December 2023 Patreon & News Post: 2 solid Better Than The Book mixes are complete (12 to go), more guitar/gear videos including homemade effects, doubleneck explorations and a live Third Eye Blind cover + more!

Hi eveyone and hope you've had a great November! Another month begins and so it's time for some more Patreon rewards and news updates! 

It's been a heavy few weeks of mixing (and preparing to mix) the upcoming Better Than The Book album project! As of now, 2 mixes are solid and ready for final checks before mastering (once the other tracks are done), and the remaining 12 tracks have all been set up ready with the new session templates and presets to make the mixing process much smoother when I get to them, as well as some general ballpark mixing so I'm not starting from square one for each song, and preparing my mixing sheets with all the notes I'll need too for each track. Progress is going well, and now that the first few mixes are done, I think the pace will be picking up in the New Year as I find my flow again! It's looking to be busy month ahead with various visits and Christmas / New Year festivities, so I'll be taking things at a relaxed pace and doing what I can until the time allows, but I'm super excited to share with you what's going on and can't wait to release this album in 2024!

Next and finally for this month's news, it's onto the gear and guitar videos for the month and it's another 2-a-week packed playlist for you. This time I have another BTTB playalong, some doubleneck explorations and synth accompanied guitars jams, demonstrations of a few of my homemade effects pedals, and a full live cover of Third Eye Blind's Narcolepsy and more too Here's the usual playlist link with the added videos:

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

And here's a list of the latest additions:

• Better Than The Book - Hopes and Dreams 12-String Guitar Solo Playthrough
• Trying to tame the Doubleneck Guitar (uncut exploration / practice)
• Having fun noodling on a Yamaha Pacifica guitar and Roland Aria J-6 Synth
• Right hand only guitar practice on Yamaha Pacifica and Roland Aira J-6 Synth
• I made an "Oldschool Overdrive" guitar pedal! DEMO with Vintage Modified Jaguar
• I made a Univox Super-Fuzz clone guitar pedal! DEMO with Vintage Modified Jaguar
• Homemade Univox Super-Fuzz clone guitar pedal on Bass! DEMO with Sterling SB14
• Muse - Time Is Running Out - Bass Cover with Homemade Super-Fuzz pedal clone!
• Third Eye Blind - Narcolepsy (guitar and vocal cover)

Hope you enjoy them and there's more to come every Thursday and Sunday in December!

That about wraps it up for this month, unless you're a $10 patron in which case you have the first of the solid BTTB mixes to look forward to in your rewards (the final WIP look at "Hold Me Tight (Non-Acoustic)"! It's looking to be a busy month ahead, mostly away from the studio with various celebrations and festivities so I'm hoping to complete at least one more mix + record the next month's worth of videos, but I'm not sure there'll be much time for anything else. We shall have to see! The next blog post will likely be a few days late due to the New Years celebrations, but I'll be back in January with more guitar videos and BTTB album updates at the very least! Until then, I hope you have a great December to come, enjoy any seasonal festivity fun you have planned, and thanks so much for all your support in 2023! See you in 2024, It's gonna be a big year!

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January 2024 Patreon & News Post: Another BTTB mix done, more guitar/gear videos including a sneak peek live performance of Better Than The Book's "Plot Holes", project and studio updates + reflecting on 2023 and setting goals for 2024!

Happy New Year everyone and hope you all had a great winter break! A new month comes with a new year and so it's time for an extra special first of the year update!

It's been a very busy month mostly away from the studio with various holiday festivities, but there's been some progress in the studio as well! One top of another solid BTTB mix which makes for a total of 3 so far (and 11 to go), I also got a request to do some programming for the Korg NTS-1 Digital synth which was a fun challenge! I'll hopefully be releasing that as a free/donation based public download in the coming months so I hope people can get something out of it. In the mean time, feel free to check out my previous NTS-1 programming project: NOISE:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9R3mLR4aC5o

Of course I've also been keeping up with my 2 a week guitar/gear videos on YouTube and this time we have a Better Than The Book organ playalong video, some more organ experiments, some MPC fingerdrumming, unconventional guitar bends and more, AND a rough and ready live sneak peek demo of one of the upcoming Better Than The Book tracks: "Plot Holes"! Here's the usual playlist link with the added videos:

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

And here's a list of the latest additions:

• Better Than The Book - Brighton - Organ Part
• Yamaha YC-25D Touch Mute Organ Demo
• Tremolo + Echo Organ Jam
• DD-6 Looping Fun
• Basic Behind The Bridge B-bending on Jaguar
• Tapped Harmonics and Behind The Nut Bending
• Pop Punk MPC Fingerdrumming
• Pipe Organ vibes with reverb on the YC-25D
• Better Than The Book - Plot Holes - Sneak Peek Live Demo

That's about it for studio updates, but it was a fun time with winter festivities too! This was actually my first Christmas with family since 2019 (due to pandemic + work night shifts) and my first married Christmas with Eva (and her sister) too and it was amazing. As seems to have become tradition, my twin Eamon got me another synth for the studio, the ultra compact Bastl Kastle v1.5 which I'm super looking forward to intergrating into my synth set-up. It's a fun and ready less-melodically-focussed experimental synth of sorts which excels at creating some great textures and soundscapes! Hopefully you'll be hearing some of that from me very soon!

To close this post I thought it'd be nice to reflect on the year gone by, celebrate the sucesses, reflect on goals, and set some new ones for 2024! This past year has been a busy one not only with work but with my personal life too! After a crazy start with my laptop of 14+ years having to be retired and moving projects over to a new system, Jabun released the June22 EP, a collection of 2 live performances inspired by the modular synth works of Suzanne Ciani. I also finally managed to get those BP-1 bass pedals for the organ rig (after 2 years of constant searching), and modified my Jaguar guitar for some lovely new fuctionality. I released Reduce with @Cyberdevil, @ChordC and @Hania which was a dream come true collaboration, modified my homemade Superfuzz and got a pedalboard and BOSS TR-2 Tremolo pedal (from Japan) for my birthday (+ another footswitch), and started a new twice a week guitar/gear YouTube series! I took part in my first ever LIVE podcast interview with the @OffTheWallShow Podcast here on Newgrounds, Finished recording (and got deep into mixing) Better Than The Book's upcoming 3rd full-length album, got MARRIED, and released multiple collaborations with Cyberdevil as part of his yearly INKtober challenge, most notably Pool Party! Phew! That was way more than I remember doing!

In terms of the goals I actually set, the only thing which didn't come to pass (mainly due to logistical and health problems) was taking BTTB to the stage, but there's still time for that! With that I think I'll be setting the following goals for 2024:

1) Release the upcoming Better Than The Book album!

2) Finish recording the next Jabun album

3) Play my first live show as Better Than The Book

4) Play my first live show as Jabun

The logistics have finally lined up (at least closer) again for that 3rd goal, and there's been some actually asked interest about the 4th one, so I just need to figure out how to do it! I've also got some long overdue equipement maintanence to do so hopefully that should go smoothly as well! It's looking to be a super exciting year to come!

That about wraps things up for this month unless you're a $10 patron in which case you have a solid mix for Red Kite from the upcoming Better Than The Book album to look forward to in your rewards! I hope you all have a great 2024 to come and thanks so much as always for supporting my music and projects however you can. Lets make 2024 the best year yet! All the best and take care!

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Reward Archives: https://www.patreon.com/posts/50344842

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February 2024 Patreon & News Post: Halfway there mixing Better Than The Book's upcoming album (+ an exclusive demo mix of "Plot Holes"), BTTB live practice updates, JabunAudio's NOISE gets featured on KORG's offical software list + 8 more YouTube Videos!

Hi everyone and hope you've had a great start to the year! It's the beginning of another month and time for some more news and rewards and what a busy month it's been! 

The updates for this month: with 7 out of 14 tracks from the upcoming Better Than The Book album now mixed, we're halfway there (whooaa, livin' on a prayer)! I'll be aiming to get another 4 done over the next month, but I've left the more complex/unusual mixes until last so things are getting a bit tricky and taking longer than before... Slowly but surely though!

Meanwhile I've been super busy practicing for March for hopefully the first full-band BTTB practice since January 2020 (TBC)!!! It was a tough month getting my vocals back in gear for the longer-than-I'm-used-to sets, but things are feeling pretty good now, and with 10 tracks (a pick'n'mix of old and new) now pretty solid under my fingers, bar the occasional vocal or guitar slip, its now more about practicing creating the performance with these tracks! I cannot tell you how excited I am to get back to playing live and I'll keep you posted with news as and when! and feel free to check out the last time(s) we met up in the playlist below: Woot woot!

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLWEmqIhrNPvTUl5SAbcIGB2nISnvWjGtq

Onto other exciting news, it took over 2 years to come to fruition but JabunAudio's custom NOISE Oscillator for the KORG NTS-1 Digital Synth Kit is now on Korg's OFFICIAL logue-SDK unit index list (with JabunAudio actually listed now as a software developer for the platform)! Thanks so much for the stamp of approval KORG and hope people have fun with it! With the new NTS-1 mkII announced with its own new noise oscillator, JabunAudio's own NOISE gives users of the original NTS-1 a more basic version to play with while they wait to upgrade. It's free/donation based too so if you have an NTS-1 go grab it and have fun!

KORG's official list: https://korginc.github.io/logue-sdk/unit-index/osc/

See + Hear it in action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9R3mLR4aC5o

And finally for this post, as usual I've been keeping up with the 2 videos a week on YouTube, and this month we have a demo of my homemade spring reverb with organ, some (mostly metal) alternative tuning experiments for guitar, and some experimental Col Legno inspired guitar techniques I borrowed from cello! Here's the usual playlist link with the added videos:

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

And here's a list of the latest additions: Enjoy!

• Homemade Reverb + Organ (Walkin' on the Sun)
• AGCFAD tuning because I don't have a 7-string (Metal)
• AGCFAD tuning on 12-string (Metal)
• CGDGAD tuing on 12-string sounds beautiful!
• 12-string guitar but it's in 5ths instead of Octaves/unison
• Col Legno on guitar with drumstick (Rock)
• Col Legno on guitar with drumstick (Atmospheric)
• Col Legno (+ Gliss) on Guitar with RIGHT hand glass slide

The next month and a half of videos will be much less guitar heavy as it was super cold when I was recording, but guitaring will return in March! Meanwhile there's some other exciting things to share instead! Hope you enjoy it!

And that about wraps things up for this month unless you're a $10 Patreon supporter in which case you have the latest (and almost final) mix of Better Than The Book's "Plot Holes" to look forward to from the upcoming album! Next month is set to be more BTTB mixing and live (solo) practicing ready for March and hopefully the first batch of some much needed equipment maintainence (on top of the usual YouTube stuff)? We shall see how things go but until then, I hope you're as excited as I am for what's to come and thanks as always for supporting my music and projects however you can! Until the next one, and take care!

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Finally catching up with these updates... you've managed a LOT of videos the last few months! Impressively consistent upload schedule and content creation scheme, seems like it might be paying off too...

Aw yeah, thanks for the multiple shout-out's here!

That was a fun one too, feels like further back than it was at this point...

Happy Super Belated New Year also!

I remember this one! :D Can't wait to see some new practice sessions floating around the interwebs soon!

Hell yes! So far seems like it's off to a grand start - all the best!

Cheers CD! It's been a while! That reduce collab in particular feels like ages ago now. Very much hoping that BTTB practice session stuff goes ahead and smoothly but things are looking a bit rocky due to stuff out of my control at the moment unfortunatley... hopefully only delays but still hoping for something to happen in March at least DX I'll keep peeps posted! Thanks for checking in :)

Thanks man. :) Indeed it has! Ah whatever turmoil there is at the mo I hope it works out then... new month's closing in now, intrigued to read the next post and see how it all goes!

Of course, shall be here a bit more frequently again from here on I hope!

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:

https://www.facebook.com/buttondownradio5446/posts/pfbid02ouqjH4sXm7xb8tfKG2zpfMp4ELWh22npsWkropLjkVQ7vqkrHvrAJg6DzeRBWEaxl

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:

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

And here's a list of the latest additions:

• 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!

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Still going strong with those videos, equipment mixes and all...

...aaand the practice sessions are commencing! :D Will there be footage?

Hope all goes as planned this time, and hyped about those gigs! Good news all around.

Indeed indeed! :D Happy you're enjoying them (and the next few may sound familiar for you specifically too :D)

And YEAH! Super excited. I'm hoping to get some footage again for sure, though I imagine they'll be uploaded in May's batch of videos now. We'll see how it goes re practice first but fingers crossed we can put some gigs together later on in the year if things are sounding good. We were ready and booked in for 2020, now just to get back to (and beyond) that level :) Thanks for the well wishes!

Aw yeah! :D

That's pretty far into the future still then, hope I'm not off for summer already at that point; get to witness the reunion and strong-sounding Ska sesh in all it's glory, and it all goes as it should go, to grander and greater heights and bounds than ever prior... crossing fingers!

Thanks so much! Only a few days left to wait now :D

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:

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

And here's a list of the latest additions:

• Limp Bizkit inspired beat
• Lemon Tea Beat
• 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!

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It's April 1 so hmm... are you really just down to one? :P Hope it is true! The time cometh soon if so! To rejoice to the orchestrated; optimally arranged and ever-evolving noise and voice of choice! A new album, hear and *dayum*.

Getting excited now! :D Seems almost too good to be true but...

This dissonant metal tapping's no joke either. :D Dope sound.

And plentiful both rewards and videos... it really is just a regular update post huh?! XD Still good fun, good to see things moving onwards at a steady and all the more hype-inducing pace! Looking forward to seeing some of those practice sessions later on!

Hehe, always the risk when posing these beginning of the month updates! All true, though unfortunatley I seem to have given myself food poisoning or something on Tuesday so this week's been a write off so far... that's NO JOKE DX Glad you enjoyed the metal tapping :D I've been on a bass practice quest as of late but I really want to get back to more guitar :) Hopefully I'll still make this month's targets, though it's gonna be tight now I think... At the very least would be great to get that final mix sorted + the videos recorded for the month. Thanks for the support CD!

Daaang! Good thing you didn't get that at the time of the update at least... that sucks, hope all's good soon. I'm hobbling around on a sprained ankle myself atm, though seems to be healing well, slowly but surely. Whoop, good luck and Ganbatte JB!

Ah DANG! Hope the ankle heals up soon too. I'm mostly better over here, just a bit sleep deprived post night shift now XD Indeed glad it didn't hit last month, that'd have been killer! Lots of catching up to do this week to make up for the missed time though DX Cheers CD!

Thank ya thank ya. :) Sprain seems to be getting better pretty quickly, walking in the mountains atm, so far it's going OK! Ah that nefarious schdulable sleep deprivation. XD Seems hectic for sure! Hope all goes well though! Cheers JB!

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:

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

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

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! 

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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:

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

And here's a list of the latest additions:

• 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!

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gopd luck

Many thanks, kinupsi!

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:

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

And here's a list of the latest additions:

• Spyro The Dragon Inspired Organ Groove
• Crash Bandicoot Xylophone sound on Organ
• Avril Lavigne What The Hell Organ Intro Tutorial
• Open D Tuning is underated
• Post nightshift Open D slide Jam
• Come As You Are but with Leslie
• Leslie Chorus + echo on guitar Numetal inspired
• Phaser vs Slow Leslie on Organ
• Flanger vs Fast Leslie on Organ

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!

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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!

https://www.patreon.com/posts/108536096

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:

https://allmetaleverything.com/eternitrex-smack-a-fish-motha-sharka/ 

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:

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

And here's a list of the latest additions:

• KORG Volca Modular Live Jabun Practice
• 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!

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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:

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

And here's a list of the latest additions:

• 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!

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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:

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

And here's a list of the latest additions:

• KORG Volca Modular Techno Groove Box Patch
• 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!

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Catching up again here finally, you've been busy the last few months! In response to August posts and onward...

I'd never heard of Ade Emsley before but what a portfolio he has! Impressive dude. Sounds like a very cool meeting.

Side A and Side B on the new album hmm... does this mean it's coming in vinyl form too? Cassette? :O

I like how the track 7 & 8 names rhyme there too. :D The tracklist sounds interesting. Some unconventional names, and cryptic ones, excited to hear what they're all about, and how different it all is from the last one, which definitely had a more conventional kind of both name and structure and everything to it (though still awesome, I mean this just really stands out in comparison)! Can't wait to hear this.

The 6 hour EP definitely isn't one that work on vinyl though! XD Intriguing too... I get to thinking of Limp Bizkit immediately, with their old ambient end tracks that spanned an experiment ten minutes or so, but of course this seems a vastly different thing, no comparison at all. Curious to hear how you manage to maintain the 'feel' of it all throughout a full two hours like that! Or if it keeps morphing...

Do you btw notice that numbers in your YT video titles give higher views than ones without? I think I read some research earlier on how numbers instantly make a thing more appealing, curious if you notice that in practice.

With the computer, do you know if the HDD itself is dead? Have you tried taking it out and plugging it in via another computer/docking station? My own laptop (just one I use for distance work, fortunately, not as custom a build) broke down a couple weeks ago, but the HDD was fine, it seems the motherboard was the issue there. It doesn't boot at all, power indicator blink an error code, and nothing happens, but it was easy enough to take out the HDD and move everything over to my other computer. Hope it works out for ya! If it's possible to get an identical computer for cheap somewhere, you might theoretically be able to just move the HDD over from the old one to the new, and still keep the OS exactly as it was, if drivers and bios and all are identical. IF the HDD isn't the faulty component then...

Sorry to hear about the latest mishaps man; hope you get studio and computer and all going again soon! Otherwise so much good news these pasts few months... may the misfortune be very temporary, and issues relatively easy to fix after all!

It has been a while hasn't it! Hope you're liking all the (good) news!) Indeed Ade's got a fantastic portfolio, of both music and music tech. It's probably been the most starstruck I've been in a long time XD

Hehe, unfortunately I can't afford a vinyl print (or any physical prints at the moment), but I always like to plan albums as such: Side A, B (etc...) and bonuses. Feels like a nice way to break up the journey, and I don't like to make albums just "a collection of tracks", more a musical movie of sorts even if there's no explicit overarching narrative.

In terms of vibe, I think it expands on the vibes of the previous album though leans more into the skaPUNK and pop punk side of things (and some new sounds), rather than the pure ska or J-rocky elements of Hopes and Dreams. A big part of that was due to the different guitars I had available to me when I was writing and recording. When I was writing Hopes and Dreams (the album) I had my stock Yamaha Pacifica with me which is where I'd write most of my J-Rocky stuff, but at the end of 2019 I swapped it with my modded Yamaha Pacifica which was at my parent's place and was built as a metalcore guitar and tends to bring out my more metal and punk side. Then lockdown hit so I didn't have my Jrocky guitar for a few years... It's strange how much just that switch changed the sound of the album! In case you're interested: for One Small Step I only had the modded Pacifica, while for Two Years On I had both and I think when you know that, it really points to how varied the sounds of the different albums and EPs are. Geeking out a bit XD

Hehe, yup that's going to have to be a purely digital release XD It's DEFINITELY not comparable to Limp Bizkit (those were great tracks though). I really do feel that the best way to describe it is that feeling you get when watching the clouds in the sky. Patterns form and loose shape and there's a general continuous evolving of the textures while at the same time it doesn't really go anywhere. You could see each track as a different weather or season or time of day, but the best cloud watching time is when there's still some blue in the sky (for contrast against the whites and greys). Similarly, it's not something you really need to listen to all the way through, more something to tune in and out in the background (like the sky). I don't think many people would sit and watch the sky intently for 2 hours at a time, but it's nice to have the option XD

I've not noticed that no... Maybe I should try that!

Sort of clarified this in another post, but HDD isn't dead a least, and it has now been moved into a new computer too (was planning to migrate the computers just after the house move, so I guess this problem patch is a good excuse to get it done now XD). Yeah there have been a few driver issues which seem to be sorted now, but OS is the same at least :)

Cheers CD! I'm hoping to be back up and running soon too, though until I get the computer 100% working again it's going to be tricky... Taking the time to get it done right though. I'm hoping to still get something your way for Inktober too, though this definitely makes things a little trickier (or I'll have to be more creative XD) Take care and thanks for checking in!

Indeed! And indeed, it's good to see progress is so consistent these days too, up and onward in incremental steps with each of these monthly checks. :) I can imagine! I don't think I've ever run into a famous person in the wild myself, but I might just not be attentive enough...

Aha. So there's potential for such prints with thought-out splits in the future then. :) I do like when albums really feel like a journey, and tracks have a natural order; some kind of progression to them, more than a Best Of kind of mish-mash of music, though I wonder how many artists divide said experience in two parts like that these days, it's a cool idea. And very practical for potential future prints too...

So this ought basically be a bit more metal? :) Interesting. If you play live sets combining albums you'll have to start bringing a roster of guitars with you huh. :P That's fun to know! Hyped to experience the progression and change of the latest range! Of course your inspirations and style of playing's bound to change or evolve a bit with each one too. Excited to hear it.

Mmm but if you do listen for a full six hours, I wonder if it'll feel like it all goes full circle or no, or if you end up somewhere different entirely. As the clouds pass so to do moods and emotions, your state of mind morphs and changes, despite the background you take yourself to different places entirely along the way... anyhow: intrigued! That's a good way to explain the audial venture too for sure.

Any plans on recording six hours worth of clouds passing by as potential visualizer footage? ;)

Ah I thought maybe you were, it seemed you'd started using more numbers in the newer playlists. :)

Definitely worth experimenting with for sure, anything to garner more views. I think the reason numbers work are maybe that they simplify things for us mentally. Phrases are complicated combinations of intentions, visual depictions and material constraints. You have to understand the full context of a phrase to grasp the meaning of each word... but numbers are easy and incremental. At least easy numbers.

Anyway there's probably better research floating around the Internet regarding why this is; how our mind really works around numerals. Maybe it's more so a sense of reward thing. Numbers are: more. Multiple. Gain. Progress.

Yupp yupp, thanks for the elaboration there. HDD cloned too along the way in case it actually is the drive that's failing after all? Drivers can cause some weird issues too, wonder if they can end up corrupting/deleting data...

Well hey I'd be happy with even just a plain analog recording of a little regular riffing. XD Anything goes as you know!

All the best; thank you too!

Me neither, this was a first for me too I think! I've seen some peeps at conventions and gigs before but you kind of expect them to be in those places (especially when they're on guest tables or meeting fans after the show XD)

I do like to future-proof stuff. Just in case XD Shared sentiments on the 2 types of albums too. There's definitely a fair few relatively modern albums which do seem to have a defined mid point (especially in the narrative types). :)

Maybe not metal per se, but there's definitely a up in the heavy vibe, though there's some other stuff too... it really goes places! Well my main BTTB guitar is kinda designed to carry a lot of the tones I'd use, though I'd usually take 2 guitars gigging anyway for backup. There are 2 main tunings I use for BTTB too, and some songs you can only play on one of them, so that's a good reason to bring 2 guitars too :) Live stuff has kind of stalled for the moment though with everything else that's going on, but hopefully we'll be back to it at some point when we can all get together again. Too true on the evolution too.

Defintiely a progress throughout the 6 hours, but maybe only a little change in each of the 2 hour tracks, not entirely circular as such but... you'll see XD Hehe. I DID record some cloud footage but my phone cut out just shy of 2 hours soooo I'll probably just slow it down to compensate! The clouds weren't super slow that day XD The camera isn't great but maybe the not greatness adds to the vibe? I'm not sure... in any case I'll have to wait until we get a stable internet connection until that's possible to upload.

I think the videos with dates in them actually had very few views, though maybe it was because it was BTTB XD Too true on sentiments. It's hard to get footing on anything that's original. I get more views on covers and stuff... I've gotta experiment

Update on the other post you posted on but the cloning's been postponed for now due to a drive that actually seems to have failed (the one I was hoping to clone to...). The original drives seem to be running ok now though :)

Hehe, just hoping the internet connection is stable enough to get the file to you! Looking forward to jamming something out when I can :)

True true, I've definitely seen some famous people on stages. XD Very cool... oughta make an effort to meet more artists after shows too, maybe some appreciate it even, some audiences have been pretty small.

Future-proofing content for formats of the past hmm, sounds a bit odd to say but indeed good to do. :D

Hmm come to think of it Eminem has had some recent albums with A and B sides to them too, at least the Music to be Murdered by ones... length-wise not sure they actually match others formats. But the traditional division's there too. Maybe it's coming back.

Ahh bummer the gigs are halting again, seemed like y'all were really starting to warm up to it. Hope you get back to it for sure, maybe all the more relevant after the upcoming release. Interesting to know re:gig guitar setup. :)

I will see yes. :) Looking forward! Ahaha well as long as the final speed suits the speed of the music I suppose the actual footage duration isn't so important, maybe loopable too somehow. :) I do believe technical limitations actually often boost the experience, both visually and audially so definitely! The grittier and grainier and more saturated and fuzzy possibly the better it gets! XD Been watching some interesting mini-documentaries about how certain older movies can't be replicated particularly because of technical limitations, for example horror movies that were shot in film formats no longer used, that were upscaled, or color-coded differently, and just became vastly more discomforting because of it. The crisper and clearer it gets the less eerie... of course you can emulate visual limitations and artifacts digitally too, but it's hard to get the results the same entirely. It looks emulated more than it does actually old. Not much to do with music that but to conclude: yeah, I do think so! :D Will be fun to see how it turns out anyhow.

Mhm! Maybe dates per se aren't as captivating. But numbers that simplify, or multiply, incremental ones. 3 Killer Techniques. Top 10 Plugins. 2 Covers of... stuff like that?

Aye, hope you get that proper copy soon too! :)

Hmm are Internet cafes a thing over there maybe, public library computers and such? ;) Looking forward to it!