the end of 2021, but I aim to be well into the recording and production process at the very least! There's still a little preparation needed before it's time to start recording for real, including servicing instruments and setting up project worksheets/sessions etc... but next thing on the cards will be to go through these 14 demos and make sure I'm happy with all the general arrangements etc... before I get started recording for real. That'll be one of the goals this month (which we'll get into at the end of this post), but things are certainly exciting for Better Than The Book at the moment! More details to come as and when, but if you really want a closer sneak peek at the writing process then head over to Patreon and become a $10 supporter where I've already started sharing sneak peeks and demos at the progress so far! Remember you'll be gaining access to the entire back catalogue of rewards too, when you sign up so come get a backstage pass to the action and I look forward to seeing you there!

https://www.patreon.com/NickStanding 

And speaking of Patreon, yesterday was the 1st Wednesday of the month which means it's time for some more $1+ Patreon rewards! This month we're going waaay back to Halloween 2012 for my first acoustic solo track as plain old Nick Standing: "Sonnet For A Spider Girl". Read more about it below and become a patron to d0wnload the track (as well as my entire Patreon back catalogue so far). I hope you enjoy it!

Find out more: https://www.patreon.com/posts/45792410/
$1 rewards: https://www.patreon.com/posts/45792397/
Become a patron: https://www.patreon.com/NickStanding 

Next this week, building on the success of last year's campaign in support of musicians impacted by the coronavirus, Bandcamp is again waiving its revenue share fees on the first Friday of the month from midnight to midnight Pacific Time (that's tomorrow) for Bandcamp Friday! That means that if you purchase anything from Bandcamp this Friday 5th of February, the artists you support (including myself) will get more of the sales revenue than usual since Bandcamp doesn't take its cut, and you'll be able to support the music you love more directly than ever on the platform!
 
If you've been itching to pick up Jabun's new 15-4-20 album, Better Than The Book's "Hopes and Dreams" or "Two Years On" albums (the latter of which celebrates its 5th anniversary on February 6th! Man how time has flown!) or the new Save The Ska Show compilation album, now's the best time to do so! Check out the Bandcamp pages below and thanks again for supporting my music in any way you can, it really means a lot:

Better Than The Book
https://betterthanthebook.bandcamp.com/
 
Jabun
https://jabun.bandcamp.com/
 
Nick Standing (< The sillier old stuff)
https://nickstanding.bandcamp.com/

Save The Ska Show:
https://theskashowwithbeefy.bandcamp.com/releases

Finally this week, it's the beginning of another month and so time to reflect on and set some new goals as usual! Here's what I set for January:

​1) Sort the Bandcamp, RouteNote and streaming uploads for Jabun's 3rd album (proof listening)
2) Make an announcement video for Jabun's 3rd album
3) Make a promo schedule for Jabun's 3rd album
4) Try to finish another 3+ 1st draft lyric sheets for Better Than The Book's next album
​
And overall a great turnout! All the music uploads have been sorted, RouteNote's even been approved for worldwide distribution too, the announcement video has been made and uploaded, and I've sorted out a solid promo schedule which lasts from March to mid-May as well (lots of work ahead for me). I also finished not 3 but 4 first draft lyric sheets for Better Than The Book's next album/EP project, as well a few horn parts and other things! Good progress! Next month is looking to be similar in terms of goals and things to do so let's aim for this:

1) Sort Patreon rewards for the next 2 months (related to Jabun's 3rd album)
2) Fully sort the Bandcamp page for Jabun's 3rd album
3) Sort all the streaming descriptions/tags/scheduling for the online uploads of the album (YouTube, Newgrounds, and SoundCloud teaser)
4) Finish assessing and finalising the 14 BTTB demos as mentioned earlier and set up a spreadsheet for the album production progress

That seems like a tonne of work to do, but hopefully just about doable (and I still have other non-JabunAudio goals for this month too). Of course I aim to keep up with my Better Than The Book live practice too as best I can, though still not sure when that's going to be put to good use... Anyways! A Long (short) month of hard work ahead methinks! Wish me luck and I hope you're able to achieve your goals too! Feel free to share them in the comments below!

That about wraps things up for this post! Seems like I've got a lot of typing in my week ahead to look forward to, but hoping for some BTTB practice and demo time too! Until the next blog post whenever that may be (February 24th at the very latest), I hope you have a great month ahead and thanks as always for supporting JabunAudio, Jabun, Better Than The Book and my various projects (and the things they're connected to) in any way you can! Hope you enjoy the new compilation album and looking forward to sharing even more Better Than The Book and Jabun with you soon! All the best and take care!

Hi everyone and hope you're having a great week so far! Boy has it been a busy one here at JabunAudio and some incredible news to share with you in today's blog post! Before that, some quick updates: I'm been busy sorting out admin work for Jabun's upcoming 3rd album (which will be coming Spring 2021) and I'm super happy to announce that it's just been approved for worldwide distribution so the ball is finally rolling and clock ticking until the concrete release date! I still need to sort out the associated Patreon rewards and the Bandcamp page, but at least I know it'll be arriving to iTunes, Spotify, etc... on the desired date without any problems! With much of my to-do list complete earlier this week, I've also been busy writing more lyrics and recording demos for the upcoming next Better Than The Book album as well, which is going VERY well and ahead of schedule. Just one more first draft lyric sheet to finish off and a few rough horn parts to arrange, then it'll be time to go through these demos with a fine comb before recording everything for real! Exciting times ahead! Anyways, with those little updates all said, it's time to get onto the main news for this week and let's start with a HUGE one: Better Than The Book's first compilation album feature to save a beloved ska radio show!

Those of you who've been following Better Than The Book over the past few years have certainly heard of the amazing Ska Show with Beefy, based in Melbourne and proudly the 2nd most listened to Ska music podcast in the world! The show has played a tonne of Better Than The Book since my debut on there in 2019, but with all that's happened over the past year and finances running low, the future of the show is looking unfortunately uncertain...

But when things are looking dire, people come together, and so Beefy along with 60 ska/skapunk bands/artists from around the world (including myself) have put our heads and hearts together to release a 60 track fundraising compilation album to keep the show on the air! There'll even be one BTTB track on there! Which one? You'll have to wait and see! Pre-orders for the album are now open and the album releases this Saturday 30th January! Check it out on Bandcamp below, along the promotional art:

https://theskashowwithbeefy.bandcamp.com/releases

It's been an absolute honour to be part of this fundraising compilation, and if you're a lover of ska music and/or the show, then that's 60 tracks from around the world for as little as 12 Australian Dollars (not even £7), with the option to donate more if you wish. Let's keep the skanking going and save this great show and I'll be back next week when it's finally out!

Next on this week's blog post, another quick bit of cool news to share with you as my most recent collaborative single with Cyberdevil (as Jabun) "Away Fear" was featured in this week's The Tank Tribune's Tribune Phonograph playlist Vol. 28 on Newgrounds.com! Thanks so much for sharing even more of our music, and check out the full playlist below:

https://www.newgrounds.com/playlists/view/7a1628488d0ca66a3ea72f38928041d9

And read The Tank Tribune No. 28 below too:
https://thetanktribune.newgrounds.com/news/post/1139715

Finally for this week's news, it's the last Wednesday of the month which means it's time for some $5 and $10 Patreon rewards, and with last year's Jabun album out to the world (completing the current Jabun discography), it's time to go waaay back and explore some of my classic tracks as plain old Nick Standing!

This month it's my very first acoustic solo track: "Sonnet For A Spider Girl"! Released on Halloween 2012 (before even the very first Jabun track but not before the first Better Than The Book demo), this song is a love ballad for my greatest childhood fear! The lyrics are pretty self explanatory and as expected my production has improved a tonne since this was released (unlike my drawing or handwriting) so the mixing/mastering isn't to today's standard, but it's a trip down memory lane which always brings a smile to me, and I hope it does to you too! If you're an arachnophobic, I hope this changes your mind even if just a little! Listen to Sonnet For A Spider Girl on Bandcamp:

​https://nickstanding.bandcamp.com/track/sonnet-for-a-spider-girl

For the $10+ patrons, you've also got an exclusive sneak peek at this year's upcoming 3rd Jabun album to look forward to (set to release in spring) with a cover artwork reveal and story as well as a title reveal! Become a $10+ patron to access that and many more rewards now, and remember that you'll gain access to all historic rewards and posts for your Patreon tier too when you become a supporter including the full Better Than The Book and Jabun discographies and much more! With the newly updated REWARD ARCHIVE it's never been easier to catch up with all those posts and music downloads you've missed too! I hope you enjoy them!

Become a Patron: https://www.patreon.com/NickStanding
Discover the Reward Archive: https://www.patreon.com/posts/44575319

That's it for this month's rewards and Sonnet For A Spider Girl will be out for the $1+ patrons next Wednesday! Next month we'll be continuing with the Nick Standing song back catalogue with 2 shorter tracks, one of which I've already mentioned here and on Patreon, but until then, I hope you enjoy some old music from plain old Nick Standing!

And that about wraps things up for this blog post! Next time I'll be posting up the released link for the Save The Ska Show fundraising compilation album, as well as the $1+ Patreon rewards, and there'll be the monthly reflections and goals to go through as well at the very least! Until then, I hope you enjoy all the music, thanks for reading and as always thanks for supporting JabunAudio, Better Than The Book, Jabun, and my various projects and the things associated with them however you can; it really means a lot! Let's save this ska show and I look forward to sharing more news with you next week! All the best until then, and take care!

Hi everyone and hope you're having a great month so far! Time's flying and it's been a medium-busy week over here sorting more admin stuff for Jabun's upcoming 3rd album, though with the slightly lighter schedule I've had some time to get back to Better Than The Book writing too which has been nice! Not a whole lot to report this week, but there's another nice press feature to share from Jabun so let's celebrate that!

It's always fun to get a get a feature, and on Monday Jabun's  "Home" (the 2014 single version) was featured in this week's @TheTankTribune's Tribune Phonograph playlist Vol. 27 on Newgrounds.com! Thanks so much to The Tank Tribune for sharing the music, and check out the full playlist below:

https://www.newgrounds.com/playlists/view/d3ea1a6bcf44529373a64faf187c6aa3

And read The Tank Tribune No. 27 below too:

https://thetanktribune.newgrounds.com/news/post/1138365

That really about wraps things up for this week! I'll be back next time to share some more Patreon rewards at the very least, and maybe some more exciting news will come to fruition in the mean time too! Until then, I hope you have a great few days ahead and thanks as always for supporting JabunAudio and my various projects however you can! All the best and take care!