ViewTube

Okay...

I wasn't *going* to say anything, but I'm getting a tad irritated with the state of things here.

First off: I understand the Ritual FM tracks are not *my* music. I understand that. That being said, I did put quite a bit of effort into preparing them and tweaking them so they weren't just tin-ear track rips from the game. It was not a five minute slapdash sort of job. It took a lot of time, and I was happy to do it because I wanted decent versions of these tracks to listen to outside of the game (ie to listen to in the car), as I'm sure most of the people who listen to these uploads wanted. 

Youtube made it a point to tell me, multiple times, that my entire channel can not be monetized because of those tracks. Not really fair. The songs themselves? That's fine. That's somebody else's I.P., I get it, but that shouldn't affect the entire channel the way it does. 

So if the rights holders don't want me to earn a single dime from the views those uploads get or at least do some kind of split with the channel, and I'm sure Youtube really doesn't want that either since it's their money, fine, but at least do the fans a service AND RELEASE THE FUCKING TRACKS OFFICIALLY ALREADY. Lakeshore reps, go look at the fucking comments. It's what everybody wants. Some of the artists themselves have expressed that even *they* don't really have control over how those tracks are distributed and or released. That's bullshit. I'm sorry, but Lakeshore, stop listening to worthless sitaround shareholders and release the damn music. How much could it possibly cost? Don't even tell me. I know, because I've released music. This isn't a matter of cost though is it, it's a matter of control and "how much do we get back from it?" 

Stop worrying about that and be the company to do something people *want* them to do for a fucking change. Rant over. Google, don't send me anymore fucking emails about monetization, I understood perfectly the first several fucking times you told me.

Update: It was brought to my attention that Drivealone *has* uploaded an official version of Finis, so please do go support the artist and listen to the official version at the link below:

https://youtu.be/9_r749E38qw?si=zPRB3...

I believe I have good news for the Ritual FM enthusiasts. I was listening to the tracks today for the first time in awhile and it hit me that the quality of those tracks, even after I had "fixed" them was still very underwhelming at best and muddy garbage at worst. I had to cobble them together with what I had available to me at the time but I'm glad to say that not only do I have ALL the tracks straight from the game this time including Acidbreather, my personal favorite, which suffered a horrendous butchering of quality by my hand and I apologize profusely to Mastiff for the abhorrent mess I turned it into. All the tracks from Ritual FM deserved better.

Long story short, I'll be reuploading Ritual FM in it's entirety again, with some light remastering done to ensure each track burns it's absolute brightest and "hits right". As far as I know there is still no official releases or uploads for these tracks with the exceptions of Adaptive Manipulator by Tomb Mold and I Won't Let You Go by Converge. Out of respect to those artists those two tracks will not be included in the full album upload, as they are available officially through Cyberpunk 2077 compilation albums. I will be making a new playlist for the reuploads that feature the official releases as well to ensure I'm not depriving those releases of potential streams/purchases. 

In addition to that, I am also excited to announce a new compilation that has been in the works for quite some time now, all the way back to the plague days. It has evolved and shifted a lot of times since it's inception but it's essentially a Ritual FM-inspired compilation of extreme metal and hardcore, with slight genre-bending tendencies. This is all original music, a lot of it is highly raw and lo-fi and so I'm in the thick of mixing/mastering all of it right now while also working on the Ritual FM "Remaster". 

No definitive dates on either of these yet. Compilation is still probably a few months off from being release-worthy but the Ritual Reboot is mostly finished and will likely be going live some time over the next few weeks, keep an eye out.

- I've always been the caretaker here.