Nick Standing AKA Jabun: Multi-instrumentalist, Composer & Mastering Specialist at JabunAudio making dynamic, clean and punchy masters to encourage people to turn up your music, rather than turn it down! Creator of the Skapunk project Better Than The Book
Nephology is a 6+ hour collection of 3 long-form ultra ambient remixes of my 2nd album 15-4-20 inspired by cloud gazing. Each track is a 2+ hour long soundscape showcasing a different atmosphere and mood, and the album as a concept aims to be an auditory and musical expression of cloud watching.
You can read all about it on the Nephology Bandcamp page, and I'll be streaming the album track by track on my JabunAudio YouTube channel in the coming weeks too!
November 2024 Patreon & News Post: Jabun's Nephology Early Access on Patreon, new studio ups and downs, Cyberdevil's Inktober 2024 + an exclusive beat download + YouTube videos and playlists and more!
Hi everyone and hope you had a great October (and Halloween yesterday)! It's the beginning of another month and after the huge disruption last time, things are starting to get back on track though are maybe a few months behind where I wanted to be in some aspects... Taking the good stuff along with the bad though it's been a super busy month of both fun AND pain so let's dive into the details!
First of all some studio updates: After a near (computer) death experience following September's studio move and the hard work and research from some friends, we FINALLY got the computer to boot up again (without a reset or clean install) and things are almost back to normal now! I've even been back to some JabunAudio client work again (which was a big worry this time last month), and cut a first track in the new studio too (more on that later)! The only thing that hasn't seemed to survive the fixes is unfortunately the virtual horns I use for Better Than The Book... They're stuck in demo mode! I've been in touch with Native Instruments tech support to try and figure things out so hopefully something can be done, but if not it might be time to look for some new horns... what crummy luck! As If I didn't need even more stuff to worry about too just earlier this week my main guitar amp for the last 17ish years went BANG a few times then silence... it's currently in pieces under my desk awaiting some new part and hopefully will join the resurrected equipment club later this month. I sure hope so...
Away from problems though, the studio overall is starting to shape up again, sort of... I need to figure out a new design layout eventually but for the moment everything's back in that was in there before while I look out and plan for new furniture etc... The organ rig is back together and thankfully as sturdy as ever too, and I've started on the acoustic treatment but there's still a long way to go which means lots more headphone work than usual. Overall things are getting there though and I finally had the time (and tools) to finish some things off I needed to, so I'm super pleased to finally announce:
Jabun's new Nephology ambient album is fully complete and launching for FULL Early Access to the $10+ supporters on Patreon! I'm giving early access to the artwork package to the rest of the patrons this time too! Downloads include the full artwork package (including album art, album art photo, and alternative art), and if you're a $10 Patron you have the master high quality WAV files, and the Mp3s too! Links to Patreon at the bottom of this post!
I'm sure I've previously said, but Nephology is a long form ambient collection of 3 2 hour tracks which are each remixes of the tracks from my 2nd album 15-4-20 and inspired by cloud watching! They're less something to listen to intently and more something to have on in the background while doing something else, or just to create an ambience for a space. It was a fun experiment and I hope you enjoy the vibes! In terms of the project itself, it's fully complete now and all that's left to do is finish the marketing and promotional materials and literature which will likely take a while so I'm not putting a concrete release date on things just yet, but will be aiming for the end of November, beginning of December time! For those of you waiting on Better Than The Book's new album, I'm making sure to pace myself with all this work so unfortunately that's not looking to be out in full this year anymore, BUT I do hope to have SOMETHING out before 2024 ends to start that hype train rolling again! Plans are being made, so keep watching the usual spaces, and I'll keep you posted when I can! Thanks for your patience!
Next this month, @Cyberdevil has been back to his usual INKtober madness for the 6th year in a row! For those of you not acquainted with the challenge, each October he sits down to write, record and release a new rap EVERY DAY of the month, and in this case, some days even have 2! As usual I took some time to throw a beat his way to see what he'd do with it and for the 2nd year in a row I made it purely on my KORG EM-1 Electribe groovebox with just some mastering in Ableton before I sent it over! Cyberdevil took a dark but thought provoking turn with the lyrics this time so trigger warning, but I hope you appreciate the vibes! Check out the full track below which is free to download at Newgrounds:
And if you're a supporter on Patreon you have the instrumental beat too in this month's download rewards!
Some insider backstory on the title. B35 refers to pattern bank b35 on my Electribe which happens to also be the same as the model number of a bomber aircraft developed shortly after WW2 which which I'm sure inspired Cyberdevil's lyrical take and title. There's a whole bag of different vibes to explore this year though so I highly recommend checking out the full INKtober 2024 playlist below, and a huge well done to Cyberdevil and everyone involved with special mention to @larrynachos who undertook their own "Tunetober" challenge this month as well as being on a tonne of the Inktober beats this year! I hope you enjoy it!
Next and finally this month over to YouTube Videos! I've been keeping up with my 2 a week as usual which is now scheduled up until the end of the year! Not only that but with SO many videos now I decided to make a few playlists for interest groups so that people didn't need to skip through the main one. Check them out below:
Guitar, Organ, Synths & Gear Videos (the usual playlist):
Does any other guitar have this feature? Ultra thin tones with phase reversed humbucker
Rare VOX K-ON! Yui Hirasawa amPlug: Does it do metal? I think so! (Killswitch Engage + Trivium)
Rare VOX K-ON! Yui Hirasawa amPlug: Pop Punk tones and I get carried away (blink182 + Fall Out Boy)
Rare VOX K-ON! Yui Hirasawa amPlug: Clean Ska Tones with Goldfinger - Don't Let Me Go (I'm singing)
Next month will be a goodbye studio tour along with some piano and organ and more! Hope you enjoy what's to come!
And that about wraps things up for this post! I'll be busy getting the Jabun Nephology album prepped for release along with continuing to set up and repair the studio and with any luck next time you hear from me will be when the new Jabun album drops! Until then, I hope you have a great November to come and thanks as always for supporting my music and projects in all the ways you do! Take care and all the best!
October 2024 Patreon & News Post: Some amazing and some super sucky news: Got a house, moving studios, broken computer and all projects suspended indefinitely... + more videos and more!
Hi everyone and what a mixed month it's been over here... Some HUGE big news of both the super good and the super bad variety this time and it's probably best just to start off with that...
THE GOOD NEWS: Eva and I finally got our own house! We've only been in for just over a week now so things are still spread out everywhere and it's a bit of a mess but it's great to finally have our own space and it's just about starting to feel homely now! This also means I'm finally moving to my very own (non-rented) studio space which'll hopefully be the home for JabunAudio for a LOOONG time to come (and it's slightly bigger than the last place too)! It's exciting as it is nerve racking, but with no limits to what I'm allowed to do, I'll be taking the time to create the most ideal studio workspace as I possibly can which I'm sure is going to take a while, but more on that as we get to...
THE BAD NEWS: I knew there was going to be some disruption moving studios as there always is, but not as bad as this... Firstly the smaller(ish) bad news: the studio room which I'll be moving into isn't quite ideal and needs some additional work on top of the usual acoustic panelling which'll require some extensive planning, time and investment to sort out, but should hopefully be manageable. eventually. Along with that we're currently living on the edge of a building site so things are a bit noisy at the moment and probably will be for some time too... It was to be expected, but it's still a bit of a buzzkill for any acoustic recording for a few months at least.
Finally though, and here's the really REALLY BAD news, after moving, I set up my trusty audio production computer for the last 7-8 years, and... it won't boot up... Startup recovery? Nope! System restore? Nope! Boot up in Safe Mode? NOOOPE! I was hoping at least to be able to get along with promo-work, basic client consultation and editing work, making videos and artwork and prepping these 2 album releases while the acoustic side of the studio needed sorting, but NOPE! It's all grounded... apart from basic social media and email work (on the Chromebook I'm typing this up on), I can't do any computer work anymore!
I'll be making some calls later this week to see if things are salvageable which I should know by the end of the week, but unfortunately at the moment, it's looking like the BEST case scenario is a hard reset on the PC, and starting back from square one... 8 years of crafting a specialised software environment for making music and I'll have to rebuild from scratch... Luckily, I backed up everything before the move and the master WAVs for the next 3 Jabun Records releases are complete and backed up, but while all files are preserved and there's a record of all the software etc... setting up the software environment again including installing all the software, plug-ins, bridging software for back compatibility, licencing etc... is going to be a massive task (if even 100% possibly) and I'm hoping it's not going to cost an arm and a leg too. On top of all this, there's over 70 minutes of unfinished Jabun projects which I don't have access to anymore, and there's also no guarantee that they'll be fully recoverable (error free) even if I do manage to set up the software environments again. It's a real headache I did not want to have to deal with, and if things go the way I think they will, I think it's gonna be a long time to fully recover from this... I've still not had a chance to check the rest of my equipment yet, but I know at least my MPC and grooveboxes still work so maybe I'll have to go DAWless for a while? That'd be an interesting challenge.
Moving on to some more bad news, with the situation above, and not having (useful) access to many files or being able to do any media work, I'm having to put a hold on all music releases for the foreseeable future, including Better Than The Book's "Side Character In My Own Life", and Jabun's "Nephology". I simply don't have the means to release them at the moment, or promote them effectively. I'll keep you posted with any updates on this as and when but it's gonna be a case of taking each day at a time for the moment.
Onto some better news, I did manage to finish all the artwork for Jabun's Nephology project before the move and if you're a $10 Patron (and in place of any music rewards this month), you have a download of all the artwork, including the main album cover, the alternative cover (for the matching Jabun catalog) and the isolated photo used for the cover too to look forward to! I hope you enjoy it while you wait for the album to finally drop (as soon as I can)!
Finally this month, I managed to keep up with the 2 videos a week YouTube stream despite the disruptions! Check out the playlist below:
KORG Volca Modular Tips and Tricks: Sub-harmonic Generator Patch using Function 2
KORG Volca Modular Tips and Tricks: Basic Envelope Follower Patch using Function 1
KORG Volca Modular Bouncing Ball Patch
I got to play Henry the Pipe Organ at London Bridge Station! J.S. Bach Prelude I in C Major BWV 846
Playing Henry the Pipe Organ at London Bridge Station! Spirited Away One Summers Day Joe Hisaishi
Better Than The Book - Bump In The Night (Vocal Harmony Practice 13-7-2024)
Darude - Sandstorm on Organ (Yamaha YC25D)
Trance Synth vibes Organ (Yamaha YC-25D)
I currently have videos scheduled for up until the end of November including some about the studio move, but after that I'm not sure what's going to happen with the lack of a working computer. I'll be continuing to film stuff when I can and hopefully I'll be able to get back to editing and scheduling videos soon.
And that about wraps things up for this month! Not exactly the best news I was hoping to share, but we'll just have to see how things progress over the next month. Thanks for always supporting my various projects however you can, and I'll be back with hopefully some better news in November. Take care!
September 2024 Patreon & News Post: Audio Masters are finished for Better Than The Book's 3rd full-length album: "Side Character In My Own Life" + Jabun's 6th Album/EP "Nephology"! More Ska Punk and Ambient Experiments coming soon (+ more)!
Hi everyone and hope you've had a great August! It's doesn't feel like that long since I last wrote out to you, as I guess the previous post was a week later than expected. As such there's not as much stuff to report this time, but the news that will be shared is BIG! Lets get straight to it!
This month it's all been about finalising the audio for numerous projects and after 5 years of writing, recording, production and engineering, I'm super happy to announce that the master audio for Better Than The Book's 3rd full-length album is COMPLETE! It's been a heck of a load of hard work, long listening sessions and fine tweaking BUT I really think it's not only the biggest project I've put out, but also sonically the best work I've ever done too! With the master audio complete, I'll shortly be onto creating the artwork while also going through the all the admin work to get this officially released out into the world as well as making a good promo plan, as such it'll still be a little while yet until this is our into the world but the hardest part is complete and while I can't give a release date just yet, what I will say is that I'm aiming for the album to be out before the end of the year but that after 5 years of hard work on this I'll not be rushing things. In the mean time though, while I won't call this the official announcement for the album, I hope you're as excited as I am for this latest installment of my Better Than The Book ska punk project. Get ready for:
Better Than The Book - Side Character In My Own Life
Track listing as follows:
----- Side A -----
01 - 2020 Was A Write-off, But What Comes Next?
02 - Side Character In My Own Life
03 - Mood Swings
04 - Red Kite
05 - Rewrite
----- Side B -----
06 - Don't Be Too Hard On Yourself
07 - Hold Me Tight
08 - Bump In The Night
09 - Plot Holes
10 - You'll Never Be Too Old For This
-----Bonus Tracks -----
11 - Hearts Racing Backwards
12 - Plot Holes (Alternative Version)
13 - Hold Me Tight (Non-Acoustic)
14 - Side Character In My Own Life (Acoustic)
+ additional Radio Edits for Tracks 07, 08, 09 & 10
Not only that but the master audio is also complete for the bonus instrumental (off -vocal) version of the album too! I haven't decided yet whether to release that a full 1 year after this one like usual, or get it our a bit sooner instead this time (potentially the latter). Either way, people seem to be enjoying / making use of the instrumental versions of the other albums so I thought why not regarding this album too. Enjoy that too when that comes!
If finalising the audio for effectively 36 new tracks and over 2 hours of Better Than The Book music (instrumentals included) wasn't enough then man oh man do I have a surprise for you! It's not been in development for even nearly as long nor been nearly as much work (sort of), but I'm also pleased to announce that audio has also been finalised for Jabun's next small(?)album/EP project too! As with many of the recent Jabun ambient projects, this one was also an exploratory experiment of sorts, but the results I was very pleased with so I thought why keep it to myself! Jabun's new album will actually be an ultra ambient remix version of my 2nd Jabun album/EP 15-4-20, but this time each track is a 2 hour long soundscape which in my ears aimed to be an auditory and musical expression of cloud watching. It's not an album to sit down and listen to note for note per say, more a collection of 3 sonic paintings to have in the background, glance through at your leisure and just enjoy the vibes for as short or long a time as you want (and if you REALLY want to listen for more than 2 hours per track then you can loop it yourself). These 3 tracks and over 6 hours of ambient remix material are non-looping and never exactly repeating much like how the 15-4-20 album was (or how cloudgazing is) and I hope you enjoy the concept, textures and sound design and just have fun with it. I've already started preparing artwork for this one, and with only 3 tracks and not the type of music to need to prep/ send out to radio stations etc... it's a heck of a lot less admin work than for Better Than The Book's album so there's a very good chance it'll be out before the new ska punk vibes! With that said, again although I'll not call it an official announcement just yet, I hope you're intrigued and looking forward to checking out Jabun's 6th album/EP project:
Jabun - Nephology
Track listing as follows:
01 - Cumulus
02 - Stratus
03 - Cirrus
After that I still have a BIG pile of over 70 minutes of Jabun demos and decent ideas which I aim to sort through, curate and compile along with some newer compositions too soon. Those have been slowly collecting/building since 2019 and are less ambient experimental and more akin to my debut album Daydream as well as venturing into the cinematic and instrumental hip hop side of things (check out my instrumental work with the recent Cyberdevil INKtober collaborations for a taste of the latter vibes)! That'll be a job for 2025 and super looking forward to getting back to those soon!
Finally this month, I managed to pick up the pace and get back on track with the 2 videos a week YouTube stream for now! I must admit I've been finding it difficult to share new or worthwhile ideas recently especially for guitar playing, so the next few months are taking a more synth and organ focus which people seem to be enjoying anyway so that's good. Check out the playlist below:
The Human League - The Sound of the Crowd - KORG Electribe EM-1 + Vocals
10 minutes of Unattended Volca Keys Ambient Synths
808 Day Quintuplet Polyrhythm Beatmaking
More AGCFAD Guitar Riffage
12-String Chainsaw Riffage but I get interrupted
10 minutes of Unattended Volca Modular Ambient Synths
Bonus unattended Volca Modular Video
Volca Modular Drum Synth Patch
Volca Modular Hand Drum Bongos Patch
More Volca Modular videos to come in the coming month as well as some organ and even pipe organ(!), and a clip from a Better Than The Book mini-practice session too. I hope you enjoy it!
And that wraps things up for this month unless you're a $10 supporter on Patreon which case I'm sharing with you an exclusive first look at the finished opening track to the new Better Than The Book album! Disruption is on the horizon, hence why I was so busy this month finishing up as many audio projects as possible, but hopefully by the next blog post I'll be able to reveal all and share some potentially even bigger news than in this post! Until then I think it's going to be a busy admin and artworky month for me with some more video recording to do too. Anyways, I hope you enjoy the new music and videos, and thanks so much as always for supporting my music and projects however you can. Big things coming all at once in the coming months! Get excited and take care!
August 2024 Patreon & News Post: Better Than The Book's new album is mastered and out to beta testers before the final cut, an amazing London trip (Spirited Away, Pipe Organ & meeting one of my heroes) + celebrating with collaborators and more!
Hi everyone and apologies for the slightly delayed post this month! I hope you've had a great time since the last one, and over here's it's been a super busy and exciting one to report so I hope that makes up for the delay! Lot's to go through this month so let's get to it!
First on the updates for this month, some big news from BTTB! As of yesterday, I've just rendered the first finished master test for the complete 14 track album and finally sent it over to my team of 2nd ears for a sanity check before it goes out to the world! Essentially, unless they have any specific quarrels, then the audio for the album is complete and it's just a final round of checks, exports and checking exports then the master audio will be considered finished, then just 4 quick radio edits to make/check etc... We're in the endgame now and man oh man I can't wait to share this with the world! It's been a long and difficult 5 years since Hopes and Dreams but man oh man, I think you'll hear how far 5 years of extra experience goes! Not long to wait now!
Onto some less project related and more casual fun updates, earlier last month I went on an amazing trip to London to go see the Spirited Away stage play which was phenomenal! Despite that being the aim of the trip though, that show wasn't the only highlight of the day. When we arrived at London Bridge Station, I had the pleasure of finding and playing London Bridge Station's famous recently rescued pipe organ "Henry" which was amazing (video coming to YouTube at some point)! It's likely been over 10 years now since I last had the opportunity to play pipe organ and man oh man it feels so good to be back to it! As you can expect, I've been spending even more time with my own Yamaha YC-25D organ since that day. Inspiration has been flowing like a broken tap!
That's not all for the day though, on a routine trip to Denmark Street, which has changed a lot in the few years since I was last there, I had the amazing fortune of completely by chance meeting one of my biggest electronic engineering heroes Ade Emsley! For those who don't know, he's a legend among the music tech community in a 2-fold way! On top of being head of engineering and design at Orange Amplifiers; the guy who designed virtual every Orange amp and pedal and more since the late 90s, the guy who STARTED the lunchbox/small amp head trend with the Tiny Terror, the guy who designed the very amp I use for playing organ, and live Better Than The Book performances (and much of the recording on the new record), he's also an industry legend as a mastering engineer with credits such as... the most recent few Iron Maiden albums + their entire back catalog of remasters (designing and building his own mastering rig I might add)! Needless to say, it's been a while since I was that star-struck, but I had a nice quick conversation with him and told him how much his work has inspired me before leaving him to it. I hope he enjoyed the encounter too. What a great day!
The following morning Sam, Eamon and I got together sans Andy for a Better Than The Book vocal harmonies and quiet practice session to brush up some of the tunes. It was so nice to jam again in a more relaxed setting where we weren't paying for the clock and hopefully we'll get back to some full loud-boi band practicing with Andy soon!
Onto some collaborative news now, first of all I'd like to congratulate Sif Savery and the Tales of Zale team for reaching a whopping 1 million views on YouTube for our Tales of Zale: Flickering Lights short film released back in 2022! Crazy to think that it's been seen that many times now and I'm so glad that people have been enjoying our biggest animation project so far! Hope to be working with the team again at some point and check out Sif's post on Patreon all about it. Woot woot and well done team!
Next, a newcomer of collaboration (sort of), and man oh man is this guy crazy, but I was asked to help out with some vocal editing and the final music mastering for a genre switching, A.I and stock photos collage editing madness monster of a rap track "Smack a Fish (Motha Sharka)" by eterniTRex! The music is all real musicians and vocalists (no A.I. used) while the video is a collage of A.I. generated and stock images, animated manually animutation-style for a wacky music video crazier than anything you can possibly imagine. It was a fun project to be a part of and the track / music video even got featured on the All Metal Everything music blog (with a fun write up too)! Check it out below:
Finally for this month, although I've been falling behind a bit on my pre-scheduled recording, I'm still keeping up with the 2 videos a week YouTube stream for now! It's been a synthy and Better Than The Book live band time recently, with more to come soon! Check out the playlist below:
Homecoming into Hearts Racing BTTB LIVE Practice (Clip)
Undead Education BTTB LIVE Practice (Clip)
Cathode Ray Days BTTB LIVE Practice (Clip)
Plot Holes BTTB LIVE Practice (Clip)
Hold Me Tight into Bump In The Night Full BTTB LIVE Practice
Phil Collins - In The Air Tonight Intro cover on KORG Electribe EM-1
Pale Waves Television Romance Intro cover on KORG Electribe EM-1
August has already started with another KORG EM-1 cover, an unattended synth session, and an 808 celebration and will continue with more synthy stuff and a guitar interlude to come! Hope you enjoy it!
And that about wraps things up for this month (unless you're a $10 patron in which case you have a download of that unattended synth session to look forward to)! Hopefully by the next time I write another of these, the master audio for the new Better Than The Book album will be complete and I'll be onto drafting up some artwork! In the mean time, I've got some video recording to catch up on too and I'm sure there'll be other things coming to keep me busy. Until next time, I hope you have a great month to come, enjoy all the new videos, and thanks as always for supporting my work! New Better Than The Book album is almost there! Get excited!
July 2024 Patreon & News Post: Almost time to master Better Than The Book's upcoming album (1 mix left to polish), back to Jabun ambient music, more YouTube videos + some other updates!
Hi everyone and hope you've had a good June and kept as cool as you can (it's been hot)! It's the start of another month which means time for more updates and rewards and it's a mixed bag in terms of the news this time, but things are progressing well although slowly. Let's get to it:
Starting with the upcoming Better Than The Book album, I'm about a week behind my revised schedule from what's been a super busy month of mixing tweaks and really polishing this album up to the absolute best of my ability and as it stands there's just 1 more mix left to finish before it's mastering time! It's coming on, but there's still a way to go and it's feeling slow. I'm hoping by the next update the "preliminary final" audio will be ready and out for field testing, i.e.: sending it out to a couple of people for their thoughts while playing it around on different systems on my end to see how well it's going. Busy busy, but when is that not the case these days!
Carrying on with Better Than The Book news, when I mentioned potential upcoming disruptions this wasn't what I had in mind but the BTTB live drummer Andy has been sent away for work so July's band practice has been downsized to a 3 part harmony and backing vocals session with just Eamon and Sam, which is ok as it's something we've been needing to go over, but I was looking forward to cranking amps and kicking out the jams again. Full band practices have been postponed for the moment, but I'm hoping with any luck we can get back to it in September? I'd still like to aim for a gig by the end of the year, but we'll have to see how the cards play out...
Onto some other news, with BTTB stuff shaping up in many ways, I've been back to some Jabun ambient explorations in my free evenings and it's been a great time! There's still another 70+ minutes of (less ambient; more beat based) Jabun demos waiting to be put into an album (or multiple) after this Better Than The Book album is done, but along with some live synth performances and practicing which you'll be seeing in YouTube videos to come, I've also been working on what I'm calling a hyper ambient remix album stemming for the 15-4-20 album! As with most Jabun ambient tracks it started off with simple experiments but what was probably around an hour of experimenting over the course of 3 sessions resulted in over 6 HOURS of (NOT A.I. GENERATED) dreamlike ambient soundscapes on a completely different level to anything else I've created in the past! I imagine this 3 track; 6 hour remix album will be the next Jabun release to come (maybe even before the end of the year depending on BTTB stuff). Exciting times! Let's get that BTTB album finished first though. In the mean time, I'll be continuing with practicing and experimenting with some live Jabun ambient performances when I have some free evenings! Expect to see those on YouTube soon!
And speaking of YouTube, it's another jam packed playlist this month with a load of organ videos, some Open D tuning guitar and some rotary speaker guitar experiments! Check out the playlist below:
Next month's videos are going to be full of synths, groove boxes and back to the Better Than The Book live practice videos but this time with Sam's fancy monitoring system for some cleaner audio so hope you enjoy the videos to come!
And that about wraps things up for this update, unless you're a $10 Patreon supporter in which case you have a Jabun live synth performance to look forward to! More disruptions are still potentially on the horizon but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. July looks to be busy with finishing off the BTTB album audio + a trip away including a mini-practice session + trying to keep up with everything else... I'll keep you posted with what's going on when I know, but it sure it busy at the moment! Until next time, thanks as always for supporting my work however you can, enjoy all the music and videos, and hope you have a good July to come! Take care!
June 2024 Patreon & News Post: Polishing up the Better Than The Book mixes (5 down 9 to go), BTTB Band Practice Videos, how to service a Leslie Speaker + more updates!
Hi everyone and hope you've had a great May! Another busy month has flown past faster than expected including an amazing trip to Wales to see Bruce Springsteen (fantastic show) as well as multiple trips down to my hometown in Sussex. It's the beginning of another month which means more updates and rewards to share so let's get straight get to it!
First in the news for this month, although I didn't get as far as I'd hoped due to the many trips over the past few weeks, I've been hard at work going over the first draft Better Than The Book mixes I reported last month, polishing them to perfection and setting them up in a session ready for the final track sequencing and mastering! As of this post, 5 (almost 6) tracks are ready to be mastered with 9 still awaiting a final polish, so it's not quite where I thought I'd be but progress is being made. Once all 14 tracks are completed, it'll be time for mastering, a quick round of "final" checks and tweaks for anything off that the mastering reveals, then a test listen with some extra ears before calling it done. Phew... Still a little while to go, but I'm hoping to be in that final mastering tweaky stage by the next post! Wish me luck and thanks for your patience!
Meanwhile away from the album studio work, the BTTB live band was back at Stanbridge Studios on May 4th for another practice session, this time with Sam (the bass guy)'s amazing monitoring system, and boy oh boy does it make a difference! We only managed to get a little bit of footage this time, but by using the direct feed from the monitoring system and mixing it with the camera audio, things are sounding a lot clearer on the videos! Those'll be out in about a month's time, but you have a big batch of videos from the previous practice to enjoy while you wait! Next practice is set for July 13th, though we might not have the super duper monitoring system that time due to time constraints... we'll see and hope you enjoy the behind the scenes peeks when they're released!
Back to trips, after gifting me his old music production computer last month, I went to visit our old family friend Martin at his studio to say thanks and have a geek out session and somehow with his amazing generosity left with a stack of magazine and his old patch bay for when I get to set up my final forever studio in the hopefully not too distant future! Thanks so much again Martin!
Finally for this update, there's another load of videos to share! Still keeping up with the 2-a-week packed playlist, and as previously mentioned it's been a month packed with Better Than The Book LIVE practice videos as well as a How To Service A Leslie Speaker instructional video! Check out the playlist below:
Oiling and Servicing Leslie / Vibratone Rotary Speaker
BTTB LIVE - Backseat Phobia (First in 4 Years)
BTTB LIVE - Cathode Ray Days (Full)
BTTB LIVE - And I Fear (Clip) (Nick gets overexcited)
BTTB LIVE - Plot Holes (Clip)
BTTB LIVE - Heartbeats - The Knife (Full)
BTTB LIVE - Bump In The Night (Full)
BTTB LIVE - Hold Me Tight (Full)
BTTB LIVE - Artificial Ignorance (Full)
Next month is back to the usual shorts with a tonne of organ and a bit of guitar too! Keep your eyes and ears posted for the next one coming on Sunday!
That about wraps things up for this post, unless you're $10 patron in which case you have a sneak peak at the (hopefully) FINAL MIX for "Hold Me Tight (Non-Acoustic Version)" from the upcoming Better Than The Book album to look forward to, a new song you can also hear in the Better Than The Book LIVE videos for this month! This coming month is set to be busy polishing up these mixes while prepping and practicing for the next BTTB live practice in July, but some disruptions may be coming soon so we'll see how it goes and hopefully I'll have more information on that next time. Until then, I hope you have an amazing June to come, enjoy the Better Than The Book LIVE videos and music and thanks as always for supporting my music however you can! All the best and take care!
May 2024 Patreon & News Post: All initial Better Than The Book mixes are complete (time for final tweaks), birthday funtimes, broken glasses, 1 year of regular YouTube, more videos + more!
Hi everyone and hope you've had a good April! Spring is here in full bloom which means hayfever's back with a vengence but also that it's time for some more updates! Let's get to it!
In the news for this month, it's been a hectic and busy one, but I'm pleased to announce that the first round of mixing for all 14 of the tracks on the new Better Than The Book album is now complete! There's a couple of tracks I know I need to go back and tweak but for the most part it's just doing any final checks and tweaks as nessesary before it's time for mastering. Slowly getting to that finish line, but no point in rushing it now, I'll be taking my time to make sure things are the best they can be. With any luck it'll be time for mastering by the next update (or close to it)! Fingers crossed!
Meanwhile it's been a mixed bag of luck away from the studio with some great fun birthday celebrations last week right after breaking my glasses... They've been replaced now and hopefully these ones will last even longer than the last pair, but man oh man what a pain in the ass! Onto the more fun and music related birthday news, my twin Eamon is always keeping me well equiped in the studio (more so than me I'm sure) and gifted me a super nice MXR Custom Shop Phase 90 (Script Logo with LED) phaser pedal! I've been eyeing one up for a while and there's a few different versions, but this one is perfect! When I think of the sound of a phaser it's THIS sound and no doubt it'll be finding it's way into the next project when I can! On a non-musical gift related note, Eva and Eli (my new sister in law) got me the new Kirby game which is a chill load of fun with Eva throwing in some Yu-Gi-Oh cards as well (since she's getting sick of beating me so easily (and indeed I'm still a geek at heart)), and my parents surprised me with tickets to Bruce Springsteen and some chicken trousers from Thailand! While not birthday related but a coincidence in timing, an old musical friend of the family Martin (see various BTTB album credits) has also given me his old music production PC too, AGAIN, and by that I mean that for the last ~6 years I've been using his old OLD PC to produce much of the stuff since and including Hopes and Dreams! Very generous! I still need to set it up which probably won't be until after this BTTB album is finished but I look forward to seeing what the extra power is capable of! Thanks so much everyone!
Onto videos for this month, would you believe that it's now been over one year since I started uploading regular (twice a week) videos to YouTube?! Crazy times and thanks so much for sticking around for the journey! To celebrate I have a special thanks, updates, and BTTB rig rundown video for you! Check it out below:
And of course there's another load of videos to share too! Still keeping up with the 2-a-week packed playlist, and this month been some more organ and guitar whammy pedal experiments (+ more)! Check out the playlist below:
And here's a list of the latest additions:
Playing the drawbars on Organ
Drawbars + Swell Pedal Wah Effect on Organ
Paradiddle practice + groove on Organ
Non-tonal Whammy Pedal Experiments
Volume Swells + Whammy Pedal are... Interesting
Guillotine Switching Riff with Whammy Pedal
1 year of videos + BTTB Live Guitar Rig Rundown
Night Of The Living Dead MPC Beat
Next month I'll be showing you how to service a Vibratone style Leslie Speaker before a packed month of videos from March's Better Than The Book LIVE full band practice! Hope you're looking forward to it. It's been much too long!
That about wraps things up for this month, unless you're a $10 patron in which case you have a sneek peek mix demo for the alternative bonus version of "Plot Holes" from the new Better Than The Book album to look forward to! More busy times ahead as this week/month I'll be heading off for another Better Than The Book full band practice (hoping to get some more videos in there) before a trip to Wales for see Bruce Springsteen (thanks again), than later on another trip to celebrate my cousin's wedding! I'm hoping to have the upcoming Better Than The Book album just about ready for mastering by the next update, but with all the trips and other stuff we'll see how it goes! Until then, I hope you enjoy the new videos and thanks so much as always for joining me on this crazy musical adventure! Let's make this 34th year a great one! See you in June and take care!
April 2024 Patreon & News Post: ONE mix left to go for Better Than The Book's upcoming album, the Better Than The Book LIVE band is back in action after 4 years apart, Bass and Leslie Speaker maintainence, more guitar videos and beatmaking + more!
Hi everyone and hope you're having a great start to April! Another month arrives and another set of updates! Let's get to it:
Onto the updates for the month, it's just ONE MIX LEFT to go for this intial and most in-depth round of polishing the tracks before a final go-over for Better Than The Book's upcoming album! 13 tracks done and ready for final pre-mastering checks now, but this final one is gonna be a big challenge! Essentially 2 complete band set-ups including rap vocals, 2 organs, horns AND a full string and brass orchestra?! It's the biggest mix session of the album (maybe even of my entire non-post production engineering career?) and I'm pacing myself through it, but things are sounding boss so far! Aiming to get this done in the coming weeks and I can't wait to share it with you!
Meanwhile on the Better Than The Book news front, March 9th was a monumentous day as for the first time since January 2020(!!!), the whole of the Better Than The Book live band were back together in the same room to jam out the tunes! It's been a rough few years to say the least and I honestly wasn't sure how things'd be after all this time, but I can say with upmost confidence that despite the 4 years away, we are sounding better than ever! 10 tracks were prepped, but only 9 made it to playing due to a lost click-track, but we got a tonne a practice in and a load of videos recorded too including 5 tracks we've not played together before (which I think turned out to be the best ones of the lot)! 8 videos are all edited now, albeit with the lo-fi go pro mic audio quality, and are scheduled for release on YouTube throughout May, and I can't wait to show you all what 4 years apart has done for us! Next practice has been schduled for Mayday weekend (with 2 additional tracks since last time), and hopefully we may have some advancements in video/audio tech by then. We shall see! The plan is to get another practice in after that, then if all's good, start looking for gigs! It's been much too long in the making! Get excited!
Next on the news, on top of a busy BTTB month it's been a super busy one with equipment maintainence too! After many (mainly pandemic) years of putting it off, and my first bass (a modified Squier Jazz Bass with additional secret so-called "BEEF" switch) being in a sorry and slowly deterioating state electronically, I FINALLY got around to serving the electronics including a complete overhall on the control cavity with some oo-lah-lah CTS pots which sound and feel FIYYYYEEEEEN! The bass which was used a lot during my gigging and recording years with Lights Camera Attraction, and on BTTB's Two Years On album is sounding and feeling better than ever, and while it's still residing at my parents' place until Eva and I have a place of our own, it's a lovely instrument which I look forward to playing whenever I'm back! While I was there, I also ended up servicing my dad's electric guitar too, I think the first time it's ever had a full service! He seemed very pleased with the result and it's always a plesure hear him inspired to play. On top of that, after some hesitation, I finally got around to servicing and oiling my homemade Leslie rotary speaker which although was running great before, should hopefully continue to run great again now for another year+. Given the complexities of the task, I decided to video the whole process too for anyone else to find useful! I think that video's scheduled for release at the very start of May before the BTTB live band stuff. It's been a busy time video editing this month! That about wraps things up for overdue equiment maintainence now, but I'm sure there'll be more to do before long!
Finally for this update, there's another load of videos to share! Still keeping up with the 2-a-week packed playlist, and as I mentioned last time, it was a beat based detour this month, followed by a return to some metal guitar! Check out the playlist below:
KORG Electribe EM-1 Instrumental Hip Hop beat (MF Doom Inspired)
Nujabes inspired beatmaking on the Akai MPC 1000
Nujabes inspired beatmaking on the Akai MPC 1000 with a Yoko Kanno Sample
More chill Nujabes inspired beatmaking on the Akai MPC 1000
Better Than The Book - Head Above Water (feat. Cyberdevil) Akai MPC 1000 Original Session from 2015!
Numetal Grunge Tonality on Squier Vintage Modified Jaguar (Linkin Park, Limp Bizkit, Deftones, POD)
Dissonant Metal Tonality Tapping on Vintage Modified Jaguar. Something between Wes Borland and DOOM?
Next month we're back to some organ as well as guitar, and also (would you believe) it'll have been a full year of doing these 2-a-week videos by then too?! Time sure does fly! I've got a special video planned to celebrate and hope you're enjoyed the ride so far!
That's it for this month (unless you're a $10 patron in which case you have a mix demo for Better Than The Book's "Don't Be Too Hard On Yourself" to look forward to)! It's looking to be another busy one ahead recording videos, finishing off this final BTTB mix (then getting onto the extra edits) + praticing for May's meet-up + I've got my taxes to look forward to: JOY! I'll be away at the end of the month too for some birthday merriment, and although it's not confirmed just yet, there's been talks of me taking on a bass guitar student too! Should be a fun challenge! Until the next update, I hope you have an amazing April to come and thanks as always for supporting me with this crazy musical adventure! Can't wait to show you the next chapter! Take care and get ready for the next wave!
March 2024 Patreon & News Post: More Better Than The Book album and live updates, back on the radio + 9 more YouTube Videos including a teaser from the new album + more!
Hi everyone and hope you had a great leap day yesterday! It's March (man oh man this year is going by fast...) and time for another update!
In the news for this month, 3 more Better Than The Book mixes were completed (aaaaaalmost 4) which puts mixing at about 75% done now apart from final checks and tweaks! These final mixes are getting trickier as they branch out into more complex styles, but it's been a fun ride putting them together! 4 left to go so I'm hoping they'll all be at that final checking and tweaking stage by the next update, but we'll see how it goes!
Carrying on with some more BTTB news, it's been another busy month training and practicing for gigging and after a period of uncertainy, I can confirm that Better Than The Book's first full band practice since January 2020 will be happening on March 9th! The studio is booked and I cannot express how excited I am for it! We've prepped 10 tracks (a mix of new and old) to run through and see how we do and hopefully (depending on the results) it'll be the first step to FINALLY getting some gigs booked in later this year. Hoping to grab some footage to share on YouTube while we're there. I cannot wait!
In other news after many months of putting it off, I finally got around to servicing the electronics on my homemade Satin-X doubleneck and I really don't know why I keep putting it off because it's SOOO much nicer to play after I do it! The neck switch was cleaned for the first time in probably 18 years(?!) and it's guillotine switching so smoothly and reliably now! After going through a few different brands of contact cleaner, it seems like Kontakt10 (Servisol) is the winner for getting the dust and scratchiness out of the pots too! We'll see how time tells in terms of the longevity, but it's been super reliable so far! Next on the long-overdue-and-put-off-things-to-service list are the homemade Retro Rotary leslie speaker which was due for oiling last May I think.... oof... (it's a pain, but good too keep on top of it even if it is running smoothly (at the moment)), and the Jazz bass which needs a complete overhaul on the control electronics! All the new parts have been ordered so the latter will definitely be something for the month to come with the former a hopeful shout as well! Wish me luck!
Back to BTTB news and I'm super happy to share that Button Down Radio is still giving the Hopes and Dreams album some love even after all these years! Thanks so much for playing "The Hardest Part" on the show next to some top class Ska acts from around the world! It's always a pleasure and an honour:
Finally for this month's news, it's onto the gear and guitar videos for the month as usual and it's another 2-a-week packed playlist for you! Not much guitar this time actually but there's a whole bunch of other fun things instead concluding with a teaser from the upcoming Better Than The Book album! Here's the usual playlist link with the added videos:
Cécile Corbel - Our House Below - Balalaika cover (from Studio Ghibli Arrietty)
Ahhh Scratch Akai MPC1000
White Noise Scratching Akai MPC1000
Roland TR-08 + Korg NTS-1 = Drone Machine!
Pink Floyd - The Wall - In The Flesh? Intro Melodica Cover
The Yardbirds / Graham Gouldman - Heart Full of Soul Acoustic Cover
Organ Overdrive with the Orange Amps Micro Dark
P.O.D. - Youth of the Nation Intro cover on Yamaha Reface CP
Better Than The Book upcoming album teaser: Mixing "Hearts Racing Backwards"
We'll be taking a beat based detour for most of next month before returning to some good old metal guitar! Hope you enjoy it and there's more to come every Thursday and Sunday as usual!
That about wraps things up for this month unless you're a $10 Patreon Supporter in which case you have another exclusive mix demo from the upcoming BTTB album to look forward to (a track called "Rewrite")! Looks like I'll be mostly busy mixing Better Than The Book, doing more live show practice, recording more videos, and servicing equipment, so no doubt it's going to be a jam packed month before I have my taxes to look forward to in April! JOY! In any case I hope you have a great month ahead and thanks as always for supporting my music and projects however you can! Fun times are 'acomin'!!! Hope you're as excited as I am, and take care!
