The making of the music of Kirby Air Riders – Chapter 4
23 March 2026
Chapter 4: An extravagant recording
How were the songs actually recorded?
Iwadare:
We did one recording session in February, and another one in May. It was a lot to record live. We had strings, wind, guitar, piano, drums, and bass. We had different performers come in depending on the day, and it took about one week to record each song.
Sakai:
We had the absolute best musicians perform for us. It wasn't just the music from the two of us either. Including the music handled by the development team at Bandai Namco Studios, there were over fifty songs. I think it was quite the extravagant music production.
Iwadare:
I was pretty worried that we wouldn't get the same members for both February and May. Worst case scenario, we'd have to use some different performers, but by some miracle, we were able to have all the same members show up.
Sakai:
We had the same musicians for each session, so we were able to get the same sound. Same with the studio. And of course the engineers, too. It really had that sense of unity.
Iwadare:
And then we had Sakurai-san listen to the final version at the studio.
Sakurai:
Although, there were times when everyone on site thought that something sounded good, but I'd listen to it myself and think, "Hold on a second!". That's because I was reviewing it across different playback environments. Not high-performance studio speakers, but purposefully cheap speakers, regular headphones, even the built-in TV speakers, and changing the output source each time.
Sound issues are tricky because even the same thing can sound completely different depending on different factors, such as the listener's age. This isn't only a sound problem of course. Video quality can also change depending on things like HDR settings. So all we can do is average it out.
Sakai:
Speaking of sound adjustments, in the announcement footage for Kirby Air Riders in Nintendo Direct: Nintendo Switch 2 – 02.04.2025, Sakurai-san pointed out that the guitar and orchestral layers were split into two. Basically, the guitar layer was too loud, but I was impressed with how you put it.
Sakurai:
It's okay to have the guitar extra loud if everything sounds coherent, but I could tell it was on separate layers, so I asked them to have it blend better.
Sakai:
I see, it's because it wasn't blending in. To check the problem, I didn't listen to it on the studio monitor. I intentionally brought a cassette player, listened to it, and thought, "This bit, right here".
Sakurai:
There's no single right answer for the output. So even if we can't cover everything, we can only aim to cover as many bases as possible. But when everyone's working hard in the studio, the creators themselves get too used to hearing it.
Sakai:
Your ears get tired.
Sakurai:
And in that state, when someone like me turns up and gives it a listen, it's like, "What's up with this?". Having an objective viewpoint is very important.We also had the main theme play at the start of the Kirby Air Riders Direct. It's not just the music either, it's really important to make everything easy to remember. Same thing with the names for Zorah and Gigantes, they're easy to remember. You don't want the kind of name where someone plays Road Trip and thinks to themselves, "That poor character, what's his name again?". (Laughs)A lot of people have asked me why his name is Zorah, but it's simply because I thought to myself, "This guy's name is Zorah", while I was writing the scenario. Just that, no other reason. As for Gigantes, since it was supposed to be something unknowable, there was no point in over-thinking it. So I named it with what my heart was telling me at the time.
Sakai:
Rumours on the internet say that it's related to Sora Ltd. (14) in some way.
(14) A game development company founded by Masahiro Sakurai.
Sakurai:
That is absolutely unrelated. I did write the scenario for Road Trip myself, but it wasn't part of the design plan to begin with, so I didn't have time to hesitate. Well, we can talk about that more somewhere else.
Do you have any other songs in Kirby Air Riders that you're particularly attached to?
Sakai:
Floria Fields left the biggest impression on me personally. It was the first song I completed, and I don't think it had too many takes.
Sakurai:
That one was fast. It was right on the mark from the start.
Sakai:
I composed that song during a phase where I was rather conscious of what Sakurai-san wanted from me, as someone who had worked on the previous Kirby Air Ride. Namely, something similar to Fantasy Meadows. So I figured I could work the atmosphere of the course into the song bit by bit, and it went smoothly.
The song shifts between various instruments throughout, but the melody pulls the whole thing together, like one big brush stroke. So I feel like I managed to create a strong, sonorous melody.
Iwadare:
I was really surprised when I listened to it coming through the Nintendo Switch 2 console itself. It actually sounds more coherent on the console than it does in the studio. I think it's because of the proximity of listening to it in your hands. I really want everyone to have a chance to hear it from the console's speakers.
Sakai:
And actually, Sakurai-san instructed me to make the intro for Floria Fields light and energetic, so I reworked it.
Sakurai:
Yes, how it starts really matters, so I was quite particular about the intro. It's not about whether it suits the course or not, what matters the most is whether it feels good.
Japanese footage shown. Please note that this game is fully translated into English.
Iwadare:
I'm quite partial to Skyah (Alt) myself. I really wanted a trumpet solo in the instrumental ending.
Sakurai:
Indeed, when I think of Iwadare-san, I think of trumpets.
Iwadare:
I'm actually a trombone player myself, but I love brass. For the guitar, bass, and brass players, they were brought together with my input, so we were able to create something with a sense of mutual understanding.
Crystalline Fissure is also another memorable song. I tried putting in a high-speed drum and bass (15) beat. I actually had them play it live, and it turned out incredibly well. This whole time we kept saying that there's no way we could record the whole thing live, and yet we were given the privilege of indulging in that extravagance.
(15) Music with a high-speed and complicated drum beat combined with bass.
Sakai:
The performers were incredibly meticulous too. We had an issue where the coordination between the bass and drums was ever so slightly off. Looking at the waveforms, it was a difference of barely a few milliseconds (16)... Even when we said it was fine, they would go back and play the part again from the beginning. It really was an extravagant recording session.
(16) 1 millisecond = 1000th of a second.
Sakurai:
And on the flip side, we have songs that were quite difficult to create.
Iwadare:
I was working on Cyberion Highway right up until the very last second. I even mixed it myself, but I still couldn't make it in time. (Nervous laugh)
Sakurai:
It didn't have many retakes though. Was the deadline a little too tight?
Iwadare:
Having to make more arrangements for the main theme was the biggest thing. We worked on the main theme for around nine months, didn't we?
Sakai:
Ah yes, that's right. We were working on that for a long time.
Sakurai:
The main theme was used as a field song in City Trial as well. The field song was a whole five minutes, so it was quite long.
Iwadare:
And to make it fill out that five minutes, we had to power it up from the 4:30 mark. I didn't think we could pump it up without bringing it down first, but Sakurai-san insisted that we go all in without the descent. We had countless discussions and adjustments, and the days just flew on by... That's how it felt.
Japanese footage shown. Please note that this game is fully translated into English.
Sakai:
I can barely remember anything from when we were working.
Iwadare:
Me neither, I don't remember anything. (Laughs)
Sakurai:
True, when there are so many takes, it's hard to remember which one becomes the final version.
Sakai:
File management is a nightmare as well. It's like, did I really make this many?
Iwadare:
Do you keep your old files?
Sakai:
I do, just in case. I keep all of them.
Iwadare:
I myself think I'll never use them, so I delete them all. I don't keep any rejects.
Sakurai:
I don't keep everything. If I did that, I'd have to keep everything from the entire team, not just audio. That said, it is interesting to listen to the first take of a song, isn't it?
Iwadare:
Before this interview, I listened to all the songs again. We made all kinds, but listening to them as a whole piece, there is a sense of unity. We really did stick to the Kirby Air Riders concept.
Sakurai:
The melodies form the flesh and bones of the game, but even with the variety of melodies, the game is a unified whole. It's not a matter of which came first.
Iwadare:
That there were so many different versions might even be a factor in that sense of unity.
Sakurai:
That way the songs are memorable to the players.
Iwadare:
Yeah, again, I'm really glad. It was such an interesting project.
Sakurai:
That we're able to have this discussion at all shows that we're all very glad. We wouldn't be here if the project ended with everything thinking, "I'm so over this!". (Laughs)
Iwadare:
That's a very good point. (Laughs)
Sakai:
Right when I was thinking that I might never get to work with Sakurai-san again, this offer came through. I really am so glad we could work together like this.
Iwadare:
It's fine, we'll have plenty more chances.
Sakurai:
Well, we'd be singing a different tune depending on whether the final product was received well or not. And it was received surprisingly well this time. Some people are playing for worryingly long periods, others have cried over the composition of the music. So of course I think this was an interesting project. I'm quite touched. (Laughs)
(Laughs) Thank you for joining us today!
All:
Thank you.
Over 100 tracks from Kirby Air Riders are now available to listen to in the Nintendo Music smartphone app, available exclusively for Nintendo Switch Online members.
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