letdownagain

Fortnite Festival is a 2023 rhythm video game developed by Harmonix and Epic Games and published by Epic Games. Featuring similar gameplay to the Rock Band series, players perform a song while attempting to get a high score based on their performance. A variety of songs can be chosen from, with a selection being available for free daily, with an option to purchase the song outright being available as well. The game was released in December 2023, and can be accessed via the Fortnitelauncher. Fortnite Festival received mixed reviews from critics, with criticism toward the price of songs as well as the gameplay. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortnite_Festival

Yeah, “Numb” was apparently just officially announced, so my comment aged pretty quickly. Seeing it on gaming sites but not sure if there’s an official announcement to link to. Edit:

No, I don’t believe it does. Only thing outside of Rock Band or Guitar Hero with stems I’ve come across is some of the Fortnite Festival stuff, which I think is just Rock Band lite inside Fortnite. I’ve never played it myself, but I think Harmonix worked on it (anyone who knows better feel free to correct me if I’m wrong). That’s not applicable to Linkin Park, though. At least not at the moment.

Thank you for the reminder. It’s kind of silly, given I submitted the info about More the Victim DLC to the Newswire when it was announced, but misremembered it as being a two pack. I think with the release of the Beat Saber stuff towards the end of the year I mixed the two together.

Yeah, that makes sense as the obvious answer. It probably is, but it just jumped out me when isolated in a way it didn’t in the full mix.

Thanks a bunch for the More the Victim and Sickness RockBand stems. Saw these made their way out recently. Any chance you have Lost, too? EDIT: Is that potentially a layer of Mike’s vocal on the More the Victim chorus? Sounds high and auto tuned, but a bit like Mike’s vocal timbre based on his doubling Chester live. Could go either way, but jumped out at me.

Game Awards 2020 trailer, I believe. About a month or so after HT20 dropped. The awards are usually in December.

Pretty uninspired remix, yeah? I don’t agree with the decision to abruptly cut the first chorus and the treatment of the bridge. Best part about it is how forward it pushes Chester’s vocals, but that’s about it. It just feels like a lazy outing overall. I can totally understand why the 100 gecs remix wasn’t for everyone (I’m come to enjoy them as artists in my own way lol), but at least it was in their style and they brought what they do to the table 100%. This just feels phoned in to me for what is the first remix of Lost, and I guess the Meteora era in general now (Collision Course not withstanding)? It’s also a bummer comparing to other contemporaries like Deftones doing Black Stallion (that Mike won a Grammy for). I wonder who the driving force behind commissioning this was.

DLC isn’t released yet, so all talk is related to potential stems, not multitracks. Pet peeve by multitracks is the wrong language to use here. https://www.izotope.com/en/learn/stems-and-multitracks-whats-the-difference.html#defining-multitracks-and-stems

Linkin Park “More The Victim” and Naked Gypsy Queens “Down To The Devil” bring ALL the rock and roll shout-along power – and then some! You need to pick up this new DLC debuting Thursday in the Rock Band Music Store! As the first new album since May 2017 from one of the most celebrated rock bands of all time, the 20th anniversary reissue of Linkin Park’s Meteora on April 7th of this year already had fans excited. However, when it came to light a few months ago that singer Mike Shinoda had unearthed a few previously unreleased tracks on his hard drives, longtime supporters of the six-piece were absolutely salivating. “More The Victim” mines familiar sonic and emotional territory for these legends, but takes on greater weight in light of the passing of co-frontman Chester Bennington six years ago. A reworking of fan-favorite instrumental “Cumulus,” which Linkin Park released in 2013 on the LP Underground XIII CD, Shinoda says the cut is, “basically the furthest we got with it, in terms of a demo.” After a brief instrumental intro, at the 7-second mark, “More The Victim” snaps to life with vocals over an assertive, trademark Linkin Park drum beat delivered with Rob Bourdon’s typical authority and power. Lyrically, Bennington offers a scathing rebuke of “More The Victim”’s antagonist. The attention-seeking one-upmanship of anyone who can’t simply lend a sympathetic ear to an individual in crisis and instead raises the stakes by pointing to their own struggles is squarely in the crosshairs here. At 39 seconds in, it’s a prime Linkin Park refrain: emotive, muscular, impactful. Shinoda is an effective MC throughout “More The Victim” and Joseph Hahn’s DJ work provides the “special sauce” that made this legendary band equal parts hip-hop and rock and roll. Meanwhile, Brad Delson’s roaring guitar and the throaty, muscular bass of Phoenix steer the whole affair towards metal territory. It’s a singular alchemy that nobody perfected like these fellas. If you find yourself picking up on the early-aughts vibes of the song’s production and mix, that’s entirely intentional. As Shinoda has explained regarding the newly discovered tracks, “I really wanted to keep it true to the initial intention, because I didn’t want to taint this time warp. What I love about the three new songs is that all of them represent a different facet of the band, as it was in 2003.” Whether you’re a longtime, die-hard Linkin Park fanatic, or new to what this group brings to the table, “More The Victim” is an emotional, rewarding ride. Don’t miss out! Linkin Park “More The Victim” and Naked Gypsy Queens “Down To The Devil” are available for $1.99 each. VIDEO: Source: https://www.harmonixmusic.com/blog/dlc-week-of-413-linkin-park-and-naked-gypsy-queens

Some quick answers I can give to your questions: There's a "Lost Footage" bit a the beginning of the Veterans Stadium show while they do what's called the Devil Worship Intro. The actual band footage starts when Joe is changing records to go into Don't Stay. I don't know if there's anything like this on disc (DVD) 3; I haven't gotten to this disc yet. Mike mixed More The Victim. All the demos on the Lost Demo disc are credited as being Produced and Mixed by Mike, except for Lost, which is Produced by Don Gilmore and Mixed by Manny Marroquin. We know based on the song board that More The Victim (Cumulus) and Fighting Myself (Shortcut) made it to NRG and had a decent amount of work done there. I would consider those two plus Lost (Resolution) as part of those "cut songs" given their inclusion on the song board with some significant progress. There's one song that got dropped and the question is if it's Healing Foot, given it's drum tracking marker, or if its Numb.

Yeah, that’s what I mean by the double tracking; Chester’s clearly singing over himself, so *something* got put down. More fuel to fire though, possibly: Chester at the mic for a song we now know he doesn’t feature on. Did they try alternate vocals or did they just do “The Wizard Song” while working on other things? Clearly seems like early stages/demos recording in a makeshift situation and the tracking of “thoughts that take away my pride” at NRG shows that they were reworking stuff well into the official tracking stages. But I’m digressing. Not sure what you mean by bounced down in this instance; like bouncing out a version of “The Wizard Song?” I’m sure they didn’t but I wonder if there’s just like muted vocal tracks in the session if they didn’t delete stuff. Even if they scrapped them from the session proper, if they weren’t deleted from disk, they could still be in the audio files folder. Depends how deep anyone would dig. I don’t think the playlist function was introduced until ‘08. All speculation/wishful thinking though. My thought is do you want to include a song that has the same instrumental and invite that line of questioning again about “The Wizard Song” after being asked for 20 years if you’re not gonna deliver on it? Honestly, I’m probably overthinking it.

I find it encouraging that it’s a real song, because there’s a chance those Wizard Song vocals could be in the session files somewhere. Chester’s vocals are very obviously double tracked, so they did at *some point* commit vocals to hard drive, despite what Mike has said. I mean, they couldn’t remember “Lost” or the “Fighting Myself” chorus. Team “QR code is the Wizard Song” over here.

With the way the band has been knocking things out of the park (no pun intended) lately, I wouldn’t be surprised if the new DVD does that classic LPTV fade to black, fades in to Chester and a full “Wizard Song” performance. Wishful thinking? 110%. But if it’s ever gonna happen, it’s now. Anyway, back on topic, but I didn’t expect me to hit so hard putting my headphones on, listening to Mike’s little bit before the song, and then having it immediately go into *that* piano bit. 20 years of wanting and waiting and finally. Even with the lower quality mp3 you can tell it’s a standout from the box. I can’t wait for the hi-res. ”Lost” is obvious absolutely massive in being a finished song from the era and how good it is. “Fighting Myself” is cool and does a great job of demonstrating some of the elements that went on to make up the album; I can hear bits and pieces of “Hit the Floor” and “Faint” in there. But “Healing Foot”? Maybe it’s my “Pictureboard.” I was always far more intrigued by the parts that went unused on the Meteora DVD than the “Mellow Interlude” or the murmurings of unheard songs. (I’m personally holding off on “More the Victim” for now). Though I’m forgetting that it seems like “A.06” will have vocals… And that’s what I mean. In general, Meteora 20 just hits different. Not to complain, by any means, about HT 20, but a lot of material was well known to anyone who lurks here (save for some very obvious exceptions). A truly wonderful box and the definitive HT experience, but not what this new box has become. I became a fan post Hybrid Theory while it was a thing that was being actively promoted and lived in the lead up to Meteora. I remember how much was said about there not being much else to offer, or the other songs being garbage, or whatever that basically discounted anything that wasn’t on the album. To see this celebration of it and embracing every aspect of this album and giving us songs we could only ever dream of? It’s honestly overwhelming. And on just the physical end, the final collection looked stunning in Mike’s unboxing and I love the choice of the new cover. I was a deluxe edition kid and look at the stage for those tours and the art wall; Meteora’s cover was always supposed to be blue. I cannot wait for next week.

100% what I was trying to get at and totally agree! Glad I was able to clarify my points; no arguments at all here. 🙂 Now the next question is how I get the manager to send me the multitracks! 😆

It's worth going back and checking out, maybe I'm wrong, especially with what Mike said in the NYT interview, though it does say it received a "light touch during mixing." But it sounded like getting the multitrack from the manager meant he could go in and pick the best parts available to use, which wouldn't be the same as re-recording or anything anything, but really just using the best pre-existing bits. EDIT: Not an exact, 100% transcript, but here’s the penitent stuff Mike says: “I had the opportunity to go in on a couple of them. We had, um, there’s a song called “Fighting Myself” in this batch, as well…” “Do we have multitracks?” “He found the session with the multis, um, they were like exports so I brought – I got to take them into the computer and pick through what was there and we had the makings of a chorus that was like 90% done…” He does talk about not re-recording and "to the listener it's done," but it does sound like some additional post production/remixing was done, it wasn't just like the file he got from the manager exported. Maybe it's too much for me to say "edited/comped," and I had thought he said something more explicit, so that's my bad. But like you said, if he took the chorus from the manager's demo, and then other parts from the demo he had, that's editing stuff together. It's not super clear yet that that happened, though. But we do know with the new mix of "Lost" that they're not adverse to remixing and that doesn't interfere with the concept of keeping everything authentic, and "Fighting Myself" is also probably technically a "new" mix, even though it's the only version of the song we'll have. That's all just to say that I find this stuff super fascinating. If I had to pick *one* thing that was the reason for me going to audio school as an adult, it was watching Mike with Pro Tools in the back of the bus on Frat Party.

Is there any confirmation that the CD in the super deluxe boxset also contains the Andy Wallace mix of Lost? Or if the box comes with a "hi-res" download (doubtful it's anything over 320 kbps), if that's included? This may have been addressed elsewhere, but I'm just catching up with this morning's stuff. It's absent from the description and the track list. I don't have much use for CDs these days, but it would be good to have a lossless source for the OG mix. It's not mentioned anywhere else on the band's website except the standalone CD set. You'd think that they'd all be the same, but then look at the situation with the vinyl boxsets. It just seems dumb to me to make a two different sets of CDs to keep a single track away from anyone except the diehards who will buy everything. The smaller vinyl boxset bothers me less this time because it feels like less of a repeat with two exclusive records, rather than one for HT. Not to complain too much, though. Just want to make sure I'm covering my bases.

It's validating today to see confirmation of stuff I'd suggested in the chat: that it's an Andy Wallace mix of "Lost" on the CD and the demo stuff is newly edited/comped together from multitrack sessions, as Mike explained about "Fighting Myself." I'm really enjoying "Lost" and on the one hand, I think the mix is cool and I'm excited to hear that approach on other tracks, and on the other hand I think it will be cool to compare the two mixes. Knee jerk reaction, I think the guitars and strings will be more pronounced than some of the electronics on Andy's mix.

Everyone’s entitled to their own opinion and responding to this threatens to derail the thread, but I’m also baffled when people are so critical of “Good Goodbye” and call the verses weak. it’s just funny how people perceive things, because I think it’s arguably the best track on the album. Pusha’s verse could be better but still interesting, Stormzy’s (who I like as an artist separately) verse is solid, it has a big chorus and very cool instrumentation. But then people are like “the raps are weak,” like there aren’t weaker verses on Reanimation. 😂 Don’t mean that as a direct attack at anyone though, just my own thought/observation. I’m sure I have my own LP hot takes people would question.

Wow, I totally missed that, but seeing it now that's pretty bad haha

Artwork of the album cover that was embedded into the official Japanese download that went live at midnight on Friday the 9th, local time. Nothing totally new (except for the white border, maybe?), but seemed worth sharing the first official instance of it being attached to a new music file.

If my memory from yesterday isn’t completely shot, the Deluxe CD had “Lost” added to the main album after “Numb,” and included the LPU Rarities as a second disc (much like Hybrid Theory 20th digi-pack CD included the B-Side Rarities). I’m pretty sure the Deluxe vinyl was listed with LPU Rarities as 2 LPs and Live Rarities as a single LP.

Made this list quickly for myself of where the tracks are originally sourced from (earliest release only), but sharing in the event anyone else is looking for the same info. Leaving out the album because well, it’s the album, and the demos because they’re unreleased. CD Two: LPU Rarities 2.0 01. A.06 [0:54] - originally from LP Underground 2.0 02. Pretty Birdy (Somewhere I Belong 2002 Demo) [4:05] - originally from LP Underground XIII 03. Sold My Soul To Yo Mama [1:58] - originally from LP Underground 4.0 04. Standing In The Middle [3:22] - originally from LP Underground 4.0 05. Program (Meteora Demo) [3:32] - originally from LP Underground Eleven 06. Faint (Demo 2002) [3:11] - originally from LP Underground 9.0: Demos 07. Figure.09 (Demo 2002) [3:24] - originally from LP Underground 9.0: Demos 08. Drawing (Breaking The Habit Demo 2002) [3:32] - originally from LP Underground 9.0: Demos 09. Cumulus (2002 Demo) [3:04] - originally from LP Underground XIII 10. A-Six (Original Long Version) [3:51] - originally from LP Underground 9.0: Demos 11. Soundtrack (Meteora Demo) [3:16] - originally from LP Underground Eleven 12. Broken Foot (Meteora Demo) [2:43] - originally from LP Underground Eleven 13. Ominous (Meteora Demo) [3:08] - originally from LP Underground 12 14. Unfortunate (Unreleased Demo 2002) [2:07] - originally from LP Underground X: Demos 15. Pepper (Meteora Demo) [2:56] - originally from LP Underground 12 16. Breaking The Habit (Original Mike 2002 Demo) [3:18] - originally from LP Underground XIV 17. Halo (Unreleased Demo 2002) [3:42] - originally from LP Underground X: Demos 18. Rhinocerous (2002 Demo) [3:35] - originally from LP Underground XIV 19. Attached (2003 Demo) [3:29] - originally from LP Underground 15 (Exclusive Downloads) CD Three: Live Rarities 2003-2004 01. Lying From You (Live LPU Tour 2003) [3:04] - original from Faint (CD Single 1) 02. From The Inside (Live LPU Tour 2003) [2:56] - originally from Numb (CD Single 1) 03. Easier To Run (Live LPU Tour 2003) [3:21] - originally from Numb (CD Single 2) 04. Step Up (Live Projekt Revolution 2002) [4:15] - originally from Somewhere I Belong (CD and Vinyl Singles) 05. My December (Live Projekt Revolution 2002) [4:27] - originally from Somewhere I Belong (CD Single) 06. Crawling (Live Reading Festival 2003) [3:35] - originally from Breaking The Habit (CD Single) 07. Breaking The Habit (Live Rock Am Ring 2004) [5:35] - originally from LP Underground 4.0 (length suggests it’s this version versus the Projekt Revolution '04 Tour Sampler edit) 08. Step Up/Nobody's Listening/It's Goin' Down (Live) [4:57] - originally from LP Underground 4.0 09. Wish (Live Projekt Revolution 2004) [4:28] - originally from LP Underground 4.0 10. One Step Closer featuring Jonathan Davis (Live Projekt Revolution 2004) [3:57] - originally from LP Underground 4.0

From Harmonix Music: It looks like Linkin Park's song "Given Up" will be in the DLC content for Rock Band 4. We already have multitracks for the song from Rock Revolution, but this will likely be an upgrade of the track separation. "Linkin Park “Given Up” and Varials “Circles” are powerful expressions of anger and defiance supported by expert compositional skill and rock-solid musicianship. You don’t wanna sleep on this heady new DLC debuting this Thursday in the Rock Band Music Store. Released in March 2008 as the fourth single from Linkin Park’s third LP, Minutes to Midnight, “Given Up” is a prime example of the potent, emotional performances that lifted the Agoura Hills five-piece to the top of the alternative metal/melodic hardcore heap at the beginning of the aughts Linkin Park “Given Up” and Varials “Circles” are available for $1.99 each.”