Hi everyone and hope you had a great February! It's the beginning of another month which means time for some more Patreon rewards and this time we're back to another old cover EP I gave as a present! Some more updates to share as usual including some new pieces of old gear I couldn't resist picking up, Cyberdevil’s new INK 20 Mixtape and more. Let's get started with that EP!
 
This month I'm sharing with you a 5 track EP of blink182 covers called "5 Tracks, 4 Years, 3 Piece Band, 2 Of Us, 1 Leap", a present I gave to Eva on our 4th anniversary! As with all my cover music I give as presents, this performance is free from any tuning or elasitic timing correction. The track list consists of 5 blink182 songs which are in some way romantic and reminded me of Eva and is as follows:
 
01 First Date
02 M+M's
03 Wasting Time
04 Eva [Josie]
05 All The Small Things
 
The cover of Josie has lots of the lyrics changed to be more personal to me and Eva too, hence the title change. It was all made for her, but I hope you enjoy it too!
 
All Patreon supporters will be receiving an exclusive download of the EP (including music and artwork) this month, and if you're a $10+ patron, you also have an exclusive artwork sneak peek and title / tracklist reveal from Jabun's 4th album to look forward to! If that sounds good to you then join me on Patreon to read more and download the rewards below as well as check out all of this month's project updates in full. Remember you'll be receiving all past rewards for your tier too when you sign up so check out the archives to see everything you can catch up on and hope to see you there!
 
$1 Rewards: https://www.patreon.com/posts/62327941
$10 Rewards: https://www.patreon.com/posts/62327942
Reward Archives: https://www.patreon.com/posts/50344842
Find out more: https://www.patreon.com/NickStanding
 
Next month's reward will almost certainly be the instrumental version of this EP, so look forward to that if you fancy singing along without my voice, or just don't want to hear me singing!
 
Onto the monthly updates, despite being effectively away for about half of the month with my twin Eamon coming to visit (fun times), there's still a lot of news to share! Firstly, after many months away from it, I've finally got back to some Better Than The Book practice in preparation for hopefully some live shows at some point (though at the moment I don't have an ETA) and vocal recording for the new album. Meanwhile, Jabun's upcoming album is almost finished audio-wise and I'm just waiting on some feedback from other ears before I make my final decisions and calling it done. The artwork on the other hand is now fully complete, so things are almost ready to prep for release!
 
In other news, it's been a while since I had a press feature of sorts so I was super happy this month to hear that Better Than The Book and Jabun's "1314" single was featured in The Tank Tribune's phonograph playlist on Newgrounds! Thanks so much for the feature and you can check out the full post here:
 
https://thetanktribune.newgrounds.com/news/post/1251065
 
Onto some exciting gear updates, I have 2(ish) things to share with you this month! Firstly, after telling myself I really don't need another BOSS Overdrive pedal, an opportunity came up which I just couldn't refuse, so I bet you can guess what I did! I got another BOSS Overdrive: The BOSS OD-2r Turbo Overdrive, and it sounds phenomenal! I ended up doing a small modification to it to fine tune and perfect the sound, and after that I was craving another mod/build project, and ANOTHER opportunity came up too! After not being able to find a suitable small rotary speaker to pair with my Yamaha Organ, someone in the next town over was selling an OEM Leslie Tremolo Unit (basically the inside of one with bare wires and no case) and for only £15 so I figured, I’d try and build one myself! If all goes to plan and I can get the innards of the unit working properly then I hope to be rocking a small Leslie 16/18 style cab in the near future! Very exciting! The above paragraph was a heavily abridged version of the story behind those 2 purchases, so if you want to hear more, you can read more in this month’s Patreon rewards!
 
Next on the news, it's been a long while in the making but I'm super happy to finally present to you huge a sort-of collaboration, Cyberdevil's INK20 Mixtape! INK20 is a remastered collection of Cyberdevil's Inktober 2020 challenge where he wrote, recorded and released a new rap song every day for the month of October! The INK20 mixtape features all 31 original tracks + 2 more bonus ones (all remastered) and is free to download from Cyberdevil's website. I was on remastering duties for this, and unlike INK19 or last year's Inktober, there aren't any beats from me this time. Check out a grand collection, read more about it, and grab a free download below! There are some real gems in this one!

​Hi everyone and hope you've had a great beginning of 2022! It's the start of another month and time for some more Patreon rewards and this time, I thought I'd continue with the Christmas EPs theme of the last few months to bring you something extra special: a brand new Patreon EXCLUSIVE EP "Mouth (Season's) Greetings"! This EP was given as a present to my twin Eamon for Christmas 2021 and has not been released in any form anywhere else yet! Lucky for you, he's given me permission to share it with the folks on Patreon and spread the joy! I cannot stress how incredibly stupid it is, and you might lose a few brain cells while listening (or even just looking at the artwork), but I thought I'd share it with you as a special treat! More monthly updates to share on top of this including the brand new 3 track vocal single from World Beyond "REVOLT", but let's get started with this exclusive EP!

"Mouth (Season's) Greetings" is a gapless 22+ minute mashup mixtape EP containing songs and skits, and sampling whatever I could get my hands on! Full disclosure, this EP was made for an audience of one person alone, Eamon Standing, so there will no doubt be in-jokes and stupidity which will fly over your head, but I'm sure you'll appreciate some of it. Although the EP is a single gapless file, it can be divided into 13 rough parts/tracks as follows:

01 Fall Out Soulja Boy
02 One Summer's Day Of '69 Dudes!
03 These Are The References That Will Pierce The Heavens!
04 Sk8er Father
05 Hello Kira
06 Tears for Fears Don't Fall
07 My Ordinary Dog
08 Hybrid Stigmata Theory
09 Where Is My Paranoid Teenage Dirtbag?
10 Rap Godzilla
11 Shoddy Craftsmanship
12 A Million Nights Begin To Shine
13 Epoohlogue

That should give you an idea of what kind of ride you're in for!

All Patreon supporters will be recieving an exclusive download of the EP (including music, artwork and a tracklist) this month, and if you're a $10+ patron, you also have another exclusive Jabun LIVE jam from the upcoming 4th Jabun album to look forward to! If that sounds good to you then join me on Patreon to read more and download the rewards below as well as check out all of this month's project updates in full. Remember you'll be recieving all past rewards for your tier too when you sign up so check out the archives to see everything you can catch up on and hope to see you there!

$1 Rewards: https://www.patreon.com/posts/60760054
$10 Rewards: https://www.patreon.com/posts/60760053
Reward Archives: https://www.patreon.com/posts/50344842
Find out more: https://www.patreon.com/NickStanding

Onto monthly updates, it's been a pretty hectic time as I've been ill for a few weeks which has put the brakes on some projects. Not covid thankfully (according to the tests), but certainly not an appreciated break... Despite that, I have been back to working hard on Jabun's 4th album, with the tracks mostly mastered and the artwork well on the way too. Hoping to have those complete by the end of this month, but some scheduled time away might delay that again. 

Onto the BIG news for this month, World Beyond's brand new 3 track vocal single "REVOLT" was finally released on February 2nd (a reason for this slightly belated post)! The tracklisting is "Nobody is Safe", "Revolt" and "From Chaos" and Vlad has a tonne to say about it along with a teaser over on the World Beyond blog:

https://www.worldbeyond.net/2022/01/world-beyond-revolt-new-vocal-single.html

While I lent my ears to all 3 tracks, I'm only playing lead guitar, bass and screaming vocals for "Revolt" itself, but man oh man you've gotta check out Vlad's voice! Why hasn't he been singing sooner?! A massive congrats to both him and Maritza (who provided the choir vocals) for an amazing new release! Check out the lyric video for Revolt over on YouTube where you'll find all the links to stream and buy the full single in the description:

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

And super cool to see another long term collaborator David Klein II doing the 3D modelling for the video too! Great stuff, David!

For those who are planning to grab the new single on Bandcamp, it's also Bandcamp Friday again which means the artists get a bigger cut of the sales than usual. Check out REVOLT over on Bandcamp and thanks for supporting World Beyond and my collaborative projects!

https://worldbeyond.bandcamp.com/album/revolt

And there's STILL more collaborative stuff in the works with both World Beyond and more, so keep an eye out for more updates with that next time!

Finally this week, I think it's time to set some more goals! While I didn't set up any formal public ones for last month, I think it was a reasonably successful one considering the illness and time away, but let's see if I can make these goals for February:

1) Finish the artwork for Jabun's 4th album
2) Finish the master WAVs for Jabun's 4th album
3) Set aside ISRCs for Jabun's 4th album (no need to register yet, just get things set up in my own records)
4) Get back to practicing for Better Than The Book LIVE stuff!

It's looking to be another busy month with collaboration as well as some time away, so we'll see how this all goes but the first 3 goals would be super useful for getting this new Jabun album out in the first half of this year. Goal 4) has a 2 part purpose, firstly getting back to preparing for LIVE shows if the restrictions stay at ease, but also warming up my vocals again for recording for the upcoming 3rd full length album soon. I've got a fair few other things to do, but we'll see how I get on. Wish me luck and I hope you all have a productive month too! 

That about wraps things up for this month's post! Next time I think we'll be back to cover EP presents but we'll see what takes my fancy when I get around to sorting out the post later! Until then, I hope you have a great February to come, enjoy the musical silliness and thanks as always for supporting my music! All the best and take care!

Hi everyone and hope you had a great festive period last month and a fun New Years! It's the first week of 2022 and time for some more Patreon rewards, and following from last month's "Unwrap With Caution" EP, I'll be sharing another (mostly) acoustic festive EP from 2017, this time a present for my parents "Merry Christmas The Dings 2017"! As with the last, this is a Patreon Exclusive download at the time I'm writing this, and hope you enjoy it! More updates and another brand new World Beyond track to share this month too, but let's start with the EP.

"Merry Christmas The Dings 2017" is a 6 track collection of cover songs I'd sing back when I lived with my parents. It was recorded at the same time as "Unwrap With Caution" and apart from the lack of rap vocals follows a similar style and philosophy of production! I'm really pleased with these, and really do recon they're some of my best cover performances, recordings and productions to date (especially the final track)! The track listing is as follows:  

01 Perfect - Alice Cooper
02 Aliens Exist - Blink-182 
03 Wish You Were Here -Pink Floyd 
04 For What It's Worth - Buffalo Springfield 
05 Impression That I Get - The Mighty Mighty Bosstones 
06 Hurt - Nine Inch Nails / Johnny Cash

All Patreon supporters will be recieving an exclusive download of the EP this month, and if you're a $10+ patron, you also have an exclusive WIP demo of Better Than The Book's "Plot Holes" (with rough vocals and horns) to look forward to (from the upcoming 3rd full length album)! If that sounds good to you then join me on Patreon to read more and download the rewards below as well as check out all of this month's project updates in full. Remember you'll be recieving all past rewards for you tier too when you sign up so check out the archives to see everything you can catch up on and hope to see you there!

$1 Rewards: https://www.patreon.com/posts/59947451
$10 Rewards: https://www.patreon.com/posts/59947446
Reward Archives: https://www.patreon.com/posts/50344842
Find out more: https://www.patreon.com/NickStanding

And you can listen to all tracks from "Merry Christmas The Dings 2017" over on YouTube. Check out the playlist below:

https://www.jabunaudio.com/merry-christmas-2017.html

Onto this month's project updates, I've been swamped with upcoming collaborative projects (more on that in the moment), and away for the festive period so I've unfortunately not been able to work on Better Than The Book or Jabun at all in December. I can say with certainty though that the delays will be well worth it once you hear what I've been up to and although I can't reveal all right now, I can give you a glimpse of one of these upcoming projects below!

Vlad at World Beyond has as usual been working a crazy amount and in December released the teaser and opening track for our upcoming collaborative single, a vocal version of "Revolt" from the 2018 album "Nobody Asked For This So I Did It"! I'm not playing on this extended intro track, but have been working hard with Vlad as his second set of ears and production mind to make this the best possible hybrid orchestral rock single we've released together to date! This single is extra special to me too as it's the first time (as I recall) that Vlad is singing on one of his tracks! I'll be joining him for the main single on guitar, bass and my own chords, but until then and without further wait, here is the opening to the "Revolt" single: "Nobody is Safe"! Enjoy and get hyped!

​https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6x9rzpiyZo

And you can read more December updates from World Beyond including an amazing cover of the Halo Theme, some giveaways, and more below:

https://www.worldbeyond.net/2021/12/happy-holidays-halo-theme-cover.html

Finally for the updates this month, my twin Eamon got me a BOSS Blues Driver BD-2 guitar pedal for Christmas so expect to hear some more Green Day and The Pillows inspired guitar stuff in future recordings (it sounds very nice)! Thanks Eamon! It's looking to be another busy month of collaboration ahead but I hope to be back to some more Better Than The Book and Jabun by February! So much stuff in the works at the moment and I can't wait to show you soon!

For the last thing this month it's time to reflect on goals, and with no formal goals set last month and it being the beginning of the year, let's reflect on the goals for 2021 I set a year ago! Here's what I had listed:

1) Keep doing what I do, and keep getting better at it!
2) Make 2021 the best financial year for JabunAudio yet! (I can only try)
3) Release Jabun's 3rd album
4) Finish writing and start recording Better Than The Book's next album
5) Play the first BTTB live gig (still hoping)
6) Release or at least finish recording another (4th) Jabun album?
​
And given the uncertain year and another one mostly in lockdown I think things went pretty well! 2021 saw the release of Jabun's 3rd album "Generation Supernova", my first feature in a compilation album with The Ska Show With Beefy's "Save The Ska Show Complilation", BTTB & Jabun's collaorative single "1314" which I proposed with (and Eva said yes), along with an Inktober collaboration with Cyberdevil "No Cap Life", a cello performance on World Beyond's Tribute to the Frostpunk game, as well as an Apple Bottom Jeans Meme with my twin, Eamon, and on a less musical side of things, the creation and great reception of my custom NOISE oscilator for Korg's NTS-1 Synth! There is still SO much in the pipeline I can't reveal just yet too, but safe to say I think goal 1) (and 3)) are a resounding success!

Updates-to-the-studio-wise, along with the KORG Volca Modular and NTS-1 which you'l hear in the next Jabun album, there's been a tonne of guitar pedal rig expansions last year with the addition of the Sonicake Sonic IR speaker simulator (thanks Eva) and Digitech Whammy V, both of which you'll be hearing on the new BTTB album, as well as the 40th Anniversay of my favourite guitar pedal the BOSS Super Overdrive SD-1, the new Blues Driver BD-2 from Eamon, and my custom repurposed spring reverb unit made from recycled organ parts, the "Vintage 'Verb"! Not a lot of gaps left to fill in my armoury so I really don't expect to be adding much more in 2022, though there's just a few bit I'll be keeping an eye out for on eBay as usual (come on organ bass pedals)! We shall see!

Back to goals, 4) & 6) are going smoothly with Jabun's next album just awaiting mastering and the admin / artwork side of things, and BTTB's next album just awaiting vocals, horns, cello and a few other production extras before it's time for mixing! Unfortunatly with another mostly locked down year and leaning to the safer side of things, no BTTB gigs have been played just yet (5) and 2021 wasn't the best financial year for JabunAudio (2) though I must say things are getting much better in the past few month, despite the slight step away and more part-time approach I've had to take with it. All in all a good year I recon, so let's set some new goals for 2022:

1) Keep doing what I do, and keep getting better at it!
2) Make 2022 the best financial year (for JabunAudio?) yet! (As always I can only try)
3) Release Jabun's 4th album
4) Release or at least finish recording Better Than The Book's next album
5) Play the first BTTB live gig (still hoping)

Very similar to last year! There is a 5th(+) Jabun project still in the works since 2019 too, but I'll be doing my best to concentrate on finishing Better Than The Book's upcoming projects in my free time (whether that is) and we'll see how everything goes. Wish me luck!

With it looking like another busy month of collaboration ahead, I'll not set any goals (that I can reveal publicly) here, though I'll aim just to get all the silly beginning-of-the-year admin stuff out of the way (cleaning up emails and changing the website dates etc...) and hopefully I'll be back to set some personal creative goals in February. Hope you have a great and productive month (and year) ahead too!
​
That's it for this post and set of rewards and wishing you an amazing 2022 to come! I'm not 100% sure what I'll be sharing in the next set of Patreon rewards but it'll certainly be another Exclusive Download musical present of some kind so I hope you're looking forward to it (+ another Jabun demo for the $10 patrons). I'm sure there'll be more collaborative news to share as well! Until then, I hope you have a great start to the year, take care, and thanks as always for supporting my music however you can! All the best and see you in the next one!

Hi everyone and hope you've had a great November since last time! Advent is upon us, and it's time for another blog post along with some more Patreon rewards! This month I thought it'd be cool to start uploading the backlog of Nick Standing cover song EP's I've given as presents, starting with the most recent and going backwards in time. All of these (at the time of writing this at least) are Patreon Exclusive Downloads, and the first 2 of these happen to be ones I gave as Christmas presents which fits nicely with the time of year too! Let's start the collection with "Unwrap With Caution", my Christmas present for Eva in 2017! 

"Unwrap With Caution" is a collection of 2 mostly acoustic cover songs with a hefty dose of rap vocals! The track listing is as follows:

01 Papercut/PPR-KUT - Linkin Park
(a hybrid arrangement of the original and Reanimation remix versions)

02 The Juggernauts - Zebrahead

All Patreon supporters will be recieving an exclusive download of the EP this month, and if you're a $10+ patron, you also have another exclusive LIVE Jabun ambient performance from what will be Jabun's next album to look forward to! If that sounds good to you then join me on Patreon to read more and download the rewards below as well as check out all of this month's project updates in full. Remember you'll be recieving all past rewards for you tier too when you sign up so check out the archives to see everything you can catch up on and hope to see you there!

$1 Rewards: https://www.patreon.com/posts/58766278
$10 Rewards: https://www.patreon.com/posts/58766276
Reward Archives: https://www.patreon.com/posts/50344842
Find out more: https://www.patreon.com/NickStanding

And you can listen to both tracks from Unwrap With Caution over on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYz2oyXL-jA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6wmiM7dId4

But that's not all for the rewards this month! More on that in a moment!

Onto the montly project updates and news, it's been an incredibly busy and hectic one this time and unfortunately I've not been able to make any progress at all on BTTB's next album. I have however recorded the final track for Jabun's next album, and the project is now all set up and ready for mastering! Next month is looking to be even busier and more hectic than the last though, so I'm not sure when exactly I'll be able to get to these, but in any case, there'll still going to be lots more music to share soon, even if it takes a little longer to finish my own projects. Thanks for your patience!

And speaking of new music, some news on collaborations! My twin Eamon has been concocting madness in his musical laboratory these past few months and has very quickly made a name for himself as a master of the Apple Bottom Jeans meme! For those who don't know, earlier this year a trend started where people would perform covers of songs  but sing the lyrics to "Low" by "Flo Rida" instead... and it's pretty friggin' good! Eamon's done DOZENs of them now, some of which I think have been his best vocal performances ever! I highly recommend checking them out on his YouTube Channel right NOW!

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCap22RGbukp7aqu8zlYbuw

And with incredibleness comes incredible silliness! Earlier this month, Eamon pranked me with a cover of one of MY songs: Apple Bottom Jeans by Better Than The Book! I SWEAR it's not me singing, though he's using my instrumental version and did ask me to help out with making the artwork! It's, quite simply put, trippy listening to it for me! Great job bro! 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tv3ixgZz8eM

And very kindly, Eamon's let me share both these tracks and their artwork with you this month as a bonus reward on Patreon! Go show your support by checking out his channel on YouTube, and grab the Apple Bottom Jeans download pack in the rewards below! Enjoy:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCap22RGbukp7aqu8zlYbuw

​$1 Rewards: https://www.patreon.com/posts/58766278
$10 Rewards: https://www.patreon.com/posts/58766276

Next this week, some more updates from World Beyond! It's time for more bonus tracks and sales for the festive season, and WB has just released a new track of its own too "Bewitched"! I'm not playing on this track specifically, but I am featured on the Mindshell album which it's being added to as a bonus track! Check out what Vlad had to say about it below:

"""
Bewitched is now available as a Mindshell bonus track!

If you previously purchased Mindshell you might want to re-download the album to get our new track Bewitched, a Mental Omega exclusive remake of Witcher's Tale, as a bonus.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Jf6V9QGmJo

Thanks for listening and don't forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel not to miss the upcoming vocal single "Revolt"
"""

And I AM on that new version of "Revolt", and very much looking forward to hearing it released!

On top of that, Vlad's also runing a 50% off sale on the World Beyond bandcamp page, so if you're feeling in need for some EPIC music (and I don't use that word lightly), go grab some deals over there! Vlad says:

"""
It's the most wonderful time of the year!

World Beyond Bandcamp Holiday sale is on: worldbeyond.bandcamp.com

Use promocode "controlmore" at checkout to get 50% off any purchase. Thank you so much for supporting us and stay tuned for our upcoming releases on YouTube:

​https://www.youtube.com/c/worldbeyondsoundtracks
"""

Enjoy!

Finally this week, as is usual, it's time to reflect on the usual monthy goals. Here's what was set for November:

1) Get started on BTTB vocals
2) Finish arranging and finalise at least one horn part for BTTB (again)
3) Record that final Jabun live jam and seperate the project ready for a new album!

And unfortunately as you've already read, only 3) was completed this time... It's looking to be an incredibly busy month ahead too, so I'm not sure when I'll be able to get back to these projects. As such, and with the possiblity of festive downtime too, I'll not be setting any formal goals here this month, but as you'll no doubt soon see, I'll be busy nonetheless! All the best with your own goals, and I'll be back to set some more in January I'm sure! 

That wraps things up for this month's rewards/updates! Next time we'll be continuing the  Patreon rewards with another mostly acoustic cover EP from 2017, this time made as a gift for my parents! Until then, I hope you have an amazing December to come and enjoy the festive season however you celebrate, and I look forward to sharing more music with you in 2022! Thanks as always for supporting JabunAudio, Jabun, Better Than The Book and my other projects however you can, and take care, seasons greetings and all the best!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VX3ulK1MvWU

Onto other news, it's been a very exciting time for collaborative projects this month! As has become tradition, my good friend Cyberdevil has been continuing with his yearly INKtober rap challenge where for each day of October he writes and records a new verse and posts it up on Newgrounds! I was feeling super inspired earlier this month so quickly put together an early Limp Bizkit inspired beat for him to have fun with! It's admittedly an... "aquired taste" of dissonance but I had a lot of fun with it and sounds like Cyberdevil did too! Check out and download the full version of the track below:

https://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/1084704

And as an extra reward this month, my Patreon supporters have the raw instrumental beat I sent to CD for the project in their reward downloads too!

With 31 raps in total over the month (and more?!), it's been quite the journey this year and I've really enjoyed following CD along with it each day! I highly recommend checking out the rest of them over when you can! Enjoy! (They're in the 2021 uploads!)

https://cyberdevil.newgrounds.com/audio/

If that wasn't exciting enough for collaborations, a mash-up cover / tribute I recorded cello for World Beyond on earlier this year is being released today too, a tribute to the video game Frostpunk! In Vlad's words:

"""
Frostpunk Medley is finally here:

youtu.be/Xo9pMCpAjhY

We have been working on this for quite a while - our tribute to the original soundtrack of the game Frostpunk. Ever since we listened to this deeply moving and emotional masterpiece inspired by the struggle of people with all their sorrows and hopes we knew we had to make it happen - and today feels like the right moment. Based on two amazing musical themes Frostpunk Theme and One the Edge Theme by Piotr Musial, featuring violin by Maritza Vilibic and cello by Nicholas Standing, this is our epic Frostpunk Medley:

fanlink.to/FrostpunkMedley

"""

Well done to Vlad and Maritza for putting this all together and an extra thanks to Vlad for the shout out to last month's new etter Than The Book & Jabun single "1314" on the World Beyond blog! Thanks so much Vlad!

https://www.worldbeyond.net/2021/10/mental-omega-trailer-frostpunk-medley.html 

Onto some more news/project updates for the month, it's been a hectic time these last few weeks as I've just started a new part-time job which happens to be working the night shift too. It's taking time to get my routine back to stability, which unfortunatley means I've not been in the best health for recording vocals for Better Than The Book's upcoming projects as I'd hoped, though I have been working hard polishing up horn arrangements and finishing off / finalising all the lyric sheets instead so there's some progress there (more on that in a moment). As has been the case for the latter half of this year, I've also continued recording some (mostly) monthly Jabun LIVE jams and I think it's just one more left to go before I'd like to collect them all for an album! There's over an hour of them now so hopefully those'll be ready to release to the world at some point early next year (the $10 patrons have already heard a few of them). Fun times ahead!

​Finally for this post, let's go through the usual monthly goals, see how I did and set some new ones! Here's what was set for October:

1) Finish promo and updating websites etc... for the 1314 single
2) Finish at least one track of vocals for BTTB 
3) Finish arranging and finalise at least one horn part for BTTB
4) Finalise all the lyric sheets for the upcoming BTTB projects

1) and number 4)  were all done and dusted, and while I've not even started on BTTB vocals yet, although I haven't finished any one horn part, I have made a lot of progress on most of the tracks, tinkering away with voicings and articulations when I've been able to. Not an ideal, month but not a bad one either all things considered! With the new job as well as many disruptions set to come in the November I'm going to have to relax on the goals for the forseeable future, but instead here are some aims which would be nice to complete:

1) Get started on BTTB vocals
2) Finish arranging and finalise at least one horn part for BTTB (again)
3) Record that final Jabun live jam and seperate the project ready for a new album!

I've also got a buttload of personal and more urgent goals to get to, so these'll have to do and are hopefully realistic given my current circumstances. We shall see and wish me luck! 

That's it for this month's updates! With Postcards now up on Patreon, that's all the original (non-commissioned) Nick Standing discography out now, so next time, I'll be starting to share my back-catalogue of cover songs given as gifts to people (and there's quite the lot of them)! Until then, I hope you have a great November to come and thanks as always for supporting my music however you can! All the best, take care, and enjoy all the music!

Hi everyone and hope you're having a great start to October so far! It's time for the monthly blog post and Patreon rewards, and this time I have a brand new track from Better Than The Book & Jabun "1314" (the track I proposed with) to share with you before some studio and project updates and the usual setting and reflecting on monthly goals. Let's start with the new single!

On August 22nd 2021, the night of our 100th full moon together, I proposed to Eva with a specially written song "1314", a mixture of my 2 musical personalities Better Than The Book & Jabun with influences from her favourite musicians too, and she said YES! WOOOOOT! A huge thanks goes out to Eva for being my everything buddy and now fiance, all her support during the ups and downs throughout the years, and for letting me share this track with you all. It was made for her ears but I hope you enjoy it too!

Thank you also to everyone else who's been a part of my musical journey and our relationship all these years so far too: all our family and friends, everyone who's played the music and spread the word, and my closest regular supporters on Patreon with special mention to the top tier contributors Michael White and Nathan Puray! We couldn't have got this far without all your support and I'm super excited to see (and hear) what comes next! My love to you all and thanks so much!

1314 is available now on Bandcamp and should be out on iTunes, Spotify, Amazon, etc... imminently if not already:

​https://betterthanthebook.bandcamp.com/album/1314-single

And you can also listen to the song on YouTube, SoundCloud and Newgrounds:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAUGCsr60kg
https://soundcloud.com/bttb_uk/1314a
https://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/project/1735813

But what does "1314" mean and what's the deal with the artwork?! If you want to know the full story behind the song then you'll have to become a supporter on Patreon, and with such a big release, there's a tonne of rewards out in celebration too! All patrons now have downloads for 1314 and full-resolution artwork, and for the $10 patrons I'm also sharing with you another ambient LIVE Jabun jam, this time from my 2021 808 Day celebrations! On top of this there'll be the usual monthly project/studio updates in which I'll be sharing with you some pictures and sounds from my newly completed homemade/recycled spring reverb unit (more on that in a moment)! If that sounds good to you then become a patron for as little as $1 and remember you'll be receiving the entire back catalogue of rewards for your tier too as soon as you sign up including the full Better Than The Book and Jabun discographies and MUCH more. Explore the posts below to see all the details:

$1 rewards: https://www.patreon.com/posts/55832143/
$10 rewards: https://www.patreon.com/posts/55832145/​
Reward Archive: https://www.patreon.com/posts/50344842

Onto some studio updates, I have something super exciting to share with you this month! Remember in the last blog post I mentioned I was building a reverb unit from recycled 1970s Yamaha organ parts? We'll it's now finally complete and ready to share with you! Introducing the JabunAudio "Vintage 'Verb":

And here's a peek under the lid at the electronics and spring too!

The Vintage 'Verb is a super simple single-spring mono spring reverb unit which you can run anything you like into for an instant and oldschool reverb effect; anything from the tiniest subtle added ambience to a complete surfy washout and everything in between! I thought I'd just show some pictures of it here, but for a full deep dive into all the controls as well as an exclusive jamming guitar demo of it, become a Patreon for as little as $1 for the full show and hope you enjoy my noodling! I can't wait to use it on some new tracks!

https://www.patreon.com/NickStanding

Onto some project updates and things, there were no new press features to share this month unfortunately, but that's ok because it's been a super productive month project-wise! I've just about got all the instrumental editing done for Better Than The Book's 3rd album (and then some) which means I can start recording vocals very soon! I've also set up all the horn sessions for tracks where that's applicable (so I can finish arranging and programming the final horn parts) and am currently going through the lyric sheets to make sure the words are top notch before I reach for the mic! There's plenty to get on with on the days I can record vocals, and lots to do on the days I can't too, so I'll definitely be busy with things and hopefully won't reach any roadblocks soon! Wish me luck and hopefully I'll have some vocal tracks recorded by this time next month, and maybe some horn parts done too! 

Finally this week, let's reflect on last month's goals and set some new ones for October! Here's what I set last month:

1) Finish consolidating edits and setting up sessions ready for BTTB vocal recording (5 tracks left)
2) Prep this new track from the proposal for public release and get everything scheduled ready for release.

And a productive month it has been! I wasn't actually expecting to get all 5 tracks done for goal 1) but looks like I'm back on track and on my way to the next steps of recording soon! 2) is all done too with the new track out now! All in all a good show! As for what to set for next month, here's what I had in mind:

1) Finish promo and updating websites etc... for the 1314 single
2) Finish at least one track of vocals for BTTB 
3) Finish arranging and finalise at least one horn part for BTTB
4) Finalise all the lyric sheets for the upcoming BTTB projects

I think these should hopefully be doable, though I'm not sure what the availability for recording will be and how smoothly things will go, so while I hope to get at least one vocal and horn part done, ideally things'll be a little more productive than that. Promo for 1314 is due to finish on Monday anyway so that should be done shortly, and while there are 12 lyrics sheets in total to sort, 4 are already done, so just 8 left to go (and things are mostly settled already too). Things are still a bit up in the air over here so we'll see how everything goes but wish me luck and I hope you all have a productive October too!

And that wraps things up for this month's blog post! I'm not sure what's on the horizon for the coming weeks, but there'll be at least some more Patreon rewards and goals to share with you next month. Until then, I hope you have a great October to come and thanks as always for supporting JabunAudio and my various projects however you can! Enjoy the new music, all the best and take care!

Hi everyone and hope you're having a great start to September! It's been a super hectic time lately with lots of visits and time away from the computer, not a whole lot of music making, but some fun things and big news to share nonetheless! In accordance with the recent updates and changes to the way things are running at JabunAudio, this blog post won't be as in depth as it has been in the past, but for a more detailed rundown of all the news, you can join me on Patreon for a front row seat of all the action:

https://www.patreon.com/NickStanding

And speaking of Patreon, I have some more rewards to share with you this month along with some studio / equipment updates, some big life news, a round-up of this month's press features, and some goals to reflect on and set as usual! Let's get started!

First of all, it's another month and time for some more Patreon rewards! This time, I'll be sharing downloads and the story behind the 2013 chiptune track "Our Adventure" (as well as detailed stories and updates from the studio this month). The $10 patrons will also receive an exclusive acoustic demo from Better Than The Book's upcoming album projects! If that sounds good to you, then become a patron to read more and dive into the action and remember that you'll get all past rewards for your tier too as soon as you sign up. Check out the Reward Archive below which includes the full Better Than The Book and Jabun discographies, Patreon exclusives and much more, and thanks for supporting my music and projects on Patreon!

$1 Rewards: https://www.patreon.com/posts/53164475/
$10 Rewards: https://www.patreon.com/posts/53164473/
Reward Archives: https://www.patreon.com/posts/50344842
​
Some studio updates to share: after a long pre-order wait, an amazing piece of guitar pedal history arrived for me in the post, one of the limited 40th anniversary BOSS SD-1 Super Overdrive pedals! The BOSS SD-1 has been a key part of my sound since my late teen years, and I've been meaning to get a 2nd one for a few years now! I also purchased a load of spare parts for my Yamaha YC-25D organ which came with some parts I don't need including a genuine spring reverb tank! I've been having fun building that into my own custom outboard reverb unit which is sounding great and is just awaiting the finishing aesthetic touches as I type this. It's been a while since I build an effect! The other parts from the purchase include some incredibly rare 1970s electronics which will be useful for keeping my own organ working for years to come (touch wood), and I plan to sell on some of the less useful stuff in the near future!

Next, a quick round-up of the press features this month! BTTB's Hopes and Dreams was featured on The Tank Tribune / Phonograph Vol. 6 playlist on Newgrounds.com! Thanks so much for the sharing the tunes folks and feel free to check out the post here:

https://thetanktribune.newgrounds.com/news/post/1202116

And although it didn't happen last month, I also noticed that my custom oscillator NOISE for the Korg NTS-1 digital synth kit has been shared amongst the community a lot since it was released in May! Check out the May 2021 features below on the JabunAudio press page and super happy to hear people are enjoying NOISE!

https://www.jabunaudio.com/press.html

Onto some HUGE life news I'd love to share with you. I don't often talk about my personal life, but on August 22nd I finally popped the question to my long time partner of over 8 years Eva, and she said YES! WOOOOT! I'm sure it's no stretch to guess that I did it with a newly written and recorded track so there will be a music update coming shortly once I have all the admin stuff sorted for it! It was written for her ears, but I hope you enjoy too! More on that soon!

And finally this month, it's time as usual to reflect on some goals and set some new ones. Here's what I set for August:

1) Finish consolidating edits and setting up sessions ready for BTTB vocal recording (7 tracks left)
2) Restructure the Patreon page and other necessary JabunAudio related things
3) Finish the Better Than The Book Bandcamp promotional sale and associated admin

Goals 2 and 3 went along without a hitch, though unfortunately it's been a much less productive month for BTTB with only 2 tracks out of target 7 completed... I'm hoping to pick the pace up a bit this month, but things are still a bit up in the air at the moment, and as you expect I left the hardest tracks until last too, so things might be even slower than expected. With that said, and the trends I've seen this past month, I'll not be setting many goals for September, but let's go with these:

1) Finish consolidating edits and setting up sessions ready for BTTB vocal recording (5 tracks left)
2) Prep this new track from the proposal for public release and get everything scheduled ready for release.

I'm not sure I'll be able to get these both fully done, but I'll also be keeping on top of Patreon rewards to sort, as well as preparing those extra organ parts for selling on eBay when I can. I have a feeling it's going to be another hectic and maybe less musical month ahead but we'll see how it all goes. 

And that about wraps things up for this month's post! I'll hopefully be finishing off that reverb unit very soon, as well as announcing that new track so be on the lookout for associated posts and stuff online. It's still looking to be very uncertain at JabunAudio at the moment, but until the next post, I hope you have a great September to come and thanks as always for supporting my projects in all the ways you can. Enjoy the music and take care!​

Hi everyone and hope you're having a fine start to August. It's been a week of mixed emotions here at JabunAudio with some necessary updates coming I really didn't want to have to make, but before we get onto that, let's look to some of the positive stuff. Pre-vocal editing for Better Than The Book's 3rd full-length album (and then some) is going reasonably well with 7 out of 14 tracks now ready for vocals, so about half-way there! Still a lot to get through but hopefully it shouldn't take too long and it'll be back to recording (vocals and more) soon! It's also Bandcamp Friday this week along with the final few days of the Better Than The Book 50% off sale as well as time for some more $1 Patreon rewards and some setting and reflecting of goals! Let's start off with the Patreon news: 

As of yesterday, last week's $5 Patreon rewards are now out for the $1 patrons: "Piggyback Ride" (+ an exclusive LIVE Jabun ambient modular synth jam for the $10+ patrons)! In case you missed last week's post you can read more about this month's rewards below and remember that you'll gain access to all historic rewards and posts for your Patreon tier too when you become a supporter including the full Better Than The Book and Jabun discographies and much more! Hope to see you there and thanks as always for supporting my work on Patreon!

Read more: ​https://www.patreon.com/posts/53164468/
$1+ rewards: https://www.patreon.com/posts/53164467/
$10+ rewards: https://www.patreon.com/posts/53164465/
Become a Patron: https://www.patreon.com/NickStanding

Discover the Reward Archive (4th October 2018 -> 4th August 2021):
​https://www.patreon.com/posts/announcing-posts-50344842

That's it for the rewards this month and we'll be continuing with something a little different next time. Hope you're looking forward to it!

Next this week, it's once again Bandcamp Friday and Bandcamp are waiving their revenue shares again so you can support the artists you love directly for the first Friday of the month (August 6th from midnight to midnight Pacific Time)! If you've been meaning to pick up one of the recent Jabun albums or some Better Than The Book, then now's the best time!

Don't forget that it's also the final week of Better Than The Book's 50% off Bandcamp sale in celebration of 2 years of Hopes and Dreams! Grab a huge discount while you can by using the code "2years” and thanks for an amazing 2 years of Hopes and Dreams! The discount sale ends this Sunday 8th of August.

Check out the Bandcamp pages below and thanks for supporting my music in any way you can, it really means a lot: 

Better Than The Book
https://betterthanthebook.bandcamp.com/
 
Jabun
https://jabun.bandcamp.com/
 
Nick Standing (< The sillier old stuff)
https://nickstanding.bandcamp.com/ 

And I hope you enjoy the jams!

Next for this blog post, and before we get onto the usual setting and reflecting on monthly goals, I have some important updates about JabunAudio and my various music projects which mean that some unfortunate big changes will be occurring in the coming weeks.

To cut a long story short, JabunAudio as an independent self-employed small business, like many similar endeavors I'm sure, has had its ups and downs over the years, and while my music and projects both solo and collaborative have exceeded my expectations and hopes in terms of world-wide reach, achievements, and output (with over 40 million views of collaborative animation work, music featured in video games, press articles and played on radio stations all across the globe, and well over 200 music tracks released since 2012), financially JabunAudio been struggling for quite some time for various reasons, and COVID has not been kind to this industry on top of that. With the last government support for the self-employed ending this month, and the extra work I've been doing to help drum up some more revenue for JabunAudio not yielding sufficient results, I'm having to make the tough decision to restructure JabunAudio and my various associated music projects in order to look for more stable alternative income streams.

While I have no intention of stopping JabunAudio or any of my projects entirely, this unfortunately does mean that I'll be moving JabunAudio and other related work to part-time only, effectively losing many hours I'd usually have for creating and working on projects. I'd like to make it clear that JabunAudio is still open for business and accepting new projects/clients along with my long time and recurring clients/collaborators, and I will try my very best to continue to provide the high level of service and productions you've come to expect from me with the reduced time that I have. Please don't hesitate to send me a message to discuss your latest projects, though I ask for your patience during this difficult time.

In terms of my own current ongoing projects, the likelihood and reality is that upcoming projects such as Better Than The Book's 3rd album will see some delays for the foreseeable future as well. I'd have preferred to finish these current projects before making any changes, but that option isn't really available to me any longer, and while it may take a bit longer than expected until these projects are released now, I'll continue to strive for the highest possible standard of productions rather than rushing out half-baked ones. I'm sure you'd prefer that too.

In order to streamline the remaining time I have to work on JabunAudio and my own music work, I'll be making some changes to my workflow to prioritise audio production time and cut back on less creative admin/promotional work. The first change will be a cutback on social media, newsletters, and similar promotional posts unfortunately including the (mostly) weekly JabunAudio blog and re-posting of press features on most channels. The JabunAudio blog will now be a shorter monthly round-up in the first week of the month only, apart from any major updates such as album releases (which will also be promoted on the usual channels).

The second change will be a major restructuring of my Patreon page including the removal of the $5 patron tier and a change in the specific reward benefits. All monthly Patreon rewards will now be released on a single day in the first week of the month (probably still Wednesday) and much like the JabunAudio blog I'll aim to make only 1 round-up news post per month now (with special exception for certain things). I'll provide a full update once these changes have been implemented later this month, and there are still a few more months of back catalog music left to upload too, after which I'll make another restructure (at some point next year). I hope that by cutting down on these things, I'll be able to dedicate more of my JabunAudio and "free" time to the actual projects you support and get them to your ears faster.

I want to say a big thanks to everyone who's helped support me always and especially at this difficult time with special mention to Eva who's been beside me (literally) through all of this. I can see it being a tough few months ahead, but I'll be doing my best to continue watering this plant I potted almost a decade ago now, and once things are settled into a new routine, I'm sure things'll start going a whole lot smoother again. Thanks for your patience and thanks for supporting JabunAudio, Jabun, Better Than The Book, and my various solo and collaborative projects.

With all that said, I think it's time to set and reflect on the usual monthly goals. Here's what was set for July:

1) Finish recording organs for Better Than The Book's upcoming album
2) Finish recording any pick-up guitars for ^^^
3) Start consolidating edits and set up sessions ready for vocal recording (at least 5 tracks)
4) Sort Patreon Rewards for the next 2 months

And it's been a busy but successful one! 1), 2) and 4) are done with no comments and my tentatively set 3) was exceeded with a total of 7 tracks out of 14 ready for vocals now! Not really much else to say on that, so let's set some new ones.

1) Finish consolidating edits and setting up sessions ready for BTTB vocal recording (7 tracks left)
2) Restructure the Patreon page and other necessary JabunAudio related things
3) Finish the Better Than The Book Bandcamp promotional sale and associated admin

As I'm sure you can appreciate, I have a whole lot of personal goals on top of this to sort out too. 3) should be easy and finished by next Monday, 2) will be a chore but hopefully won't take too long. 1) unfortunately may be overly ambitions, but we'll have to see how I do and recalculate come next month. Wish me luck I guess and feel free to leave you own goals in the comments below.

That about wraps things up for this post. Not the post I was hoping to make this week, but the times they are a'changin' as Bob Dylan said. The next post will be about the Patreon restructuring which will hopefully be next week, after which I'll be moving to the monthly JabunAudio blog posts only. Thanks again for being patient with me during this difficult time, and thanks as always for supporting JabunAudio, Jabun, Better Than The Book and my various solo and collaborative projects however you can. This isn't the first time JabunAudio's gone part time, but it's been a while so it's going to take some adjustment. Take care, enjoy the music and all the best.

Hi everyone and hope you're having a great (and much cooler) final week of July so far! It's been a busy time here at JabunAudio plodding along with editing for Better Than The Book's 3rd album project as well as getting my final Covid vaccination and being a little bit under the weather as expected in the aftermath. More Patreon rewards to share with you today so let's get straight to that and the rest of the news!

Yesterday was the final Wednesday of the month which means its time for another dose of $5+ Patreon rewards and this time we're continuing with some more soundtracky (but slightly different) stuff with another track from 2013, "Piggyback Ride"!

Piggyback Ride is an interesting one in my catalogue in that it combines orchestral and chiptune elements for a retro videogame-esq vibe with the clarity of more traditional scoring. This piece was originally written for a game on Newgrounds asking for people to submit tunes for the soundtrack, but after sending it over and some feedback, the makers decided to go with something else. I was a bit disappointed at the time as this would have been one of my first compositional rejections, but as I wasn't sure how else to improve on the track, I ended up releasing it as-is for people to listen to at the very least, as I was still pleased with the way it had turned out. As it so happened, while the originally intended audience wasn't so keen on Piggyback Ride, the track was eventually picked up by a MUCH higher profile interested party: EDF Energy & The British Science Association for their online "A to Bee" game which you can still play online:

https://jointhepod.org/teachers/games/a-to-bee-game

It's a great example of how one track even if not initially well received might lead to something big (and that's happened to me a few times throughout my career as I'm sure you know by now). Piggyback Ride has been featured in a number of other multi-media productions since then and is a fun one I look back on with fondness! Since it was designed for use in games as well as for listening, I'm including 2 versions in this months rewards: the looping version which was featured in various games, and an edited version with a fade out for your personal listening pleasure! Grab Piggyback Ride when you become a supporter on Patreon, and listen to the track on YouTube below:

Piggyback Ride: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukGJmuw057E
$5+ rewards: https://www.patreon.com/posts/53164462/

And for the $10+ patrons, this month you have an exclusive LIVE Jabun ambient modular synth performance to look forward to! Become a $10+ patron to access that and many more rewards now, and remember that you'll gain access to all historic rewards and posts for your Patreon tier too when you become a supporter including the full Better Than The Book and Jabun discographies and much more! With the newly updated REWARD ARCHIVE it's never been easier to catch up with all those posts and music downloads you've missed too! I hope you enjoy them!

$10+ rewards: https://www.patreon.com/posts/53164465/
Become a Patron: https://www.patreon.com/NickStanding

Discover the Reward Archive (4th October 2018 -> 1st May 2021): 
https://www.patreon.com/posts/announcing-posts-50344842

That's it for the rewards this time and Piggyback Ride will be available for the $1+ patrons next Wednesday! Something a little different will be coming in the next set of rewards, but until then, I hope you have a great August to come and thanks as always for supporting my music on Patreon! 

Next in the news, in case you missed it last week, it's currently 50% off on anything from the Better Than The Book Bandcamp store to celebrate 2 years of "Hopes and Dreams"! Use the code "2years" and hope you enjoy it!

https://betterthanthebook.bandcamp.com/

Offer ends next Sunday 8/8/21 so grab a discount while you can!

Finally this week, some nice radio news to share as Better Than The Book was back on Button Down Radio with The Hardest Part again! Thanks so much to BDR for sharing the music and you can read more about what they have to say on Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/buttondownradio5446/posts/2965822327022918

That's it for this week's news! Next time I'll have the $1+ Patreon rewards to share as well as the usual monthly goals to set and reflect on, and we'll see if there's any further exciting updates to share as well! Until then, thanks as always for supporting JabunAudio and my various projects however you can and hope you have a great week to come! Take care and all the best!