#daniel lindholm

Street Fighter V - Theme of Zeku (For Bass Guitar)

Composed by Daniel Lindholm Transcribed by Shadoninja Capcom © 2016

The Original Strider

Get the sheet music for this song and more: http://shadoninja.tumblr.com/sheetmusic

.... What can I say. Pressure was on from the start. At the beginning of the year there was this big announcement, and once Cody smashed through that brickwall in the new Arcade Edition trailer, people were screaming of the top of their lungs. A huge moment that I knew only at that moment I’ve completed my work with Sakura and Street Fighter Alpha for SFVAE. Little did I know I would get the request later that year.

-”We want YOU to write and re-arrange Cody’s Theme. But we want it to be more uplifting, no more grime-hop from SFV IV. We think you could do it.”

It was a tough one, because how did I know the pressure was on? Stupid as I was, I jumped onto reddit-online and checked what the buzz was all about. Everyone was in agreement: “Nobody DARE TOUCH CODY’S SFV IV THEME! THAT IS THE SHIT WE WANT!”

This only psyched me more to give everyone the best they could have from yet a returning Legacy Character. But where would I start? All I had to go out on before that was basically his SFV IV alteration. But luckily enough, Capcom supplied me with the original CPS1 cabinet recording with the intro from Final Fight. Remember, I was not given a score or anything to work with. Everything at this very stage when it comes to the legacy characters have all been taken out by ear.

Now there are a few cons and pro’s with the CPS1 sound. First of all it’s a mix between FM synthesis and PCM samples in very low quality. At least I could disregard the PCM sounds (drums and whatever) and concentrate only on ONE THING: THE MELODY. The con here was obviously, what were they imagining it to sound like with other instruments? Nobody actually told me how to compose or re-arrange it. All that was sure that they wanted a slow starting intro and then get into the beat.

It all started out with a mysterious pad and with the sampled material of the voice counting up from 1 to 4, and “Bring the Beat Back!” sample to work with. I didn’t want to over-saturate the song with the samples, so I figured it out, it would be easier to cut and slice them and put it on my pad-controller and sprinkle it out through the song, especially in the breakdowns before leading into the new sections in the song.

But with the first 2 versions of the song it was lacking drive and that still made the new Cody sound like the OLD Cody. It was to dark and missing the new positive outlook in Cody’s life. A second chance that didn’t feel like a start of something new. Something we both know we didn’t want. But the solution was easy and brilliant, it just needed a little bit of tweaking and a few other sound sources to turn the tide. The brass-part has always been there, but I had to re-record it later on anyway.

If I remember it correctly, the intro is around 85bpm, once it goes for the final chord, I bump up the tempo to 105 - 110 to make Cody come alive. I usually never do tempo changes in songs due to the fear it might be difficult to loop. But no, we had no problem with it whatsoever. But once I was done and the music director approved it I was on needles. I wish there was more I could’ve added to it, but they assured me my job was done.

With my previous mission, wrapped up work on Menat, I thought my adventure was over with SFV. As always, I look at each job as one and out, not expecting to trick myself into believing that the next job was coming my way. I just play the waiting game and see what will happen next.

The phone rang and I picked it up once I saw on the display a familiar phone-number popping up.

- Do you have the time to talk?

-Yeah, sure. What’s going on?

-The company wants you again for their final character for season 2. Are you familiar with Guy from Final Fight?

-Yes! I used to play him back in the day.

-Well, it’s not Guy, but his master from the ending of Street Fighter Alpha 2 making his first playable debut. His name is Zeku and all they know so far is that they want some kind of disco-beat, but not sure how to proceed. Would you like to have a look at him?

-Sure. Nothing on my plate right now, send something over and I’ll give you my opinion.

I got a data-dump with drawings, some video and I started to look at his original outfit, traditional but still kinda up-to-date. A perfect fighting ninja-gi, but very colorful. “I can see why the disco-influence, the way he moves around, does a little dance after his moves (kata), trying to sell his new martial art. I feel he is also on a journey of fusion the old with the new. We need FUSION! We need FUNK!

I started right away, I had an idea of playing everything straight with a traditional 12-band setup, Funk-guitar, funk-bass, drums, alto-sax,tenor-sax, baritone-sax, trumpet, flugelhorn and trombone, percussions and keyboard-parts and some string elements to create my first initial draft. I called it “Old-school stealth”, after 6 hours of work, finding a good melody is something that is really hard, I also created a bridge where the flugelhorn takes over to create a contrast to the more disco-like elements in the song. As an initial sketch, I think I nailed the form pretty much on the get-go. However, after sending it in I was just hoping for a small revision, a change there and here. But I knew I just coupled together a very general sounding piece of music with a strong sense of melody.

https://youtu.be/58Cp5n1ICs4

As I guessed, the feedback came around, giving me a new direction for my next version. A complete new song which had more of a Jamiroquai vibe and was even more disco-like than the previous version. But still I was locked in to using those traditional sounds of saxophones and brass. But I needed to look harder into the character. Finding a way to make the song stand out. So far the brief said basically DISCO. And another request, adding in the intro from Strider, the intro from “The RAID”. The fanfare. I decided to put it at the end of the loop, otherwise the surprise would’ve been spoiled from the very beginning and the mystery would have been lost. I just called this version “Comin’ back around”, which I thought was a nice title for an unreleased track. This guy, ZEKU, has been in the background and ready for some action and to kick some butt with attitude.

https://youtu.be/2vajAmFdwL8

We were getting closer, but something was still missing. The identity that would make this song and character stand out. I took a longer look at the pictures, the concept art and started to think more outside the box. There was something wild and civil about his hair, kinda windy... wind... and he is a ninja.... NINJA! FLUTES! We need a SHAKUHACHI! How about mixing the spanking NEW with the traditional OLD? I think we found the answer. Just like Zeku wants to bring his business from the old-way of doing things, incorporating his NEW style and FUTURE business way of THINKING. Fuse old with new. Wabisabi... HERE WE GO!

#508 – Thank You George Perez

✅► Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TheReasonsImBroke ◄✅ In Ep. 508, Jarrod and I cover the passing of George Perez, the latest Video Game Hall of Fame inductees, Ezra Miller’s arrest video, and more! FOLLOW/SUPPORT JARROD: @SpoonSammich (Jarrod’s Twitter) Thanks for listening! 🎙 Daniel Podcast Awards 2019 || Games & Hobbies (Winner) 🏆 Podcast Awards 2017 – 2018, 2020 – 2021 ||…