The "How did LP make that sound" Thread - Research

That progression does sound similar! Maybe it was an influence in some small way on their writing, who's to say?

I think we can be pretty certain that the piano in "Robot Boy" was recorded live though! Definitely sounds like a live grand to me.

 

I just wanted to say, thank you for keeping this thread alive & posting new findings, I try and catch up on here every few months (though, I think it might be closer to a year now)! @Christøffer

Edit: Can't believe my first post in this thread was 9 years ago, wild.

 

I found these a while back but never got around to posting. This one's for you @minusxerø


Crickets


+ Drill sergeant and "marching" SFX in the first half of this track


+ Chanting ("hold that line")


+ Booms (I don't believe this is the original release of this SFX track)


+ Megaphone Brad

And that's how you make Empty Spaces from scratch

EDIT: Here's a video of a reconstruction I did for funsies lmao

 

I'm shocked I never posted this but

"Casualty" uses samples taken straight from Joe's OG Hybrid Theory-era vinyl, Tasty Gas Station Breaks from the Orient.

You can see it being used at Mike's home studio in the LPTV for one (3:20):


And for two, the tone scratch in the leadup to the bridge and then the actual cuts and reverse transformer scratches during the breakdown bridge are the same samples used in "And One" - the latter being a loop of an opening vocal bit on Afrika Bambaataa's "Planet Rock"


12:15 for the tone, 12:25 for the vocal loop

In "And One" the Bambaataa sample is used toward the end of the final breakdown (second instance of "Breaking a part of my heart to find release"/"Break - me - too"), then Joe scratches the tone during the final "Keep my distance" repeats leading into the rap outro.

EDIT: It appears I did mention this in our song thread, which makes more sense. This thread gets more traffic though so probably good to have it here too.

 

Going for the triple post.

Back on Hybrid Theory's birthday I got an idea to see what I could do with the Dolby Atmos mixes for the four songs where full multitracks aren't available: With You, Points of Authority, A Place for My Head, and Cure for the Itch.

So after a bit of research and digging on the Atmos format, I set up a workflow to pull the Atmos audio stream out of the base M4A files and then rendered it to WAV channels to "mimic" a 7.1.4 speaker layout.

It worked better than I expected and separated out a lot of cool bits. I combined tracks together where needed because some just had very little going on. Just getting around to organizing the mess. Links with notes in the spoiler tags below.

Spoiler: With You

• Track 1: Isolates the bass, kick, and the backing snare samples Andy Wallace adds to most songs he mixes. Plus the cleaner main vocal tracks. You can kind of hear the programmed drum loop.
• Track 2: Lots of scratches and some of the guitar as well. All of Mike's backing bitcrushed/echo parts
• Track 3: Really gets the guitar and parts of the live drums well. Sounds like the hi-hat, snare, toms, and overhead mics to me. Chester's backing rap vocals on the chorus are lightly here too. Not sure why the first verse guitar is out of time to start but I'm assuming it may be delay or effects we're hearing alone here.
• Track 4: A lot of the programmed elements from the Dust Brothers stand out here. Maybe the room mics for the drums? Seems like all of Mike's backing parts are together here without the main vocal track. Chester's backing "you" vocals in the final chorus. The only track with Hahn's scratch break clear.

Spoiler: Points of Authority

• Track 1: Isolated mostly the bass and parts of the drums the clearest. Andy Wallace snare and the other high-pitched backing sample are here. Chester without harmonies. Seems the chopping/gating is not on the bass, which is what I would have expected.
• Track 2: Pulled a lot of the filtered guitar work and also part of the programmed drums.
• Track 3: Non-filtered guitar work and the live drums really came through on this one. Sounds like the same drum mics for the L/R channels on With You. Only Chester's main "You'd like to think you're never wrong" vocals stayed here. I think I hear a sample of vinyl popping running in the verses here as well.
• Track 4: Gets the guitar and the room mics for the drums. Also pulls Joe's work to the forefront. We also get another part of the drum programming, the triplet rhythm that came straight from "Oh No". And of course, my favorite part, the guitar stab loop at the end from Hahn that's buried in the final mix.

Spoiler: A Place for My Head

• Track 1: Bass guitar and Andy Wallace snare samples are very prominent. Both Chester and Mike's lead vocals as well. You can hear the minimal programmed drums in the verses a little. One layer of the strings stabs in the bridge.
• Track 2: The main guitar lick is there when it's the clean version. Almost everything here is Hahn parts. Very clear that the "Esaul siren" is the scratch in the beginning and "la la la" or whatever before the second chorus is resampled through Hahn.
• Track 3: Live drums really stand out on this track, as well the electric guitar parts. There's a backing track of Chester in the bridge pitched up. Chester's screams are really isolated here without the reverb and delay.
• Track 4: You can hear a lot of the Mike tracks here, probably all of them. Not great for isolation's sake because most of the tracks bleed into this one, but still cool.

Spoiler: Cure for the Itch

• Track 1: Scratches are loud and clear on this one! Also seems to be pre-reverb and delay so you can hear the cuts really clearly. I love that obviously. Also has the drum programming but only with the Skull Snaps samples, not with the additional snare and kick and the accent sample.
• Track 2: This one really brings out those three samples I just mentioned that aren't in the last track.
• Track 3: Additional accent programmed bit stand out on this one, and it basically isolates that accent sample I don't know how to describe well. The strings are also kind of here.
• Track 4: Lots of programming and a little of the scratches, especially the more subtle transformer scratches under the spoken word bits at the beginning. This one really pulls out the melodic part from the second half for the strings and piano.

Other notes:

• I still have no clue what sample is scratched in that prechorus chugging riff from With You but this at least has helped isolate it. One of the only ones I have left to figure out from Hybrid Theory.
• Seems that Joe not only cuts the guitar stab loop at the end of POA but also scratches it a little because there's definite pitch manipulation.
• APFMH uses the Change the Beat "aah" sample all throughout the outro, which explains the sequencing on Tasty Gas Station Breaks from the Orient.
• It's also become apparent to me that the APFMH outro loop is two parts layered, one being the drone sample on TGSBFTO and the other being some manipulation of the aforementioned Change the Beat sample looped over and over.
  
• After I reversing the intro to CFTI, there is apparently a reversed sample of dogs barking under that coughing bit in the beginning ("Folks, we have a very special guest...").
• There is much more scratching in the first half of CFTI than I realized. It's audible normally but it didn't stick out until I listened to it like this.
• Generally speaking, the DJ sound collage vibe to the first half of CFTI really stands out to me when the parts are separated and isolated.
• This also gives us the exact basslines for the three songs with bass guitar here, meaning we now have them picked out without AI for every song on Hybrid Theory. These ones aren't completely isolated but I think it gets them good enough.

 

You're a mad man @Christøffer (in a good way !)
I'll need to take a moment on a weekend to go through this in debt, but this is awesome

The attention to details and level of finesse that went into HT is insane for a debut. Being a big fan of 90's music also helps, but for real, fascinating stuff.

 

The "Cure for the Itch" dogs: https://vocaroo.com/1iX4H25elvaO

First is the reversed version that's present in the original track, then I flipped it to show the original sample. The reversed sample is panned right on the original studio mix.

One of those fun facts that tickles me

 

I've always thought it was "stay away from me" but it's also not well-enunciated

 

https://www.whosampled.com/sample/1400027/Linkin-Park-Papercut-Freestylers-Freestyle-Noize/

Seems the same person who got the Faint hook sample also tracked the samples in the opening drum loop for Papercut. Part of the large Discord sample-hunting community I've made reference to before. They're attributing it to this track, the drum loop starting at 17 seconds:



I'm torn on it though. I think it might be direct samples of the original track sampled by the Freestylers: the soul track Breakthrough by Isaac Hayes. The snare really sounds way more like Papercut on that track, compared to how they changed the envelope on Freestyle Noize.



Since the widely-used method in that community is reverse audio search via Google (which is preferred to Shazam and other similar apps for using a spectogram approach I believe), I wouldn't be surprised if it picked up the two different kick samples and they assumed it was all that result.

It also wouldn't be entirely surprising because based on the leaked sample bank from Mike's MPC there are a lot of samples from soul tracks included on many of his programmed beats. And in Joe's scratch sample bank.