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Happy New Year! Holiday fun, more music from World Beyond, a Fender Contest to share, Two Years On Patreon rewards & another JabunAudio Newsletter sent out + setting and reflecting on some more goals!

10/1/2019

7 Comments

 
Happy New Year everyone and hope you had a great winter break, festive celebrations and first week of 2019! It's been a busy week for me getting back into the swing of things, but it's nice to be back and there is much to share this week, both in terms of music, as well as news and updates. Before we get onto that though, let's briefly look back at the holiday and see what I got up to!

Unfortunately as usual I've been quite ill for the past few weeks, but that didn't stop me from trying to have a good and busy time! It was great to catch up with family and friends, and the new Spiderman was a fantastic watch at the cinema, probably the freshest film I've seen in ages! It was also fantastic to catch up with my old bandmate and friend Andy Forman who I've not seen in far too long! You can hear him playing guitar on Woof Woof, Nag Nag and shouting with the crowd in the rest of the One Small Step EP, as well as in our other past work together in Lights, Camera, Attraction! Looking back at last year's post, it looks like almost a repeat of last winter, as again due to illness I didn't manage to have a jam, or skate with my brother, and this time not even visit Brighton due to illness... I did however make the most of playing my old gigging Ashdown bass amp (as well as other instruments I don't have here). Boy I miss those low end vibes!

As with the holiday season, I was blessed with some great gifts this year too, including the usual edibles and vouchers, some Yu-Gi-Oh! cards (yes, I am a child a heart), and an additional hard drive for backing up all that audio hard work (always useful and just in time as I was running low on free space). My brother also got me a keytar strap kit for my Yamaha Reface Piano which works a charm, frees me from the keyboard stand when needed, and is REALLY well designed! Now I just need to get some more rechargeable batteries to free myself from the AC adapter! The final highlights were some amazing experience gifts for the new year: tickets to see Ozzy Osbourne and KISS on their final tours, a ticket to the always amazing Australian Pink Floyd, and a visit to the Marvel Exhibition in London, all of which I'm super excited for! All in all a super generous set of gifts this year! Thanks so much everyone!

And with that said, enough talk of the holidays and let's get back to some of the usual JabunAudio news! First there's a load of new music videos to share from World Beyond, then some more announcements and updates before we take a moment to reflect on 2018 and set some new goals for 2019! Let's get started!

Firstly this week, I have a whole load of new music videos to share from World Beyond from our recent album "Nobody Asked For This So I Did It", so feel free to check them out below if you missed them over the holidays. The album is also now available from all major digital retailers and streaming services, and you can find all the links you'll need via the URL below! I hope you enjoy it all, and be sure to subscribe to World Beyond's YouTube Channel to be the first to see the new videos. Cheers!

Nobody Asked For This So I Did It: ​https://fanlink.to/naftsidi

Next this week, I wanted to share with you a photo I took for a competition last year called the Fender Upgrade Contest. No wins for me this time, but I was good fun so I thought I'd share my entry here now that the contest is over. To give a bit of background, the contest was a photo/video competition where you can show Fender why you'd like an upgrade to your musical gear, and the winner as judged will receive $5000 of Fender products to re-kit them for gigging and recording (very nice)! It seemed like a great opportunity for some creativity, and I love Fender stuff, so I thought it couldn't hurt to enter! The picture is captioned and is pretty self explanatory, so I'll put the caption below and I hope you enjoy it!  

Oh, and if you're wondering, this wasn't even half of the paper cranes I have in just my current flat (there's still WAAAAY more where that came from)! Enjoy!
Picture
"Every day for the past 4+ years I get a little note from my girlfriend and fold it into a paper crane. It’s become such a big part of my life that it’s ended up in my album art and I have 1000s of them now!
     But the birds were not credited on the album and have exacted their vengeance by stealing my precious Jaguar! I must gather a band of misfits, acquire a new set of instruments, and do battle on stage. Only then can I restore balance to ska-punk and make this story Better Than The Book!"

​
Next this week, well... last week... it was the first Wednesday of the month and time to send out the Patreon rewards for January! This time I was giving away my debut full-length album as Better Than The Book: "Two Years On", so if that sounds good to you, then become a patron for as little as $1 a month to download Two Years On and all previous rewards for your tier including the One Small Step EP and the last few month's of tracks. Next time I'll be giving away "Two Years On [Instrumentals]" which will be the final piece of the BTTB discography so far, so look forward to being able to pickup the full (current) Better Than The Book discography in its entirety next month. I look forward to sharing more music with you then.

And keeping on the topic of the beginning of the month, as usual another JabunAudio music production newsletter has also been sent out. This time I'll be discussing how to record great gang vocals even if you're working on your own, so if that sounds interesting to you, sign up for free on the JabunAudio home page, I hope you enjoy it, and be sure to share with anyone you think would be interested!

​Finally this week, as has become a tradition, let's look back on December 2018's goals and see how I did. Here's what was set:

1) Have 5 mixes finished for the new Better Than The Book album
2) Write 3 more articles for the JabunAudio newsletter
3) Schedule the holiday time Patreon posts (i.e.: next months rewards)

And it's a triple success from even before I closed the doors for the winter holidays! Only 5 mixes left to go for the new album, all the articles have been written for the blog posts, and the Patreon posts were scheduled and went out in my absence without any problems. Horray! With all that taken care of, here's some goals for this month I'd like to achieve:

1) Have all 10 mixes done for the new BTTB album ready for final tweaks and mastering
2) Set up a new archiving / back-up system for projects
3) Update my ISRC records for the new (and old) World Beyond tracks

I'm not sure that I'll be able to get 1) finished entirely, but I don't think it's impossible, so we'll see how I get on and take as much time as needed. 2) should be pretty simple to set up, but it'll likely take a lot of downtime, to transfer files. 3) I actually set at the beginning of the month, and managed to get done by the time of this post, so it's a cheeky bonus tick in the box for that one already! January's looking to be a bit more of a laid back month at the moment (certainly compared to the last few), so I'm hoping I can sort or nearly sort these goals before a busy February comes around.

Since it's also the beginning of the year, I thought it'd be nice to look back at January 2018's goals for JabunAudio, and see how I got on with those too. Here's the ambitious targets I set myself:  

1) Release the 3rd BTTB album in summer + continue gathering ideas for the 4th album

2) Either release a Jabun EP or be well into working on a new album by the end of the year
3) Invest in some new studio equipment and/or instruments (I don't actually have much in mind for this at the moment, but it's always good to reward yourself)
4) Make some new connections and help make more animations         
5) Keep doing what I do, and keep getting better at it! 
6) Be a better business as well as an audio engineer, music producer and musician. Make 2018 the best financial year for JabunAudio yet!


Well, it's not a great start to those targets, but although the upcoming Better Than The Book album is a bit behind schedule, it's also well on the way towards completion which is something to celebrate. The new World Beyond album was a surprise achievement for the year, so that has to be mentioned in celebration too. Goal 2) has been held back as well for similar reasons, but I've continued to gather new ideas for both BTTB and Jabun throughout the year anyway so that's good. 3) Although I haven't really treated myself to any new instruments / (strictly) musical equipment this year, I did receive the desktop PC earlier this year which has been fixed up and become an incredible tool for music production! I also received the Yui Amplug from my brother which has been amazing for late night practicing and really helped hone some of my guitaring this year. Hilariously, I decided to try and buy a similar thing to help with my bass practice in December, but unfortunately I lost the bidding war on eBay... to my girlfriend, Eva. Apparently, it'll be a present for me at some point (hopefully soon)! The purchase of the new JabunAudio.com webdomain and email address, although not the most fun of things, has been a great investment for the business too. 4) A couple of new connections this year, but mostly rekindling and nurturing long term and older ones I think, and while it's not been a busy year for animation work, it was great to end last month with the new McDowntrends animation from Mr Overkillcoin. 5) I'm still here and I'm definitely continuing to grow, so it's big tick there, and for 6), while 2018 hasn't been the best year EVER for JabunAudio, it's been much better than 2017, and I don't think I made any particularly bad mistakes this year (having learnt from the past), I think I've made some great decisions instead which are already starting to show their benefits. All in all I'd say although I'm a little behind schedule to where I'd thought I'd be, 2018 was a pretty successful year, so let's get some JabunAudio goals set for 2019:

1) Release the 3rd BTTB album and (at least) start on another BTTB or Jabun album
2) There's a cover song I've been meaning to do for a LONG time so I'd like to release that too
3) - 6) Same as last year​: Keep growing!

I think those should all be pretty doable, and I'm still aiming to have "Hopes and Dreams" finished and released before my birthday in April. We'll see how it all goes, and wishing you all a great and successful 2019 for you and your goals too!

And that about wraps things up for this week! I'll be keeping my head busy with mixing the upcoming BTTB album over the next week I'm sure and I hope you all have a great time whatever you're up to as well. Thanks as always supporting JabunAudio and my various projects, once again Happy New Year, and I look forward to sharing more music with you soon. Take care! 
7 Comments
Cyber link
14/1/2019 12:50:43

Happy New Year again Nick! :D Entertaining read here with the bidding thing in particular (how far did that escalate before you figured out who you were bidding against?), and contest entry. Subtle self-promo at the end there too. :) And those Ozzy Osbourne and KISS tickets sound pretty special!! So many legend getting out of the game recently... my nephew was on Guns N' Roses final tour last year, but apparently that went so well it might not be their last one after all. :)

Regarding the domain stuff that was quite a big thing IMO, definitely worth a mention! :D Whole new level of professionalism with that. Good going with the goals, good luck with the New Year ones and... Good Day? Lotta good things going on lately. Good catch-up here too.

Reply
Jabun
15/1/2019 10:38:22

Haha, well what happened was, Eva knew I'd be bidding on it, so I went on my laptop to check the bid (and put in one) at the last moment, which didn't go though as it wasn't high enough, so while I was there, she got out her laptop logged in and bid £1 more on it in the last minute and got it! XD

Man I'm super looking forward to those concerts! All those musicians are heading into their 70s now so seems like an appropriate time to start thinking about calling it a day, but I saw Black Sabbath a few years back and they were as fantastic as ever! I think Ozzy still plans on performing, but not any big tours after this one. KISS I think are planning to call it a day, but it's a 3 year tour I think, so they're really going out with a bang!

Many thanks for the well-wishing! All the best with your goals too (I imagine there's more concerts to go to for you this year too?), Happy New Year once again and have a great day too! Cheers :D

Reply
Cyber link
15/1/2019 11:29:58

Aha. XD Way better that way! Was thinking you'd been upping each others bids a bit unknowingly there... just a pound more too. :) Lucky bid!

Oh, that long! KISS have changed so much over the years though, swapping out band members left and right, out definitely still legendary. Cool to know Ozzy's still going strong. Saw Alice Cooper last year as you know and he did look kind of old but... still got it! As a musician you just get better with age eh? ;) Maybe not vocally but: that's not instrumental. :P

Haha yeah, concerts ARE planned! :D So far at least Stone Temple Pilots, Lenny Kravitz and The Smashing Pumpkins. The highlights haven't really been introduced yet so... exciting times. :) Just hope I haven't booked in any trips during the best ones... will also be doing a bit more travelling this year. Took a short trip to Estonia last week, next weekend it's Östersund (big bro & co), after that Hungary, then a little trip to Finland, and later in March a quick trip to Spain and Estonia again for a longer stay. :P All of those before concert season kicks in though so I'm not missing anything there... hoping to make this year one abrim with experiences. Goals though: mostly related to music. :) Well, thank you, and you too, again, tune two!

Reply
Jabun
15/1/2019 16:00:45

Lucky bid indeed!

True, though it’s looking to be a great KISS line-up too :) Man I’d really like to see Alice Cooper again (seen him twice in my teen years). Nice wordplay there too XD

Sounds like another busy year for you planned already! Have fun at all the gigs (even more when the concert season starts), and on the various travels too! All the best :D

Reply
Cyber link
15/1/2019 21:11:33

For sure, regardless of line-up that's bound to be something special! Would love to see them too. Hey, you could take a trip to Sweden some time and catch him at Gröna Lund! ;)

Thank you, and you too!

Reply
Jabun
16/1/2019 10:17:59

Hehe, that's true (x2), and thank you too :D (though that Gröna Lund trip might be a pretty expensive round-about way to see Alice Cooper again XD)

Reply
Cyber link
16/1/2019 10:31:05

Yupp. XD

Reply



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