Bruiser

Background

On July 2, 2012, Linkin Park posted a video of Mike announcing a collaboration with Dell for a Linkin Park-edition laptop:

"We are proud that we have teamed up with Dell to create a special limited Linkin Park Edition PC. This special Linkin Park Edition features exclusive, custom-made Linkin Park Sounds, the full version of Open Labs’ Music OS software, and high performance Dell XPS 17 laptops and 2320 All in One devices.

With the Music OS software, musicians can create, perform, and share their own songs, including: Hundreds of sounds, loops and kits from Linkin Park available only with Music OS, touch enabled music creation software from Open Labs and multiple touch enabled Dell PCs to choose from. Additional exclusive sounds will be offered to LP Underground members who purchase the Linkin Park Edition, which will be provided to users during a July 2012 OS software update. A Open Labs/Music OS rep will also conducting a special web chat tutorial exclusively for LPU members."

The reasoning behind the group's support of the software is that they've been using it for years. Mike Shinoda told Rolling Stone:

"We craft pretty specific sounds in the studio and were struggling to bring them to the stage until we found Music OS. Once that relationship started, the doors opened to create something that not only worked well for our band, but something our fans could create and perform with as well. Now, with the addition of Dell, we feel we've got a great piece of gear and software that musicians of varying levels and styles can use to make great music.

It literally takes the place of 10 keyboards and samplers. Music OS is the best tool out there to organize and quickly access all my favorite sounds onstage, plus it can take a beating over the course of a rigorous tour."

Open Labs CEO, Cliff Mountain, also spoke about the band's contributions to the software:

"It's that simple.Mike Shinoda and [keyboardist and turntablist] Joe Hahn have both been instrumental in providing input on features and functionality. Both of those guys have a design background, so they've been giving us a lot of feedback on the user interface. We've worked with them really hard to push the boundaries of how easy can you make software like this."

Product developer, Matthew Presley, added:

"You can be making music within two or three clicks. It's that simple.

We have tons of content from Linkin Park. This is just the start."

At the LP Underground Summit in Camden, NJ on August 17, 2012, a Dell representative was present with the Linkin Park laptop. Several fans took the time to look at the laptop and had the representative play a rumored song that was included with Music OS, entitled "Bruiser," which was also the name of Chester's Boston Terrier. Described by the LPLive staff as "Wretches And Kings-esque", this confirmed that there was at least one full song available on the software.

Later that year, on November 29, 2012, Open Labs announced a new music software, StageLight, which they described as "GarageBand for PCs." The software company worked once again with PC manufacturer Dell and with Linkin Park.

Just like Music OS, Stagelight was designed to take advantage of the touchscreen-centric nature of Windows 8, although it also works with a standard QWERTY keyboard and mouse. It allows regular instruments like guitars or drums to be used as well, as long as the user’s computer has the the proper inputs.

Mike Shinoda helped Open Labs to create an user-friendly interface for StageLight. Speaking to Wired, he said:

"If I’m brand new to this, I want something that’s intuitive. I want it to feel like a tablet. I want it to feel like something that, like, an 8-year-old could open it up and do it.

If you were to compare the two side by-side, I think the UI of StageLight absolutely destroys Music OS."

Open Labs product manager, Matt Presley, said:

"We’ve created a usable tool that teaches musicians and wannabe musicians essentially how to use a [digital audio workstation] interface."

Open Labs' pro-level software, Music OS, was also retooled to look more like StageLight.

On December 12, 2012, the "Stagelight: Linkin Park Edition" software was released and a free download was offered to LP Underground members. "Bruiser" was included in the batch of songs/samples.

In the June 2019 leak of Hybrid Party Of A Thousand Things, samples used to compose "Wretches And Kings" were included. "Rick 808" is the hi-hats from "Wretches And Kings" and the BPM matches with the song (Rick likely being Rick Rubin). "Rygar" is likely from when the band tracked the various processed guitar samples for the song. RYGAR4, RYGAR5, RYGAR30 and RYGAR32 were used on it, RYGAR21 on "Victimized" and RYGAR37 on "Bruiser." Other samples were used from "Rygar" for "Saa'iq" from the Medal Of Honor: Warfighter soundtrack in 2012 as well. On a June 18, 2020 stream when making a song out of Fort Minor and Linkin Park sounds, Mike mentioned that he named the sample bank of sounds "Rygar" after the Nintendo game.

Versions

Note: Only the date of the very first release of each version is listed.

Title	Album	Length	Recorded	Released	Notes
Bruiser	Stagelight	2:31		July 2, 2012	Released as part of the Music OS software with Dell's Linkin Park Edition PC. Later included on the "Linkin Park Edition" of OpenLabs' Stagelight software.
Bruiser	Hybrid Party Of A Thousand Things	0:39			Original seed. Released on LPLive for free download on August 5, 2019.

Personnel

• Chester Bennington
• Mike Shinoda
• Brad Delson
• Dave "Phoenix" Farrell
• Joseph Hahn
• Rob Bourdon

Gallery

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  Stagelight Linkin Park Edition

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  Banner

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  Promo image

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  Stagelight Core promo image