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!

$1 Rewards: https://www.patreon.com/posts/92145895

$10 Rewards: https://www.patreon.com/posts/92145889

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

Find out more: https://www.patreon.com/NickStanding

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!

$1 Rewards: https://www.patreon.com/posts/93880978

$10 Rewards: https://www.patreon.com/posts/93880979

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

Find out more: https://www.patreon.com/NickStanding