JabunAudio newsletter launched, a new computer, some techno mastering to share, reflecting on May, setting some new goals for June + more!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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