Tim Follin's music was 95% of the reason that I purchased games. He is an absolute ground-breaking genius when it came to writing sound-generating code. Not only was his code thinking outside the box, but the actual compositions were memorable and addictive. I owe Tim a hell of a lot for inspiring me to become as passionate as I am with music AND coding.
Follin is a complete legend. Ecco the Dolphin is one of the most beautiful soundtracks I've ever heard. Emailed him a track I composed and he liked it! Was so chuffed!
@rpe7418 The Dreamcast version, for sure. The original Sega CD one was composed by Spencer Nilsen (best known for the US Sonic CD soundtrack). Megadrive / Genesis version I'm not sure about
Silver Surfer, Solstice, Wolverine, Bionic Commando, Ghouls n Ghosts, Scumball, Plok, Thomas Tank Engine, LED Storm and X-Men to name of few! Awesome work :D
Why does the universe exist? Why do we live in 3 dimensions, and not 4? Why does Tim Follin's interview have so many dislikes? its one of the great unanswered questions in life.
Fascinating the games people like him for. For me, it's Ecco the Dolphin: Defender of the Future. Perhaps the most beautiful, haunting, enchanting video game soundtrack ever composed.
Thanks for this video! Tim Follin is the best Spectrum 48K musician EVER! His play routines are so complex that even you are a master of the Z80 assembler, you only guess what does he do with the sound at the moment.
Very sad the treatment that Graphic and musician workers receive in the videogame industry, if you think Tim had to quit because composing music for games was not paying enough to make a living :( btw not that better for coders...
There are options. Programming in the industry is an industry job, you get paid the going rate. There is a big difference between programming to a spec, and designing a game. Game developers can always try the indie market if they want more freedom, but to be honest there aren't a great deal of professional programmers out there who would even attempt their own project. In a lot of ways the industry has changed a great deal, and in a lot of ways its exactly the same... we can't really waste time feeling bad for people who get to create videogames for a job - they have options just like all of us... if you chose to make your passion your career, then don't expect the same benefits as a job that people might not want to do.
The dude's an artist, outstanding individual style, he's combined such a broad variety of influences, but he streamlines his arrangements so they stay tight and taut for a gameplay dynamic. Awesome.
I KNEW IT! Thank you for putting up this interview. For DECADES I've been thinking that they just really went full on cheesy and charmingly over the top with the spider man xmen game! Just hearing that screaming guitar intro to the title theme let me know exactly what they were going for even as a kid living an ocean away. That's one of my fav video game OSTs of all time. Such a hidden gem. You could really feel how much fun they had dipping into various influences and matching them to the campy, over the top comic book aesthetic. I just started a series reviewing game music and I know Ill be covering that game and maybe the entire Follin library eventually
The Man. The music to ghouls n ghosts on the c64,especially Level 4 is classic. I never knew he was that young when composing those tunes either. Legend. Led Storm had great music aswell.
Max War I know his music progresses and it has that "prog" type of sound... but when I hear prog I assume odd meters. Do you know if he uses them? I'm not familiar with ALL his music, mostly just Silver Surfer and Solstice :)
I agree with you about Tim being one of the best VMG composers out there. I also agree with you and Velatoget regarding the "prog" *type* sound. I definitely hear it in a lot of his tunes.
Wow, I wasn't even born in those years and I have tremendous nostalgia when listening to genius composers of video game music. I wish I was born in those years and composed for consoles.
He made the games Contradiction: 'Spot the Liar! (2015)' and, brand new: 'At Dead of Night'. He made basically everything, including the game soundtrack. Well, Contradiction is 5 years old and your account is probably abondend now, but I spreaded the words
i like how the video is so old but at the same time is a different size and coincidently youtube makes the video fit in the same location videos were like back in the old days of youtube
his work on the c64 and amiga were the MAIN reasons i decided to chance my arm at film and tv soundtrack work. he IS a legend, and i think its grim he hasnt made the money some of the others int he scene have. He's from a really musical family, apparently.
Solstice was released 8 years before I was born but I only listened to the main theme for the first time 1 week ago and it's brilliant! One of my favourite sections of the song is the part right after the breakdown when it changes key (at 1 minute and 38 seconds into the music video) because that's when I start to conceive images of a simple and friendly time like the 90's! That song is possibly my favourite NES song, maybe even my favourite main theme ever!
This chap and his brother Geoff made some ridiculously good soundtracks, especially IMO some of the C64 games - the C64 port of Sly Spy had a much better and more interesting soundtrack than the arcade version, even with only 3 channels and no sampled instruments. The intro to Gauntlet 3 was another amazing one!
Spider-man and the X-men will forever have one of the SNES' greatest soundtracks. And its thanks to this man. Just full on disco/funk/prog rock splendor in 16-bit.
Time Trax, Super Off Road, Solstice 2, Spiderman/Xmen. 'Nuff said, the man's an artist. Due respect. Love his work. I'd love him to make a 70 minute mega funk CD. He'd go silver in the UK alone, purely from Snes fanboys. Super Off Road title tune, badass Whitesnake riffing, if only the rest of the game had sounded as good. Better than the arcade version! What this guy did to create Time Trax on Megadrive I can barely fathom. Genius. Never has a Megadrive sounded so good.
You are probably referring to the fast appregios. This was a common technique on the C64, so it means it was probably done by a former C64 composer. Tim Follin is usually associated with Software Creations, Interplay, Malibu Games.
Tim is a legend Instead of him worrying about his music fitting the game,let's make a game fit around his wild and free music !!!!!
13 лет назад
@ScrewLimbBizkit I've been in contact with him. He has an mp3 up on his site listed as the High Score music from Spiderman and the X-Men. However, it was a piece of unused music from the game. I mailed him the actual track and got a reply.
Tim was one of the best composer/programmer's in gaming. He was able to push the hardware and get better sound than most others. Some of the SNES music that he produced was so good I actually have it on my mp3 player! My favorites are Plok and Equinox. Good stuff! Some very different styles in both of those. I detect some Rundgren influences in Plok.
< :C This interview fills me with both interest and dread. What in the world is it with these musical and artistic geniuses dropping out of college. I almost didn't graduate high school, I minored in music, and am a graduated graphic desiger and I WISH I had half the talent of these people...
Amazing - so modest - I remember telling a friend of mine back in 1990, on the subject of getting married - and if I ever came into serious money, I'd pay Follin to play at my wedding! Ah, memories.. not sure Ghouls 'n' Ghosts would fit the bill. Was probably thinking more "Netwood Forest" from LED Storm!
Probably one of the most versatile music composers. Pushing any platform he has written music for, so check out his complete portfolio. Hey, I even like the spectrum music!
this guys was a genius he do solstice but not only is responsable of the transcription of deep purple and stepen wolf music in rock n roll racing, and do the awesome music of echo the dolphin on the dreamcast 3d version.
I was STUNNED by his music on the Spectrum 48k. Future Games from Mastertronic was the first game i had heard the incredible 5 channel music on the spectrums beeper. How did he do that? To this day i still cant fathom how such complex tunes were achieved....
Follin's musical versions of Bionic Commando (Europe) and Sky Shark (USA) were excellent. The original scores were quite boring once you've heard his take on them.
This guy and his brother wrote the Sly Spy C64 soundtrack, which had some seriously great tunes on it. Interesting to hear that he felt his music wasn't always suited to the games - not sure I totally agree!
i was impressed by his skill's for doing impossible thing with 8 bit nes on solstice and on silver surfer and on snes rock n roll racing blew me away thanks to the soundtrack of Tim Follin but he's not just a programmer of music i can play very well guitar on Ecco the Dolphin on Dreamcast and it's also blew me away again.
Mega man did have great and memorable music. But when you arrange Mega Man music for live music, it doesn't translate well, because it still sounds like 8-bit video game music. The music from Silver Surfer can be played with live instruments and it sounds incredible. That's the difference. Kudos to Mega Man, though. I have the soundtracks for Mega Man 1 - 9. And 9 has some pretty great ones! They did a great job making the music sound like it was from the 8-bit days! : )
@Malkalypse777 Oh yeah. I am familiar with them. I believe they composed all the music for Scott Pilgrim Saves the World on PSN (and I think XBL). I also like some of the tunes in Castle Crashers. They have that old school chiptune sound to them.
The cheesy Spiderman soundtrack is amazing. Even the game over enter your name screen has ridiculous Miles Davis/Hendrix style funk wah wahs playing on it, you just don't want to put your name in. That game soundtrack is actually sexual. It should have been a Pegi 16. Too goddamn fonky for the chillun, :) I'm gonna find all my fave Follin tunes now...
