Illness, Better Than the Book updates, GDPR & updated terms of service, new @jabunaudio.com email address, JabunAudio newsletter coming soon + no blog post next week & downtime until mid June.

Hello everyone and hope you've had a good couple of weeks. It's been a pretty hectic time for me as since the last blog post, I've spent almost an entire week in bed due to illness. Long story short, trying to record many hours of vocals a day despite having spells of hay fever, and probably not drinking enough was not my greatest idea, and I think I pushed my body over the edge. As the saying goes, I should have checked myself before I wrecked myself and by pushing through and not resting, I inevitably delayed my work by much more than I should have. Lesson learnt: don't push myself too far. Despite the illness though, there's still much to tell from the past 2 weeks, so let's get started on the JabunAudio news.

Firstly, some updates on the Better Than The Book album. As I mentioned previously, May was supposed to be the month to complete vocal recording, but due to hay fever I wasn't sure whether that was going to happen. Of course after getting ill, that's pretty much killed the target of getting vocals completed this month, so I'm taking it easy and pushing that deadline to the end of June. As it stands while I write this, 3 tracks are complete with another mostly there (just need to comp the verses), and I'm aiming to have 5 tracks completed (not including gang vocals) before downtime starts on Friday (more on that in a second). We'll see how it all goes, and I'll keep you updated with what's going on.

While we're on the topic of Better Than The Book, last week was mental health awareness week, and having had my experience with the subject, I have a tradition of writing a post on Facebook each year as BTTB which has served as an outlet for my mental health problems since the start. If you're up for a read with some uncharacteristically colourful language for me, then feel free to check it out on the Better Than The Book Facebook page. I hope you get something out of it, and as always, if you're facing issues of your own, don't be afraid to speak up. Much love to you all.

Next on the news this week, some updates coinciding with the new EU GDPR laws. To comply with the new regulations with regards data protection and privacy, JabunAudio, as well as JabunMusic and Better Than The Book, have all updated their policies on the matter with clear details of what data is collected from you and how they use that data. You can find a link to the updated Terms of Use, Data Protection & Privacy Policy in the footer on every page of the websites (side of the page for the blog).

https://www.jabunaudio.com/terms-and-data-protection.html

In essence, not much has changed in terms of how you can use the JabunAudio services, it's just that all the details are available to you to see clearly now, and that I'm doing some extra work behind the scenes to make sure everything runs smoothly. I take the security of my fans, clients and their data seriously and aim to be as transparent as possible with them, so if you require any additional information or have any queries, please message me and I'll do my best to help. As always, JabunAudio will only use any details you give to fulfil the services you request and does not share any data you give with any 3rd parties.

Another term of GDPR compliance is that I'm now required to have traceable and explicit consents for sign-ups to the various mailing lists, so I've sent an email to my various subscribers to confirm their subscriptions. Unfortunately if you don't consent by May 25th (when the law is fully enforced), I'm required to delete your email from the current mailing list, so if you'd like to keep hearing from me please take action by following the instructions in the message. I hope you decide to stay in touch and look forward to bringing you more news and music soon!

Next this week, following the new JabunAudio.com website last month, I now have a new email address nick@jabunaudio.com! Looks professional, right? I'm still in a transitional period updating the links on this website, but this email will be the one sending out the new JabunAudio newsletter when it's launched, and will be used to reply to any correspondence via this website's contact form. Of course, for those of you who are used to using my usual jabun@hotmail.co.uk email (or even one of my other emails), you'll still be able to keep in contact with me using those ones, as I have no plans to stop using them.

Speaking of the JabunAudio newsletter, due to the new GDPR laws, I've decided to delay the launch of the "JabunAudio Monthly Music Production Email" until after GDPR goes into effect on May 25th. For those of you who choose to subscribe, in the first week of each month I’ll be sending directly to your inbox articles, discussion and tips to help you make better productions and music without having to break the bank. Having read a ton of them myself, I know there are already lots of articles for learning music production out there so I’ll only be sharing advice and tips which have helped me personally and I’ve not seen anywhere else. Topics will focus on mastering, my favourite genres of ska punk & pop punk, as well as advice that can be applied to all styles and the occasional tangent. If you have a request for something you’d like discussed feel to send me a message and I’ll see if I can muster up something to share in the following months! I'm aiming to launch in the first week of June, commencing with a free downloadable report "10 Essential Things To Do Before You Send Your Music For Mastering and WHY" with the usual email article starting in July. I hope you're as excited as I am, and I look forward to sharing all this musical knowledge with you soon.

Finally this week, just some notifications of downtime over the next few weeks. It's a busy few weeks for me due to various family gatherings including big milestone birthdays and a wedding, and so from May 25th through to June 12th, I'll be mostly away from the studio. I'll be in for a few days each week so I'll get to messages when I can, but please bear with me if I'm unable to fulfil your requests right away. The usual schedule will commence on June 12th. Because of this downtime, there will be no blog post next week on May 31st, but I'm still hoping to write one for June 7th, to launch the JabunAudio newsletter and set some new goals for the month. Hope you don't miss me too much and I look forward to sharing what I've been up to next time.

That about wraps things up for this week. I'm not here for most of next week, so I'm aiming to finish up another couple of BTTB vocal tracks before I head off, then we'll see where the wind takes me until the next blog post. Until then, I hope you all have a great few weeks whatever you get up to and thanks as always for supporting JabunAudio and my various projects. Take care and see you again in a few weeks!