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!

​Hi everyone and hope you’re having a great July so far! It's been a super busy time here at JabunAudio since the last post finishing off organ and guitar recording for Better Than The Book's upcoming 3rd album project as well as consolidating edits ready to start recording vocals! Still a few more tracks to edit to make my monthly target but we'll see how it all goes! Meanwhile I have something huge to celebrate with you today from Better Than The Book's previous album! Let's get started with the news and a limited time special offer!
 
Time really does fly and would you believe this week marks two years since the release of Better Than The Book’s 2nd full-length album Hopes and Dreams?!

With 9/10 tracks from the album airing on radio stations from as far as the west coast of the USA, to here in the UK (including 2 tracks on BBC Introducing), to even Australia, a tonne of online features and coverage from various web magazines, and even one track appearing on a ska music compilation album by The Ska Show with Beefy (the second most listened to Ska music podcast in the world), Hopes and Dreams was undoubtedly my most well received project to date, and I want express my sincerest gratitude to everyone who made that happen!
 
A HUGE thank you to the BTTB (not quite yet) LIVE band, Sam, Andy and Eamon, the radio DJs with special mention to Beefy and Melita, Meg, the album’s PR extraordinaire, my subscribers on Patreon with special mention to top tier supporters past and present Michael White, Bob Roberts, David Klein II and Nathan Puray, and of course everyone else who’s made some noise for BTTB over the years! You folks really do make my dreams come true!
 
To celebrate a fantastic two years on from Hopes and Dreams (puns intended), I’m launching my very first Better Than The Book Bandcamp discount sale! From now until August 8th (the end of the weekend following the next Bandcamp Friday), you can get a whopping 50% off anything on the Better Than The Book Bandcamp store below using the code “2years” at the checkout. Enjoy!
 
https://betterthanthebook.bandcamp.com/
 
Or if you’re feeling extra keen, you can grab the entire Better Than The Book and Jabun discographies and more including many exclusive downloads and bonus tracks when you support my music with a front row seat over on Patreon for as little as $1/£1 a month! New rewards are published monthly and I hope to see you there in the comments!

https://www.patreon.com/NickStanding
 
That’s it for this post and I’ll be back with another reminder before August 6th for the next Bandcamp Friday! Next week's post will be announcing the next set of Patreon rewards at the very least, but until then, I hope you have a great week to come and thanks as always for supporting Better Than The Book, JabunAudio and my various music project in all the ways you can! Take care, stay safe and all the best!

Hi everyone and hope you've had a great week since the last post! It's been a lovely one over here, not so much in the studio, but instead visiting my hometown, family and friends for the first time in 11 months (due to the pandemic)! A long overdue and fun visit, and apart from the demolition of a gig venue close to my heart, it seems that most of my usual haunts have made it through this tough past year which is great to know! I also had the pleasure of listening to in the flesh a LOVELY Moog Modular at GAK which was amazing, though also a space-launch away from my budget level at almost £12,000! Whoa! I did however also see a special something which IS at my price range and I now have on pre-order, but I'll wait until it arrives to reveal it! Been meaning to get another one of these for about a year and a half now, but with a special edition released to celebrate its 40th anniversary of uninterrupted production, I thought it'd be very nice to own a limited piece of history! No more clues, and it should hopefully be arriving later this month! Onto the main news for this week, there's not a whole lot to report since I've been away apart from some more $1 Patreon rewards being released! Let's get to it:

As of yesterday, last week's $5 Patreon rewards are now out for the $1 patrons: "Closing scene" and "See Ya Later" (+ an exclusive work in progress studio demo from Better Than The Book's next album 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/50804846/
$1+ rewards: https://www.patreon.com/posts/50804859/
$10+ rewards: https://www.patreon.com/posts/50804790/
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 month and we'll be continuing with more soundtracky work next time!

And that about wraps things up for this blog post too! The coming week looks to be filled with some usual beginning of the month chores/admin such as backing up the computers, as well as sorting out the next few sets of Patreon rewards, and hopefully I'll be back to some organ recording later this week too! Until the next post which'll likely be in a fortnight or on the 29th, I hope you have a great July to come and thanks as always for supporting JabunAudio and my various projects in all the ways you can. All the best, take care and stay safe!​

​Hi everyone and hope you've had a great few weeks since the last post. It's been a super busy time over here recording Better Than The Book's upcoming 3rd full-length album, and by a stroke of good progress and fortune, ALL (ish) the guitar parts are now complete! That includes electric, acoustic AND bass guitar! Great stuff! As such I've moved onto recording organs and piano now which has been incredible fun and is going well! With 9 tracks to do in total, only 3 remain, and I cannot tell you how wonderful it is to be recording with a REAL combo organ this time, my Yamaha YC-25D (see above), rather than just some (still excellent) digital emulations and a midi keyboard! It's not just the sound, but the tactile experience too! Been a blast! As with such good times though, I also realised after taking apart my guitar recording rigs that I missed just one small thing... some feedback in one of the tracks, so there will be some minor guitar parts to pick up once organs are finished... Such is the way! Onto other news, yesterday was the final (Wednes)day of the month and so more $5+ Patreon rewards have just been released! Let's look at that!

For this month's Patreon rewards we're continuing with more 2013 soundtracky pieces, this time a pair of them! "Closing Scene" and "See Ya Later" are variations on the same musical theme both released in May 2013. The first is a musical box style track and the second a subsequent string orchestra version of the same piece! At the time I composed Closing Scene, I'd just been given some new samples to play with including a set of thumb piano notes (if I remember correctly) and I thought it would be fun to compose a simple musical box theme with them. Interestingly, at the same time, one of the rooms in my parents' house where I was living at the time was being redecorated and had no carpet on the floor, giving this really cool and lively ambience. I ended up dragging some computer speakers to the room and playing the piece out loud with a microphone set up to capture the reverb on the other side of the room. Mixing the original dry piece with the live recorded room reverb gave a really nice effect for the final track! I do love taking advantage of these rare acoustic opportunities!

After recording Closing Scene, I got the feeling that there was more I could do with this theme, and by swapping the thumb piano samples for my usual pizzicato strings, I thought it gave a really nice and different vibe. With a few extra tweaks, some added percussion and woodwinds, See Ya Later was created! When I listen to See Ya Later, it evokes images of being in an old wooden floor house, early on a sunny summer Sunday, tiptoeing tired around the house before making my way outside for a day of adventure, like something in a Hayao Miyazaki film. Those of you who have been following my work for years may also recognise See Ya Later as the credits music to much of the Fun Station 4 Kids videos, and indeed this piece was another door-opener for a tonne of amazing collaborations in the years to follow (totalling to over 30 MILLION YouTube views last time I checked)! I really should get back to more of this orchestral work soon (maybe even more variations on this theme), but until then, I hope you enjoy Closing Scene and See Ya Later! 

Grab Closing Scene and See Ya Later when you become a supporter on Patreon, or listen to the tracks on YouTube below:

$5+ rewards: https://www.patreon.com/posts/50804674/
Closing Scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TDdv7YpNYY  
See Ya Later: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAM40nKQ9UI

And for the $10+ patrons, this month you have the first work-in-progress studio recording demo from Better Than The Book's upcoming 3rd album 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/50804790/
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 month, and "Closing Scene" and "See Ya Later" will be released to the $1+ patrons next week! We'll be continuing with more soundtracky work in the next set of rewards I'm sure, but until then, I hope you have a great July to come and thanks as always for supporting my music on Patreon! Enjoy!

Finally this week, it's time to look back at last month's goals and set some new ones for July! Here's what I set for June:​
​
1) Finish recording electric lead guitars for Better Than The Book's upcoming 3rd album

Just one goal as I was unsure what the month would have in store, but with all the electric, acoustic AND bass guitars as well as over half the organ/piano parts on the album complete, I think I very much exceeded expectations on this one! Great! Continuing with the BTTB theme, I think the next month of goals should be easy to set:

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

These should keep me busy on top of some other personal goals I need to take care of. 1) should be ok (it's just 3 tracks left, though they're quite in depth), and I think 2) is just that little bit of feedback I mentioned previously, though I'll have to do another check to make sure I don't miss anything else again. For 3), it seems like a good idea to get edits for the instrumental stuff (minus horns and production extras), solid before recording vocals, so this feels like a good idea as to not be overwhelmed with edits later down the line. 5 tracks might be overly ambitious but we'll see how it goes. 4) Should be a piece of cake, just some writing to do! Overall I think it's going to be a busy time, but if I can get goals 1), 2) & 4) complete, and make good progress with 3), that'd be great! Wish me luck and feel free to comment with your own goals below!

And that about wraps things up for this post! Looks like it'll be a very busy month ahead, but we'll see how it goes! I'll be back next week to post about the $1 Patreon rewards, and hopefully there'll be more exciting news to share then too! Until next time, I hope you enjoy the music and are excited for more to come soon, and thanks as always for supporting JabunAudio, Jabun, Better Than The Book and my various projects however you can! Take care, stay safe and all the best!