Hi everyone and hope you're having a great start to November! It's been a busy time here at JabunAudio this week and although later than expected (after almost 2 months of downtime), I'm super excited to announce that JabunAudio is finally relocated, calibrated and open again to help with all your digital mastering, music production, and animation audio needs! Feels great to be back to it and there's so much I want to get done before closing up again for the winter break too! As always, feel free to explore the portfolio and services list via the navigation links above to see what JabunAudio is all about, and if you're a creator who uses audio then I look forward to working with you on your projects soon! I've a couple of little web updates to do in the coming weeks, as well as putting together a new mastering demo reel later this month, but first thing on the cards will be some long overdue guitar recording for a little fun project! Looking forward to that! Apart from all that news above which has taken most of my week to sort out, it's been an extra exciting few days for Patreon rewards so let's start by diving into that!

Yesterday was the first Wednesday of the month, and naturally, the $1+ Patreon rewards have just gone out, Mp3s and artwork for last week's $5 tier rewards: Better Than The Book's "Get A Haircut [Radio Edit]" which was featured BBC Introducing last month (a Patreon exclusive download) + Jabun's "3rd September 1939"! Feel free to read more on the dedicated Patreon post here:

https://www.patreon.com/posts/31102203

With JabunAudio just re-opened too, I've put together a special bonus reward for all the Patreon supporters too: a quick tour of the new studio with pictures and a Q&A in the comments section! Join in for as little as $1 and pick up all previous rewards for your tier (Including the full Better Than The Book discography, Patreon exclusive bonus downloads and more) when you do and check out a teaser photo of the new studio below! Hope to see you there!

https://www.patreon.com/posts/31329452

https://www.patreon.com/NickStanding

Finally this week, it's the beginning of another month, so as has become tradition, let's reflect on last month's goals and set some new ones for November! Here's what was set for October:
​
1) Finish setting up and acoustically treating / calibrating the new studio, and re-open JabunAudio
2) Join PRS for Music and sort registrations
3) Sort the Patreon rewards for the next 2 months and schedule the posts

Now I didn't think I'd be able to get most of these done, but it looks like everything went better than expected! Although JabunAudio re-opened at the beginning of this week rather than by the end of October, it's all ready for this blog post so that's what counts! I didn't take into account the admin time for registering for PRS, but after many MANY spreadsheets and forms, my PRS application is all sorted and all the necessary works registered and tagged with the IRSCs on PPL too, so that's grand! And I managed to schedule those Patreon reward posts up until Christmas so that's great too! 3/3 goals sorted!

This coming month is looking to be VERY busy with various things, both business, creative and personal, what with the holiday season coming soon, but I feel like I've a lot to catch up on so I'll still be setting a fair few goals here, though they'll be less urgent than last month's.

1) Put together and publish a new mastering demo reel for 2019
2) Finish some small web updates I've been meaning to do
3) Record vocals and guitar solos for a cover song that's been on the back-burner the past few months
4) Start putting together ideas for a new Jabun album/EP to release next year

​I've also got the usual November to do list of sorting Christmas presents and travel (among other things) so these 4 goals feel a good balance of productive and fun! Wish me luck, and feel free to post your own goals in the comments too! Best of luck with yours!

And that wraps things up for this blog post! I'm going to be busy on those first 3 goals for much of this coming week I'm sure, and there's some other stuff in the works to come soon too so we'll see how it all plays out! Until the next one, I hope you have a great week whatever you're up to and thanks as always for supporting JabunAudio and my various projects! Hope you enjoy the Patreon rewards if you've signed up and take care!

Hi everyone and Happy Halloween! Hope you've had a great week so far and have fun plans for tonight if the spooky holidays are your jam. It's been a pretty hectic week here at JabunAudio, mainly sorting out the next set of Patreon rewards as well as filling in an obscene number of spreadsheets for PRS and PPL registrations (and more admin work), but that's all done now which means this afternoon I should be able to get back to setting up the studio, which has made just a little bit of progress over this past week. Thankfully I've found some time to keep inspired on the guitar and other instruments, but I'm hoping to get to a lot more of that soon! Not much apart from that to report this week, other than that the latest set of $5+ Patreon rewards are out! Let's get to that:

​Yesterday was the final Wednesday of the month which means another set of Pateron reward posts for the $5 and $10 patrons are out, and this time we're heading into 2013 continuing the Jabun back catalog of music with another remix-contest track: "3rd September 1939"! I'm also sharing a bonus Patreon/Radio exclusive Better Than the Book track this month: the radio edit of "Get A Haircut" which was featured on BBC Introducing! Just a little extra reward but I hope you enjoy it!  

Onto this month's Jabun track, "3rd September 1939" was created back in February 2013 for a remix context which if I remember correctly was to promote the release of some sample packs. Unlike last month's track which was an actual remix of a pre-existing song, this time contestants were given royalty-free stems to compose with and my entry was the track below. Back then I was still experimenting with finding my own voice as Jabun and remix contests like this are always fun opportunities to experiment with new styles in a low-pressure "have some fun" environment. I wouldn't say I'm completely happy with this one but there are a tonne of elements I do like and it was a great learning experience back in the day! I hope you get a kick out of it at least, and without further wait, here's "3rd September 1939"!

Onto the bonus Better Than The Book Patreon exclusive download: I have the radio edit of "Get A Haircut" which was featured on BBC introducing earlier this month. It's nothing too exciting in that it's the same as the album version apart from having the word "prick" muted (at the request of the BBC)  but as my closest supporters I thought the patrons would appreciate a download of it! Check out the album version of Get A Haircut on Bandcamp:

For the $10+ patrons, I'll be diving deep again into the creation of another track from Better Than The Book's recent "Hopes and Dreams" album, the solemn number on the album "You've Got A Lot To Say" (which you can listen to via the player above too)! Become a $10+ patron to access that article and many more now, and remember that you'll gain access to all historic rewards and posts for your Patreon tier too when you become a supporter! With the new REWARD ARCHIVE tag it's never been easier to catch up with all those posts and music downloads you've missed too! I hope you enjoy them!

https://www.patreon.com/NickStanding
https://www.patreon.com/posts/31102201​

That's it for this month's rewards and for this blog post too! The $1 Patreon rewards will be out next Wednesday (Mp3s and artwork for the two $5 reward tracks), and it's the beginning of another month too which means more goal setting and reflecting to share! Until then, I hope you have  a great Halloween and start to November and thanks as always for supporting JabunAudio and my various music projects! Take care!

Hi everyone and hope you're having a great week so far! I was really sure I was going to have to take a break from the blog this week as nothing note-worthy that I could talk about was happening, but then on Monday I received an email with possibly some of the MOST note-worthy news I've had for a long time! I'm sure you'll have seen by the title of this post, but before we get to that, on top of being busy promoting and sorting things out for that, I've been busy working on a long overdue collaboration which will hopefully be shared in next week's blog! Super fun stuff and it's been great to be making music in a relaxed way while I wait to get the studio back together.

Speaking of which, after many weeks of postage delays, loss and re-ordering, I've finally acquired more materials to get back to setting up the studio so some progress has been made in that department this week too though there's still a long way to go. Not quite sure JabunAudio will be open again by the end of the month as planned, but hopefully it shouldn't be too long afterwards. We'll see how far along things are by the next blog post.

But enough delay, onto the main news for this week!

So yesterday at about 8:22pm on BBC Sussex and BBC Surrey, Better Than The Book made its BBC Radio premier with "Get A Haircut" on BBC Introducing: The South! It was an incredible show last night, and thanks so much to Melita for playing the track and for all the kind words. Some amazing tweets from people too throughout the show which were read on the radio, and that makes 7/10 of the tracks from the Hopes and Dreams album to have been featured on the radio worldwide so far too! That's mind-blowing to me! You can read more about the show via BBC Introducing: The South's Facebook post below:

https://www.facebook.com/BBCIntroSouth/photos/a.423129657865927/1323914041120813/

And for anyone who missed the LIVE broadcast, you can catch the show again on the BBC Sounds App / website for the next month (only 29 days left)! Check it out:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07pp6j9

Of course if you want to hear more from Better Than The Book's "Hopes and Dreams" album, check it out on Bandcamp, and in all the usual digital places!

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

Now the version of "Get A Haircut" which was played was a special radio edit since the word "prick" in the context I used it in, is certainly not BBC radio friendly, but interestingly, this wasn't the only radio edit I was requested and provided to the BBC so hopefully (fingers crossed) BTTB will be making another appearance on BBC Radio soon! We shall see!

And moving from the biggest media group in the UK to a much smaller independent radio station, Tonic Ska Radio is still showing lots of love for Better Than The Book in London! Thanks as always for sharing the music and check out their Facebook post below for more details:

https://www.facebook.com/tonicskaradio/photos/a.920763794801085/1129748203902642/

And that about wraps things up for news this week! Hopefully by next week I'll be able to reveal this mystery fun collaboration with you, and who knows, maybe there'll be more BBC news to report, or the studio will be set up too? We shall have to wait and see. In any case I'll be sharing the latest $5+ Patreon reward announcement, and until then I hope you all have a great rest of the week and thanks as always for supporting Better Than The Book, JabunAudio and my various projects. Take care! 

Hi everyone and hope you've had a great few weeks since the last post! It'll just be a quick one this time as due to problems with postage and not receiving materials, I've not been able to get much more done with regards setting up the studio since last time, so JabunAudio will not be reopening for likely another few weeks. Balancing out the good and the bad though, there have been some exciting things developing this week, so with any luck there'll be some cool things to share soon once things are set in stone.

Onto what I've been up to since the last post, one amazing highlight of my time away was going to see Alice Cooper at the Brighton center again (just like in the BTTB song "Brighton") which was spectacular as usual! It'll have been over 10 years since I last saw him and it's always a fun show. Amazing to see Nita Strauss in the new guitar line-up too (phenomenal player) and the support acts were MC50 and The Stranglers both of which were fantastic too! Overall some good time away, as I'd probably have been just getting frustrated in a half set-up studio over here! Always good to just play some guitar and experiment though while things aren't so busy. Anyways, there's a few cool pieces of news to share this time (hopefully even more to come soon) so let's get onto that!

Firstly this week, check this out! My buddy Cyberdevil (who was featured on Head Above Water from Better Than The Book's Two Years On album) was a guest on the Newgrounds podcast "A Couple Of Crickets" and made a lovely shout-out to our collaborations and Better Than The Book's Meteor Shower too (at 56:55)!

https://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/886259

If you've yet to hear Meteor Shower, Head Above Water, Hopes and Dreams and/or the rest of the BTTB discography you can check it out in all the usual places as well as on Bandcamp too:

https://betterthanthebook.bandcamp.com/

The episode also earned a Front Page Award on Newgrounds! Neat! Give it a listen to hear more about Cyberdevil, his Newgrounds history and more via the link above and check out CD's awesome Inktober project, a new rap acapella for each day of October as well as his usual Inktober drawings! You can find all those and more on his Newgrounds profile below: Thanks CD!

https://cyberdevil.newgrounds.com/

Lastly for this week, Better Than The Books new album is still very much getting lots of love around the world including on Tonic Ska Radio in London. Thanks Tonic Ska for playing the music and feel free to read more via their Facebook posts below:

https://www.facebook.com/tonicskaradio/photos/a.920763794801085/1117175341826595/
https://www.facebook.com/tonicskaradio/photos/a.929833417227456/1120572141486915/

That's it for today's news roundup! It's looking to be busier times ahead this coming week and with any luck I should hopefully be further along setting up the studio again by the next blog post too. Until then, I hope you enjoy the podcast and as always thanks for supporting JabunAudio and my various music projects however you can! Hope to have more good news and music to share soon, and take care!

Hi everyone and hope you're having a great start to October! It's been a super busy few weeks since the last blog post, but I'm happy to say that after a tonne of hard work sorting things, I've just about moved everything into the new studio space! The equipment is unpacked and mostly set up (enough to do some admin work and guitar practice at least) but there's still the matter of sorting the new acoustic treatment and calibration for the room so it'll be a little while yet until JabunAudio is open again for business. My current aim is to have everything ready to open again by the end of the month, though hopefully it'll be sooner than that (the internet connection is sorted at least)! In the mean time, there's a tonne of news to share from the past few weeks so let's get on with that!

First of all this week, yesterday was the first Wednesday of the month which means the rewards post for the $1 patrons were sent out (along with the $5 and $10 rewards the previous week), and this time we're continuing the Jabun back catalog of music with my first ever remix as Jabun: "Nine Fifteen Ft. Jess" by Diamond Eyes!

This track was made for the very first remix competition I took part in back in December 2012 only a few weeks after "Bergamot" was released and a few weeks before Better Than The Book's debut EP One Small Step was released too! It's one I hold close to heart and the first of my more experimental and cinematic / electronic fusion tracks, with eastern elements mixed among western orchestra and synth driven electronics! Become a $1+ patron to download the Mp3 and artwork now, or become a $5+ patron for all that as well as the full quality WAV file and early access to all future rewards, and I hope you enjoy this less chill side of Jabun!  

​
For the $10+ patrons, I'll be diving deep again into the creation of another track from Better Than The Book's recent "Hopes and Dreams" album, the video game nostalgia trip that is "GG"! Become a $10+ patron to access that article and many more now, and remember that you'll gain access to all historic rewards and posts for your Patreon tier too when you become a supporter! With the new REWARD ARCHIVE tag 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 patreon: https://www.patreon.com/NickStanding  

Another Jabun track will be coming for the next set of rewards as we move into 2013's Jabun discography, so keep an ear and eye out for that at the end of the month / beginning of November!

In other news this week, it's been an exciting time in terms of features for Better Than The Book's Hopes and Dreams album while I've been away, so here's a quick round up of what new and awesome things have been happening!

First of all, "Meteor Shower" was featured on the "Distilled Endless Summer" show on Downtown Radio-Tucson! Thanks so much for playing the music, and that makes 6/10 tracks from the album now to have been featured on the radio around the world so far! Amazing stuff and feel free to read more via DJ Testerman's post below!

https://www.facebook.com/DJTesterman/videos/332541597528856/

Next up, a while back I was interviewed by Love It To Death about the Hopes and Dreams album and BTTB in general, and the interview was finally published a few weeks back! Check it out below for discussions about the origins of BTTB and the project name, the themes and influences in the new album, and the future of BTTB! Enjoy the read and thanks to LITD for having me:​

https://loveittodeathreviews.wordpress.com/2019/08/16/__trashed-4/

Finally, "Artificial Ignorance" which seems to be a crowd favorite from the album was featured once again on The Ska Show with Beefy on Southern FM! Always a pleasure to be on your show Beefy and thanks as always for sharing the music! You can listen to the show via Beefy's post below and BTTB plays at -33:13 from the end followed straight on by a kind shout-out! Thanks so much!

And check out the full playlist for the show below:

https://www.facebook.com/notes/the-ska-show-with-beefy-on-southern-fm/playlist-10th-september-2019/2485030768251980/?__tn__=HH-R​

That about wraps things up for the BTTB news this time and if you've yet to check out Better Than The Book's Hopes and Dreams, you can find it in all the usual places as well as on Bandcamp! Enjoy!

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

Finally this week, it's the start of another month so as has become tradition, let's look back at last month's goals and see how we did before setting some new ones. Here's what I had for September:

1) Finish the formal Better Than The Book - Hopes and Dreams promotional campaign
2) Get fully moved in to the new place and start getting stuff set up (I don't expect to finish setting up though)

Only 2 goals considering the busy time, and I think they went ok! The Hopes and Dreams promotional campaign concluded smoothly, though despite the the formal campaign ending people are still very much sharing the music which is great! As previously mentioned, I'm fully moved in to the new place now too, though there is still much left to sort before I can get back to routine. With those goals reflected on, let's set some new ones for October:

1) Finish setting up and acoustically treating / calibrating the new studio, and re-open JabunAudio
2) Join PRS for Music and sort registrations
3) Sort the Patreon rewards for the next 2 months and schedule the posts

Goal #1 is highest priority for obvious reasons though as with setting up any studio I imagine it'll take some time and be fairly difficult. #2 is something I've been meaning to do for a few years now, and with all the radio airtime Better Than The Book has received since Hopes and Dreams was released, it finally feels like the right time to sort it all out! #3 is just a smaller goal as I realise things will be very busy this month but something which needs to be done as usual. Since I'll not be able to do much recording and production, it's a very admin heavy set of goals this month, but I sure hope to be back to some more musical ones in November! Wish me luck and if you've any goals too, feel free to share them below so we can keep each other accountable!

That wraps up this post! I'm away for most of this coming week so there'll be no blog post next week but I've no doubt there'll be more exciting news to share in 2 weeks time! Until then, I hope you enjoy all the new music and things to check out and thanks as always for supporting JabunAudio, Better Than The Book and my various projects! See you in another 2 weeks and take care!

Hi everyone and I hope you've had a fantastic week so far! It's been a super busy week here at JabunAudio packing up ready for the move next week, and apart from my desk, main studio monitors and guitar amp + a couple of pedals (all of which will be packed up right after I post this), the studio is all boxed up and ready to go! This post will be the last one for a few weeks until I'm settled in the new place and have a new internet connection set up, but don't fret, this final post is gonna be a big one to leave JabunAudio3 with a bang! Tonnes of radio news to share + one final video and a round-up to conclude Better Than The Book's Hopes and Dreams album's formal promo campaign too! Let's get straight into it!

First of all this week, today is the final day of the formal promotional campaign for Better Than The Book's Hopes and Dreams album and to celebrate, I've uploaded a stream of the full album to YouTube and Newgrounds which you can check out below for the full 39+ minutes of uninterrupted heartfelt ska punk / pop punk that is Better Than The Book's Hopes and Dreams! I hope you enjoy it!

Purchase the “Hopes and Dreams” album on Bandcamp:
https://betterthanthebook.bandcamp.com/
 
Or grab the full album and complete Better Than The Book discography now when you become a supporter on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/NickStanding

Listen on Newgrounds: https://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/882416

​Next this week, a tonne more radio news to share! On Saturday morning I managed to catch the re-run of last week's The Undiscovered Sound on idobi Radio​, and "Artificial Ignorance" was featured! Thanks so much to Jeff for playing the music and you can read more about The Undiscovered Sound on their site here:

https://idobi.com/show/the-undiscovered-sound/

I'm don't think there'll be a podcast re-run of this episode, but if there is I’ll update the link on the PRESS page with the replay. Still awesome news!

Onto the next show, "Artificial Ignorance" was also featured on Channel One Radio’s The Warp Factor on Friday! Thanks so much Kirk and Craig for playing the track, and no worries at all on getting the name wrong (you're not the first)! Ironic considering the title too! You can listen to the full radio show again via the link below for many great tunes and a history of punk segment too! “Artificial Ignorance” plays in the last half hour of the show:

https://www.mixcloud.com/thewarpfactor/the-warp-factor-ultimate-punk-with-craig-cabell-6th-sept-19/

Lastly in the radio related news for this week, Button Down Radio and Tonic Ska Radio both seem to be expressing their love for Better Than The Book recently too! Thanks so much for playing the tunes and you can listen in and read more via the Facebook posts below:

Button Down Radio:
https://www.facebook.com/buttondownradio5446/posts/2401291610142662

Tonic Ska Radio:
​https://www.facebook.com/tonicskaradio/photos/a.920763794801085/1091865371024259/
https://www.facebook.com/tonicskaradio/photos/a.929833417227456/1093440354200094/

Next from the news this week, with that final full-album stream released, it feels crazy to me that after almost 5 months of pre-hype and post-promo, the formal Hopes and Dreams album promotional campaign has finally come to a close, and what a heck of an adventure it has been so far! Let's take a look back at everything the album has achieved since the first single dropped back in May:
 
Before the album was even launched, Hopes and Dreams, was featured in a number web magazines with one of the singles “(The Travelling To See Eva Song)” earning Better Than The Book its Australian FM radio premier on The Ska Show with Beefy, the #2 ska music podcast in the world! Fast forward to today, and less than 2 months after the album’s release, 5 out 10 of the tracks have been featured on radio shows and podcasts worldwide including:
 
Idobi Radio’s Fresh Picks, Spinning Thoughts, and The Undiscovered Sound shows (California)
Bobs Ska Radio (Seattle)
Channel One Radio’s The Warp Factor (UK)
Button Down Radio (UK)
Tonic Ska Radio (UK)
The Masita Ska Show with Beefy on Southern FM (Melbourne)
 
Bear in mind that many of these shows have featured and played multiple tracks from the album in multiple episodes too! On top of all the radio features, Better Than The Book has been featured and/or interviewed in a number of web magazines and music blogs too including:
 
Broken Arrow Magazine
Pete's Rock News And Views
Happy Metal Geek
Breathing The Core
The Punk Site
World Beyond Blog
 
A special mention goes out to Newgrounds too where the 2nd single “Artificial Ignorance” (which seems to be a crowd favourite across the board) earned a front page feature award too! A HUGE thanks to everyone who’s shared and played the music and helped spread the word with a round of applause for the album’s PR extraordinaire Meg who especially made many of the magazine/blog features and interviews possible! Thanks Meg! Check out all these features in full, reading interviews as well as re-listening to many of the radio show/podcast features on Better Than The Book’s press page below! I hope you enjoy them:
 
https://betterthanthebookuk.weebly.com/press.html
 
And if you’ve yet to hear the Hopes and Dreams album and see what all the fuss is about, the full album is now streaming on YouTube, SoundCloud and Newgrounds as well as available in all the usual places (iTunes, Amazon, Spotify, etc...) and of course on the Better Than The Book Bandcamp page! Enjoy:
 
https://betterthanthebook.bandcamp.com/album/hopes-and-dreams
 
(and of course you can listen via the video above too!)
 
Onto other news if you've not yet heard, now that the Hopes and Dreams album is out, it felt like a great time to make some updates to my Patreon page, and so I’ve revised the descriptions, goals and tier rewards (now only 3 tiers to choose from) as well as added REWARD ARCHIVE posts for the convenience of new patrons so you can grab all the past rewards for your tier (including the full Better Than The Book Discography and more) in one place when you sign up! Read all about the new updates via the Patreon post below:
 
https://www.patreon.com/posts/28931894
 
With such a big BTTB related project just finished, the newer rewards which started up again this month will focus mainly around my other musical personality Jabun (electronic / cinematic) for a little while, but don’t worry, Better Than The Book is not done yet which leads me to the final piece of news for today:
 
Last month for the first time since its conception in 2012, 4 guys (including myself) got together to jam the tunes live as a Better Than The Book band! It was just a casual living room jam, but the results were promising enough that over the past month we’ve been hard at work arranging and learning our parts for our first full band practice at the start of October! I can’t say for sure what’ll happen next if that all goes well but there is a definite possibility that after 7 years of being solely a writing/recording project, Better Than The Book may be hitting the stage! Many logistics to figure out before then first, but it’s certainly an exciting time for the project (as if the last year wasn’t exciting enough)! Crazy!
 
A friendly reminder that Better Than The Book is significantly fuelled by my Patreon page, and while recording everything myself is relatively cheap and just takes a huge time investment, taking things to the stage is a bit more of a financial challenge. If you’d like to contribute (for as little as $1 a month) head over to my Patreon homepage to read more about the various rewards you can receive, the goals for the project and pick up the full Better Than The Book discography (including some Patreon exclusives and bonuses) if you decide to sign up!
 
https://www.patreon.com/NickStanding
 
If you’re unable to contribute at the moment, then no worries at all! Sharing the Bandcamp or Patreon link on social media is also a huge way to help spread the word and only takes a moment! Thanks for supporting Better Than The Book in any way you’re able to!
 
And that wraps up this post! I hope you’ve enjoyed all the amazing news this time and throughout the campaign, and I have a feeling that there’ll be more press features to come and big news to share soon (we’ll have to wait and see). If you’re itching to hear more then head over to the Better Than The Book Facebook or Twitter for the most immediate updates, or consider supporting my music on Patreon for a front row view of all the action! It's going to be a few busy weeks until the next blog post here, but I hope to be back to it again on Thursday 3rd October once I'm fully moved into the new place! Until then, a huge thank you for supporting Better Than The Book, JabunAudio and my various music projects and I hope you have a fantastic few weeks whatever you’re up to! Take care!

Hi everyone and hope you're having a great first week of September so far! It's been intensely busy over here at JabunAudio sorting various things for this week's big news: JabunAudio is moving!

That's right, after over 2 years and many projects, JabunAudio is relocating once again, and although it's a bigger move than last time, thankfully it's not as far away! Exciting things are happening in my life at the moment and so the studio will be moving with it. All the acoustic treatment has been taken down and about half of the equipment is packed away already ready for the big day later this month. I'm must say, I'm definitely nervous about having to set up a new work space and calibrate/treat a new room (this place was the best studio I've had yet), but it's also an exciting challenge which I've not had in a while!

Of course with the studio in pieces at the moment, JabunAudio has closed its doors for business until the new place is set up, and so from now until likely mid-October I'll be unable to carry out any audio work. Any communications during this period may also receive delayed responses depending on how long it takes to get the internet up and running, though feel free to message me and I'll get to any messages as and when I can. Apologies in advance for any inconvenience, and I look forward to working with you from a brand new studio location in October! 

With the big news above, the rest of the week has been spent finishing up all the current audio projects, including mixing a teaser for the new Tales of Zale episode by Hikarian Animations, as well as getting machines backed up and things packed away ready for moving. It's also been a busy week for tying up some admin loose ends with much time spent sorting the Patreon page (more on that in a moment), but there's also some exciting news, as well as another track, to share from Better Than The Book! Let's get started with that!

​Another week; another track, and this time I'm sharing the final and title track from Better Than The Book's Hopes and Dreams album, which brings everything Better Than The Book has been about since 2012 to an intense climax to close this chapter! Prepare for some major feels, heartfelt lyrics, and references that go all the way back to One Small Step! Check it out via the YouTube video below or on SoundCloud and Newgrounds if those are your usual haunts and without further wait, here's "Hopes and Dreams":

​Purchase the “Hopes and Dreams” album on Bandcamp​:
https://betterthanthebook.bandcamp.com/
 
Or grab the full album and complete Better Than The Book discography now when you become a supporter on Patreon​:
https://www.patreon.com/NickStanding

With that final track out now, you can now listen to the entire Hopes and Dreams album on YouTube, SoundCloud and Newgrounds via the playlists below too! I hope you enjoy revisiting all the music from the past few months:

YouTube: 
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLWEmqIhrNPvRXtoSO0XcRRXiZno54nctc

SoundCloud: 
https://soundcloud.com/bttb_uk/sets/hopes-and-dreams-album

Newgrounds: 
https://www.newgrounds.com/playlists/view/4de7b9bd11545537f082fae812c1395f

Just one more thing to share next week before the formal promotional campaign for the album comes to a close, but what and incredible journey it's been over these past few months! Thank you all so much for helping spread the word about this music I've poured my heart into over the past year and supporting Better Than The Book! You folks are awesome!

Onto the next section of news for this week, lots of updates to share from Patreon! First of all, as yesterday was the first Wednesday of the month, the $1+ Patreon rewards have been sent out including my debut track as Jabun from back in 2012 "Bergamot"! It's all pretty much the same news as last week's rewards for the $5+ Hi-Fi Early Pigeons so I shan't repeat it all here, but check out the post on Patreon below for all the details:

https://www.patreon.com/posts/29106009

The bigger piece of news this week is that I have some major updates to share with you about the Patreon page itself, as with Better Than The Book's Hopes and Dreams album (and entire discography) now out and up on Patreon, it seemed like the prefect time for some well needed revamping!

To start with, I've reassessed the reward tiers and reduced it down to 3, waving goodbye to the others as there were no subscribers to those and it was just extra work for me. So long! The 3 remaining tiers are as follows and you can read more about them on the Patreon page here.

$1 - Pigeon (Same as before)
$5 - Hi-Fi Early Pigeon (Same as the previous $5 Early Pigeon tier)
$10 - DEMOlition Pigeon (Same as before)

With these remaining tiers, I've also updated the descriptions to be bullet pointed for clear communication of the rewards and added in the explicit reward of gaining access to all past rewards for your tier too! Speaking of which if you hadn't already heard, for the convenience of patrons I’ve put together "REWARD ARCHIVE" posts so you can quickly access all rewards from October 4th 2018 to August 7th 2019 which include the full Better Than The Book discography and more! No longer will you need to sift through all the past posts manually to grab your rewards; it's all in one place now (up until August 7th 2019). Neat stuff, and feel free to read more about it in the post below:

https://www.patreon.com/posts/28928832 

With the changes to the rewards and these new convenient additions, the main Patreon description and intro video seemed a bit out of date and irrelevant so the intro video has been temporarily removed and the description updated to better reflect where things are now, rather than when I first started on Patreon a year ago. The space where the video was is now occupied by one of the press photos from the Hopes and Dreams album campaign and I hope to have a new intro video put together later this year.

Finally, with all the changes, achievements and a whole year gone past since I first set them, it felt like a great time to reassess my Patreon goals and so there are now only 3 goals for what I hope to achieve when we reach $100, $500, and $2000 a month. The accompanying descriptions I feel are more realistic to what I think I can achieve and I hope will help people to see where I aim to get with the platform and my music projects. As with the rewards tiers and description, you can find all these updates on the Patreon page here.

Next this week some more radio news for Better Than The Book's Hopes and Dreams album! Last night Better Than The Book was apparently featured on The Undiscovered Sound on idobi Radio but I missed it because I was given the wrong air time (an hour late), so I don't even know what track was played! Many thanks to Jeff for spinning a song on the show and apparently there will be a re-run of the show on Saturday at 11am BST. In the mean time, feel free to check out more episodes of The Undiscovered Sound on the show's page on idobi radio below and hopefully I should be episode 21 whenever that comes out in podcast form:

https://idobi.com/show/the-undiscovered-sound/

Interestingly I did catch Better Than The Book's "The Hardest Part" playing on a teaser for idobi Radio's fresh picks segment when I tuned in which was pretty cool! Hopefully I'll be able to catch the intended show on Saturday! 

On a more positive note, it seems like Better Than The Book just keeps getting more and more love over on Button Down Radio, which is always nice to hear! Thanks so much for playing the tunes and check out the post below for some more ska radio fun:

https://www.facebook.com/buttondownradio5446/posts/2397008467237643?__tn__=-R#
​
Finally this week, it's the beginning of another month which means it's once again time to reflect on the previous month's goals and set some new ones for September! Here's what I had for August:

1) Create a "dump" rewards post on Patreon for all the BTTB discography and related rewards
2) Schedule Patreon rewards posts for the next 2 months
3) Have a temporal clean-up on the Patreon page in general (update information etc...)
4) Record lead and harmony vocals (+ the guitar solo?) for the mystery cover song (low priority)

​So let's start with what I didn't get done: it's been such a busy month that I've simply not had any time to pursue any leisurely recording projects, so 4) and the associated project have been put on hold until I'm in settled in the new studio and have some free time again. With the REWARD ARCHIVE posts and this weeks revamp updates on Patreon, I can safely say that 1) and 3) are sorted, and I have indeed scheduled the next 2 months of Patreon reward posts too! Overall not a bad month in terms of goals!

Onto this month, with the studio in pieces at the moment and the big move imminent, I have just a couple of goals to set for JabunAudio:

1) Finish the formal Better Than The Book - Hopes and Dreams promotional campaign
2) Get fully moved in to the new place and start getting stuff set up (I don't expect to finish setting up though)

Only 2 goals (that I'll say here), but as it's set to be a busy month, potentially without a studio or internet connection for much of it, I think those 2 goals are reasonable. The Hopes and Dreams promotional campaign is set to conclude this time next week, a day before everything needs to be packed, so hopefully I can make that (I'll still have my laptop to tie up loose ends afterwards), and with the moving date set as the 20th, 2) should hopefully be doable, though it's a hectic few weeks with other things before and after that too so we'll see how it goes. I have another couple of personal goals to sort too, and those I think will be the harder ones, but hopefully they're doable as well. Anyways, wish me luck and feel free to leave your own goals in the comments so we can keep each other accountable! Gonna be a busy month!

And that wraps up this week's news! Next week's post will be the final blog post for a few weeks, though I aim to be back and writing it again for October 3rd! I'm sure this next week will be super busy finishing off the Hopes and Dreams promotional campaign as well as packing and tying up various other loose ends, but until the next post, I hope you have a marvelous week and thanks as always for supporting JabunAudio, Better Than The Book and my various projects! Take care and see you next time!  

Hi everyone and hope you've been having a great week so far. It's been a pretty hectic time over here (scorching hot too), and I've also been away again for the bank holiday weekend so less than half of the days this week have actually been spent in the studio. The days which have been have been jam packed though and there's a lot to share in this week's post! Before we get into the main news though, I had an unexpected return to Hikarian Animations' Tales of Zale earlier this week which was a lovely surprise! While I can't say anything here at the moment, there's some super exciting things coming up for the project in the future (some of which I'll be continuing to work on for the rest of this week) so keep an eye out for that! There's also some more exciting (and nerve-racking) news to come in next week's blog post but today doesn't feel like the right time to announce it, so you'll just have to wait. With all that mini-news said, let's get into the main stuff for this week and start with another new track from Better Than The Book's Hopes and Dreams album! 

Another week; another track, and this time I'm sharing track 09 from Better Than The Book's Hopes and Dreams album, "You've Got A Lot To Say". This track is one of the more serious ones I've written, all about loss and being there for loved ones in hard times. I feel like "I hope you enjoy it" isn't the right thing to say, but I hope you get something out of it at least and take the message to heart. Check it out via the YouTube video below or on SoundCloud and Newgrounds if those are your usual haunts and without further wait, here's "You've Got A Lot To Say":

Purchase the “Hopes and Dreams” album on Bandcamp​:
https://betterthanthebook.bandcamp.com/
 
Or grab the full album and complete Better Than The Book discography now when you become a supporter on Patreon​:
https://www.patreon.com/NickStanding

Speaking of Patreon, yesterday was the final Wednesday of August which means the rewards posts have started up again for the $5+ and $10+ patrons! With the entire Better Than The Book discography (so far) out now, that means it's finally time to start on the back catalog of my electronic / cinematic project: Jabun! Exciting times!

For those of you who don't know, although I've gone by the name Jabun in many places online since my early teen years, I only started releasing music as Jabun in late 2012, at a similar time that Better Than The Book was also starting out. This month, I present to you my very first original track as Jabun - "Bergamot", a relaxing chillstep electronic track which aimed to be as soothing as a nice cup of Earl Grey tea! It's something very different from what you've heard from me so far on Patreon, and I hope you enjoy it as there's a lot more different things coming up in the next few months. Fear not if you prefer my ska punk stuff though as more exciting things from Better Than The Book are already in the works! Become a $5+ patron to download the track now, or wait a week for it to become available to the $1 patrons! If you've yet to hear it, check out "Bergamot" below for a step back into my early days as Jabun, and while I still had a long way to go back then (I still do), I hope you enjoy it:

Hi everyone and hope you've had a great week so far. I've been away for most of this past one, and while super busy with some things, it's been the quietest week in a while with regards news to share. Nevertheless, there's more music and things to show so let's get straight to it!

Another week and another track so let's start off by sharing more music from Better Than The Book's new Hopes and Dreams album and this time it's track 08 "GG" all about fun times playing video games! Check out the YouTube video below for a fun pop-punk anthem filled with nostalgic video games references and some chip-tune inspired extra sounds! You can also check it out on SoundCloud and Newgrounds if those are your usual haunts and without further wait, here's "GG":

Purchase the “Hopes and Dreams” album on Bandcamp​:
https://betterthanthebook.bandcamp.com/
 
Or grab the full album and complete Better Than The Book discography now when you become a supporter on Patreon​:
https://www.patreon.com/NickStanding

In terms of other news, there haven't been any more press features for BTTB's new album this week, though the Hopes and Dreams album turned 1 month old on Monday which feels a little crazy and what a month it has been! In case you've missed them, you can check out all the press, radio and podcast features so far over on the Better Than The Book website! Exciting times!

https://betterthanthebookuk.weebly.com/press.html

Check out the Hopes and Dreams album on Bandcamp if you haven't already, and thanks so much to everyone who's purchased, listened, shared and played the music loud to the world over this past month! It's been an incredible journey so far!

That's about it for this post! It's onto track 09 of the album next week and I'm sure there'll be more exciting news to share with it. Until the next track and the next post, have a great rest of the week and thanks as always for supporting JabunAudio, Better Than The Book and my various projects! Take care and enjoy the music!

Hi everyone and hope you're all having a great week so far! It's non-stop as usual for the news and exciting times over here at JabunAudio, especially for Better Than The Book's Hopes and Dreams album which seems to be going further and further with every week! Another jam packed blog post this time so let's get straight to it!

Let's start as usual by sharing another track from Better Than The Book's Hopes and Dreams album, and this time it's the opening track to side B, track 06: "Get A Haircut" all about un-fun times and people being pricks! Check out the YouTube video below for a rage filled pop punk anthem about bullying and my first week in a town which shall remain nameless! At least I got a song out of it! You can also check it out on SoundCloud and Newgrounds if those are you usual haunts, and without further wait, I hope you enjoy, "Get A Haircut"!

Purchase the “Hopes and Dreams” album on Bandcamp​:
https://betterthanthebook.bandcamp.com/
 
Or grab the full album and complete Better Than The Book discography now when you become a supporter on Patreon​:
https://www.patreon.com/NickStanding

Next on the news, it's also been another exciting week for radio features (and more) for Better Than The Book! To start with, The Ska Show with Beefy is back again for another re-run and this time track 05 "Brighton" from the Hopes and Dreams album played right after my favourite ska track of all time "The Impression That I Get" by The Mighty Mighty Bosstones​! Such an honour and thanks so much to Beefy for having it up on the show (playing alongside, Reel Big Fish, The Specials and Madness too)! Listen in via the Facebook link below and "Brighton" plays at -18:16 from the end followed straight on by a shout out! Amazing stuff!

You can check out the full track list for the show via the link below too:

https://www.facebook.com/notes/the-ska-show-with-beefy-on-southern-fm/playlist-30th-july-2019/2418165348271856/?__tn__=HH-R

The track which preceded "Brighton", "The Impression That I Get" by The Mighty Mighty Bosstones was pretty much THE song which got me into ska back in the day and is still today one my favourite tracks of all time and one I hold close to heart. If you missed it back in 2017, I even recorded an acoustic cover of the song for my parents' Christmas present that year which you can check out below! Such an amazing track and such an honour to be playing alongside it! Hope you enjoy the cover version:

With "Brighton" added to the list, that makes 5/10 tracks from the Hopes and Dreams album to have been featured on the radio worldwide so far too (that I know of)! Crazy feeling!
 
But the radio news doesn't stop there! All 10 tracks from the Hopes and Dreams album are now on Seattle based internet radio station Bob's Ska Radio​'s rotation! You can even request any of the songs to be played with a dedication if you wish too: just search "Better" or "Book" and choose which track you'd like played! Check it out and listen in below! Thanks Bob's Ska Radio!
 
http://www.bobskaradio.com/index.php/playlist-requests
 
Next, some more press news to share today as the Hopes and Dreams album has been featured in Broken Arrow Magazine​! Check it out and read more in the link below, and thanks so much to Broken Arrow Magazine for featuring the new music!
 
http://www.brokenarrowmagazine.com/have-you-heard-better-than-the-book/
 
And finally this week some super exciting news. Tuesday was a historic day for BTTB as for the first time since its conception in 2012, 4 guys (including myself) got together to jam the tunes live as a Better Than The Book band! Super fun and exciting times, and we'll see where it all goes from here! Who can say for sure, but it's certainly looking to be fun!
 
That’s it for the news this week! Next week we'll be onto track 08 of the album "GG", but I'm sure there'll be many more pieces of news to share too! It's set to be a busy week though I'll mostly away so we'll have to wait and see as to what'll be coming next! Until the next one, have a great rest of the week and thanks as always for supporting JabunAudio, Better Than The Book and my various music projects! Enjoy the new music and take care!