May 2024 Blog Post: All initial Better Than The Book mixes are complete (time for final tweaks), birthday funtimes, broken glasses, 1 year of regular YouTube, more videos + more!

Hi everyone and hope you've had a good April! Spring is here in full bloom which means hayfever's back with a vengence but also that it's time for some more updates! Let's get to it!

In the news for this month, it's been a hectic and busy one, but I'm pleased to announce that the first round of mixing for all 14 of the tracks on the new Better Than The Book album is now complete! There's a couple of tracks I know I need to go back and tweak but for the most part it's just doing any final checks and tweaks as nessesary before it's time for mastering. Slowly getting to that finish line, but no point in rushing it now, I'll be taking my time to make sure things are the best they can be. With any luck it'll be time for mastering by the next update (or close to it)! Fingers crossed!

Meanwhile it's been a mixed bag of luck away from the studio with some great fun birthday celebrations last week right after breaking my glasses... They've been replaced now and hopefully these ones will last even longer than the last pair, but man oh man what a pain in the ass! Onto the more fun and music related birthday news, my twin Eamon is always keeping me well equiped in the studio (more so than me I'm sure) and gifted me a super nice MXR Custom Shop Phase 90 (Script Logo with LED) phaser pedal! I've been eyeing one up for a while and there's a few different versions, but this one is perfect! When I think of the sound of a phaser it's THIS sound and no doubt it'll be finding it's way into the next project when I can! On a non-musical gift related note, Eva and Eli (my new sister in law) got me the new Kirby game which is a chill load of fun with Eva throwing in some Yu-Gi-Oh cards as well (since she's getting sick of beating me so easily (and indeed I'm still a geek at heart)), and my parents surprised me with tickets to Bruce Springsteen and some chicken trousers from Thailand! While not birthday related but a coincidence in timing, an old musical friend of the family Martin (see various BTTB album credits) has also given me his old music production PC too, AGAIN, and by that I mean that for the last ~6 years I've been using his old OLD PC to produce much of the stuff since and including Hopes and Dreams! Very generous! I still need to set it up which probably won't be until after this BTTB album is finished but I look forward to seeing what the extra power is capable of! Thanks so much everyone!

Onto videos for this month, would you believe that it's now been over one year since I started uploading regular (twice a week) videos to YouTube?! Crazy times and thanks so much for sticking around for the journey! To celebrate I have a special thanks, updates, and BTTB rig rundown video for you! Check it out below:

​https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOpki6eGDdc

And of course there's another load of videos to share too! Still keeping up with the 2-a-week packed playlist, and this month been some more organ and guitar whammy pedal experiments (+ more)! Check out the playlist below:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLWEmqIhrNPvQTBoOjZdKLgL4ecTvLz6sm

And here's a list of the latest additions:

• Playing the drawbars on Organ
• Drawbars + Swell Pedal Wah Effect on Organ
• Paradiddle practice + groove on Organ
• Non-tonal Whammy Pedal Experiments
• Volume Swells + Whammy Pedal are... Interesting
• Guillotine Switching Riff with Whammy Pedal
• 1 year of videos + BTTB Live Guitar Rig Rundown
• Night Of The Living Dead MPC Beat

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Next month I'll be showing you how to service a Vibratone style Leslie Speaker before a packed month of videos from March's Better Than The Book LIVE full band practice! Hope you're looking forward to it. It's been much too long!

That about wraps things up for this month, unless you're a $10 patron in which case you have a sneek peek mix demo for the alternative bonus version of "Plot Holes" from the new Better Than The Book album to look forward to! More busy times ahead as this week/month I'll be heading off for another Better Than The Book full band practice (hoping to get some more videos in there) before a trip to Wales for see Bruce Springsteen (thanks again), than later on another trip to celebrate my cousin's wedding! I'm hoping to have the upcoming Better Than The Book album just about ready for mastering by the next update, but with all the trips and other stuff we'll see how it goes! Until then, I hope you enjoy the new videos and thanks so much as always for joining me on this crazy musical adventure! Let's make this 34th year a great one! See you in June and take care! 

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