Rhythm Doctor OST - One Slip Too Late

Act 5 is out now!

Composed by fizzd
Lyrics by fizzd and Winston Lee
Guitar and Bass Performance and Arrangement by dvdfu   / dvdfu  
Vocals by Brendan de Cruz   / brendandecruz  
Hailey Vocals by LilyPichu    / lilypichu  
Logan Vocals by Ryan Lin “Linferno”    / @linferno  
Tracking, Mixing, Mastering, Vocals Production by Ashwin Gobinath (Nadir Studios)   / nadirstudiosmalaysia  
Backing Vocals and Assistant Vocals Production by Hameer Zawawi    / hameerzawawi  

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Composers notes from fizzd:

I found the first big idea for this song when idling after our early access release in 2021. I was looking at a rhythm trainer site where you could customise your own rhythms to practice. I made a 5 length rhythm like ‘x-x--’, thinking it’d become a simple 5/4 rhythm, but instead, the app made it a five-note-pattern in 4/4, so it was off-sync with the bar lines. That blew my mind and I knew I had to make a song with that as the basis. Now it’s 2023 and I’ve finally finished it!

Lyrics and mood: The lyrics are pretty personal, I’ve been feeling this sense of finality for the past few years, lost some things I wish i could have back again. I also tore my actual rotator cuff and couldnt rock climb for a while and went through that whole rehab process. And for me a deep nostalgia is always associated with sunset. And also the III chord, the III chord speaks to my soul.

The ‘one slip, too late..‘ was a fun cheesy line i came up with working backwards from ‘three strikes’. I didn’t think too much of it but people i showed it too were like OMG WHAT so that convinced me I should really keep it in, and even use it twice in the song. As usual Winston improved and replaced a couple of my weaker lines. My original first line lyrics were ‘won the game, lost the war, was it all worth fighting for’... he also did pretty much all of the interlude lyrics while we were on vc!

The overall sound of the piece was inspired from one day chancing across a tweet by Yeo talking about the original version of Torn    • Torn  . That drop halfway through is godly. There’s zero chance we could’ve pulled that type of sound off without dvdfu, they arranged and recorded all the guitars and layered them so well. celesti came up with the idea of using the baseball "charge" melody in the bg of the chorus, so good.

And for the vocals, I didn’t think we would be able to get the kind of voice at all and was ready to just settle with anything, but the rest of the team were super against using a voice that wasn't suited to Lucky, so I was like aghh fine i'll try to find someone.. my friend Hameer happened to know Brendan, and one listen to an audition of his and I knew he’d be perfect for it. Ash and Hameer both came up with a bunch of backing vocals to thicken the sound for Brendan to sing. (little snippet of recording process:   / 1721608360448196757  ) And Linferno and LilyPichu were so great with the interlude! I saw Linferno do a cover of 'wish i could care less' two years ago and got in touch again due to finding a missed DM, and then realising he would be the best Logan, and I love it so much.

The final swing beat of this level is a culmination of everything I was trying to drill into the player throughout the song, so hopefully by the time it came, the player would know that rhythm well enough that it wont seem unfair if they missed it. It’s still quite tricky, and it’s been fun to see people miss that last note and laugh instead of being angry.

Thanks again to the many hands that had a part in this, I'm so happy with how it turned out. And thanks for playing!

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Won the game, made my name, fifteen minutes worth of fame
then it came, all the pain. is it over? What a shame
Too tough, too rough on my rotator cuff
Low weights, rehab, I've had enough
Take me back to my dreams
before the sun set on me
When the crowd went wild
Now when they call my name
All my pride has turned to shame
They can't see me in this state
One slip, too late, three strikes, for me
I've always been the, one you could, count on, so
who will take my place, now im gone

Interlude
L: Do you know? Did you hear?
L: His play was play of the year!
H: Was that him? On the news?
L: Video had a million views
L: They call him / a show off
H: But they're not wearing his gloves
L: My hero would never
L + H: hesitate to take his shot


Close my eyes, count to ten,
Could you take me back to then...
Take me back to my dreams
before the best was in the past
When the crowd went wild
One slip, too late, three strikes, for me
I've always been the, one you could, count on, so
who will know my face, now im gone

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Video made with FL Studio ZGameEditor Visualizer plugin
Effect author credits:
Linear - StevenM,Dubswitcher,Youlean
HUD 3D - Rado1
TextTrueType - Ville
Youlean Drop Shadow - Youlean