dayton-aaa-aaa-aaa
Mitsuyoshi, explains how Composer and vocalist, Takenobu USA he created the sound of Daytona
Were you familiar with stock car racing before working on Daytona USA?
I did not even know the word ‘motorsports’. I learned things about stock cars and how popular it is after we started the development of this project.
vocal tracks were unusual in racing games in the early nineties – why did you choose to use these?
I remember we were particularly aware of the racing game Ridge Racer from Namco which was released earlier than our project.
The music in Ridge Racer featured high-quality sound, and its genre was techno music, ideal for a racing game, which was quite a new approach. It made us think of a different approach in sound entertainment. I sang the songs myself because that was the fastest way to get the demo music in the game. So, as you know, now you hear it in the arcade machines around the world singing Let’s Go Away in my voice.
What were your inspirations for the lyrics in Daytona USA’S songs?
I quoted the words that naturally came from the melody and phrase. With Let’s Go Away, I reflected the image of a goal to be aimed for and dashing through it. As for Sky High, there was a clear and high blue sky that was meant to be flown in. The English lyrics were checked and cleared by a native English speaker.
on the model 2 hardware, songs were constructed from a series of samples rather than played as a single audio file. how did you work around this limitation?
I split the vocal track by its time axis, and assigned them to keys of a keyboard. I think I was able to create the variation by changing play sequence and loop points.
how much reference material did you have when composing songs for Daytona? At the time I had my own desk in the development team and I was in an environment where I could have the instruments for composition and the ability to load the composed music to the system board. I was able to observe the game being developed every day, so I played the sound effects and music out of the machine in development every day and every hour.
Do you have a favourite song from Daytona USA?
Aside from the three songs for each race track in Daytona USA, there is one secret track called Pounding Pavement in the game. This track is the only one without an exclusive song track, and the music in the three main songs were recomposed to create a new one.
This development of creating songs using sampled material had been finalized in this song, where I had been able to create something new within the ‘limitation’, and use such limits as a new expression. As my methodology had been realised here, this song for me is especially meaningful.
Daytona USA is still popular with gamers and can still be found in arcades now.
Why do you think the game has so many fans today?
I think the reason is the chosen subject of the game as it was something popular in the US and other countries. In this popular theme, there was elements of ‘battle against other players’, which is possible only in the videogame. All elements, including graphics and sounds, were focused on an engaging virtual experience, so that is one of the reasons why this game is not just a straight recreation of stock car racing.
Added to which, I would be happy if the repeated English phrases sound from the machine, which was a product of being able to take advantage of hardware limitations, is part of what makes the game memorable to fans.