blackout

6 years ago I created a studio version of In Yourself/Pictureboard. It is a demo version of my remake (I planned to extend it furhter up and change some sounds but decided not to do it eventually), but you still can check it out: https://www.mediafire.com/?bdkb8yvlht9zifo. It's not awesome by any means - I've grown as a producer since then but it's a good example how Pictureboard can actually sound.

What I mean is that even if I don't pay $500 for the best package possible, it doesn't mean that I'm not a hardcore fan. Even the most devoted fans cannot look at everything the band releases as something that they need to have, possibly just to prove that they're hardcore fans. Everybody needs to judge by themselves and see whether the most expensive package is really worth it or not.

I know it's probably not exactly what you meant but I don't like how you described the most expensive package as the one for the hardcore fans. It's not a case of being a hardcore fan or not. I'm a hardcore LP fan, but I simply wouldn't spend so much money on some "cool gadget-like stuff" that are just rare and that's the reason why they're so expensive. Of course, if a more expensive package was to include some rare live footage or something like this, I'd buy it. However, if I were to spend around 2000 PLN (I live in Poland) to get a different art cover or some additional photos, I would pass. It's not just a case of being a hardcore fan or not, sometimes it's about spending money responsibly.

There is a book written by Brad Whitaker called "Everything is a Hybrid" available in Poland, but I haven't even seen an English title for this one. I don't know if it's available worldwide or it has been published only in some countries then.

I hope it'll be available in Poland. Would like to read it.

I'm a music producer and songwriter and I'm highly inspired by Mike so I try to closely follow more technical side of his music. The streams that he's doing nowadays are really helpful. Still, to be honest, it's a hard question to answer. There is no one specific rule. His production on "Heavy" sounds different than his production on "World's On Fire", right? When it comes to the LP-sounding stuff, I think that it's a specific type of melody that is more important. I hope that you'll get what I'm saying - sometimes there is a feeling in the song that it is really LP-ish without any specific sound. Nevertheless, I don't have almost any theoretical background when it comes to music/songwriting so I won't dig into this. Maybe others will help you. I can say something about his production though as I'm super into this part of Mike's music. He uses a lot of saturation/distortion (saturation more frequently, I believe), that's why his drums or synths often sound "dirty". Usually it's really subtle but it gives a specific type of sound that gives a cool flavour into the sounds. Mike also likes a lot of glitchy stuff. When you have this "stuttering" effect in a song, it's often him experimenting with a different plugins or cutting samples/loops into pieces to get that effect (he explained it on one of the early streams on the example of "In Stereo" outro). On the recent songs (LP/MS 2010s; A Thousand Suns and further up), he also uses a lot of 808s (Wretches And Kings, I.O.U, Until It Breaks to name a few). What I also found out from the streams is that he uses a lot of delay effects to get that "space" vibe. Obviously, there is a lot of reverb to get that "beautiful/epic" feeling in the tracks, but I think that every producer uses reverb so I don't know if it's even important. There may be something in a specific type of guitar that Mike's using - I play the guitar too, but I think that, for example, Astat can say more about this as I'm not a specialist; I'm not super into the technical stuff of guitars. What I can also say is that when I've been watching the streams, I am surprised that he doesn't use any unique VST plugins - a lot of stuff that I use too, like Massive, Kontakt, etc. Nothing special here, to be honest. His physical synths are more imporant - OP-1 is the one that he uses a lot and he creates many atmospheric sounds with it, which definitely give a lot of "Shinoda vibe". Besides the effects/plugins stuff, I can also say that his typical track structure is to build a verse around one/maximum two chords/notes only (frequently it sounds more agressive/heavier than the chorus) and then goes with a full chords progression in the chorus. The chorus sounds much "bigger" than verses then. I found it useful in songwriting in general, not only in creating LP-inspired songs. It simply often makes songs more interesting. To put it simply, there are a few "tricks" to make your tracks sound like Mike's/LP's ones, but there is no formula. I gave some examples of effects that he uses, but that's all that we can actually do. I think it all comes to listening to a lot of his stuff - sometimes I've got a feeling that I unintentionally copy his style in some of my tracks because I simply listen to a lot of LP/FM/MS songs and follow everything that is connected with how Mike produces tracks. To be honest, it's not really hard to recreate his signature style when you have some experience and are really into how he does stuff. I hope what I've written will be somehow helpful for you.

I like Volume 2 more than the first one. Both have their strenghts and weaknesses (I wouldn't really put tracks like Isolation Bird, Booty Down and Party Meow on my daily playlist, honestly, but I get the idea of them as songs purely created for fun), but the newest one seems to be more enjoyable in general. In my opinion, it is more coherent and a lot of the stuff sounds LP-ish. Also, as Diaux wrote - Volume 2 sounds more "serious", more like a proper album. I'd like to hear more transitions though. I know there are some but they are not as noticeable as on Volume 1. My favourites are Astral, Transitions and Sunset Drive. All in all, as I watch Mike's streams from time to time, I see that he works on these intrumentals only on the streams without changing them much afterwards. Thus, I really respect that he can create numerous cool instrumentals and create a solid album out of them. Seeing him working on this stuff is dope and the streams only show a part of his skills when it comes to making music and songwriting in general. By the way, I don't care about the heavy instrumentals that he's doing on the streams as much as other people (I like them, but not all of them are my favourites), but I think he plans to put them all on one part of Dropped Frames (volume 3? maybe later). There are a lot of heavier stuff that was done on early streams but apparently, none of them have been released yet.

The titles kinda fit new stuff for LP, right? I feel like "Warriors" could be a great song for the LP comeback. They are warriors despite various obstacles. Maybe I go too far with this 😂

El Rey Demonio is one of the tracks from Dropped Frames, vol. 1. I think that I'll do my setlist soon too! I've got pretty hyped for LP comeback after all the discussion that we had on shoutbox so I'll try to write something interesting.

Thank you for clarification!

I wouldn't ever really or almost never would put alcohol on a rider when it was Linkin Park because of Chester and Rob. Was Rob addicted to alcohol too? I didn't know that. He seems to be a guy with no addictions and stuff like that. Interesting.

That's a nice find! Hope it's a LP demo.

I doubt that they'd finish any song before releasing it in LPU. If they had done this, then the demo was fake, which is not true obviously.

The question about the unreleased songs from OML was mine. The question as Mike read it seems very general. Actually, I added specific demo names from One More Light to my question (Out of Reach and My Horizon) but unforunately, Mike read only the first part of my submission. I must admit that I don't believe what he's saying is true. Obviously, fans have too high expectations when it comes to demos like Pictureboard or Thoughts That Take Away My Pride. They are treated like holy grails but may truly be not as good as fans think. However, I'm sure that they must have around 16-17 almost-finished songs for each album before they choose the final tracklist. It's just how things work. We know songs like Across the Line and No Roads Left which could go straight to Minutes To Midnight and replace one of the songs with no problem. I believe that besides Friendly Fire, they had Out of Reach and one or two songs that were considered to be put on One More Light. Same with Living Things or A Thousand Suns (maybe one or two albums had fewer b-sides than Minutes To Midnight but they had to have one or two at least). Therefore, it is possible that these songs may be better than the ones put on the final tracklist because music is always subjective. Then, I can't believe Mike when he's saying that they always release the best songs on the album because his view is definitely not fully objective. It is impossible that the only fully finished songs are the ones released.

Here's mine if you're interested. Some of them were really difficult, honestly. Also, don't judge my writing, it was done in the Microsoft Paint so you know... it wasn't comfortable at all.

On his Twitter.

For me, it's definitely Joe, Rob and then probably Brad on this piece of paper. Oh yes, I'm excited right now. We have it confirmed then that they're working on some new stuff together. Great!

I don't know why but I have a feeling that they'd play Halfway Right and/or Sorry For Now. I remember the live stream with Mike on Instagram in which he thought that they did play Halfway Right live when he was asked about the song. I think that Mike was the brains behind LP setlists and maybe he already planned the setlist/setlists for this tour. The comeback of setlists rotation would be cool too, actually. I know they rotated old songs (APFMH, FTI, SIB) on the OML European Tour but I mean something more like in 2008 with different openings, encores, etc. I hope they'll do it more often when/if they come back. This was always an intriguing point for me after Chester's passing but I guess we'll never know.

The tapes that you're talking about contain the footage of a show from 2000, right? Or before? If it's 2.5 hours of footage, maybe they played some demos or something because only songs from HT would be too few for a show that long. Which songs we know are included there?

Wow, nice find! I'd always wanted to see any Xero/Hybrid Theory live footage - it was really one of the things that I wanted to experience in my life. 😂 The quality isn't the best here but it's better than nothing. I hope we'll be able to see some more recordings like this one day. I can't also wait to hear this version of Rhinestone as it was hyped up so much in recent years.

I read both the initial post and now the edited one. The current text is better organised and clearer so it's good that you changed some things. Even though I don't agree with some of your points, it was a very good read. You're often mean to other people but you definitely care about the band and I'm glad that there is someone who goes deeper into some things connected with them so I can get to know more stuff. I like that you always mention very obscure facts like Chester telling Jim Digby to fuck off backstage after one of the London's show in 2017. I didn't know that and one or two other things so it was definitely worth reading. Do you have anything more like this? I don't want to go into Chester's personal life too much, obviously but I'm a big fan of him and the band so I'd like to know as much as I can and I see that Garret knows a lot so maybe there are more interesting facts that I still don't know. Maybe you should do a seperate thread with things like this. Not only connected with personal lives of the band members but just with some obscure facts that you've got to know over the years. I'm sure many people would read that. You wouldn't have to add everything at once but just some and then different stuff after some days again.

Great setlists, Casey29! No Roads Left opening would be epic. It won't happen probably, even if LP comes back. They won't be bothered to play this kind of b-side, I think. They'd probably think that a lot of people don't know it and don't want to hear it during a concert. However, I'd definitely like to see this song live one day. Very realistic sets and with a lot of exciting stuff. Hope they'll come back next year and we'll see something similar.

I know. I wrote it to show that I have the same opinion as you.

I think that the title and the picture aren't connected in any way. However, thank you for the answer.

Which Insta-story? From Mike or?