@@indoor_vaping That’s more because demo composers are all poaching Bach because it’s public domain and Bach is popular with programmers for his intellectual rigor (see, like, Gödel Escher Bach)
If Follin's music had been in better games, he'd be as well known as names like Koji Kondo, Nobuo Uematsu, and David Wise. At least, decades latter, the internet didn't let such talent go without praise.
"he'd be as well known as names like Koji Kondo, Nobuo Uematsu, and David Wise" - the best composers were all on C64, which as a machine has more great tunes than any other in history. However, I'm realistic, not being Nintendo that fact is never going to be recognised. If you look for top tune compilations for any machine, including NES and Genesis (I'll listen to anything good) there aren't a fraction of great tunes compared to what Rob Hubbard, Martin Galway, Ben Dalglish, Chris Huelsbeck etc (and Tim Follin) were putting out on the commodore. Edit - actually the point here is that Tim Follin is way MORE recognised than the C64 composers mentioned above simply BECAUSE he has some genesis and NES games to his credit. Without them, this video would not have over 250k views and like Hubbard etc, a few thousand people would know who he was. Edit 2 - I just saw there's a Rob Hubbard video - 14k views. I think my point is made.
The worst luck indeed. Someone needs to go find him and give him the recognition he deserves. He quit making music a long time ago, and I bet it's partially because of that bad luck..
He did a panel a little bit ago. He said he had some bad experiences with the way he was being managed on teams, but moreso he was just kind of bored of working writing music. He just wanted to change indistries.
He's actually on youtube and sometimes comments on his work. If you look for "Tim Follins NES" you should get a few big playlists, chances are he responded there.
I believe he's made music for his two recent games that he headed himself, however it was not chiptune, and I doubt he will make any more chiptune music considering how much he disliked it.
tim follin deserves so much more man, he was such a fucking good composer who lost to some of the worst games to have his fucking banger ass music be included in.
@Klaymodo Post Office I've played Renegade and Ghouls and ghosts conversions.. well, ehm.. Not great. LED Storm is said to be a nice game. Silver Surfer isn't generally appreciated. Gauntlet 3 is the least appreciated of the series, etc. I can imagine that there were top coders there. But good code doesn't necessarily make a good game (or demo).. and I'm speaking from experience here. If I'm honest, Follin's contribution is the best part to a lot of these conversions and titles.
@Klaymodo Post Office I don't think the games were that bad. While the SNES and PC versions of Batman Forever are problematic the Mega Drive version is almost great. Regardless the soundtrack is terrific to listen to.
@klaymodopostoffice9885 i know you probably hold a soft spot for these games but the sales don't lie. whether it had bad gameplay or not, the man deserved to be working on a big title rather than being stuck in indie hell. i meant the worst games as in giving them little to no recognition just due to the lack of attention on those titles in specific. i've heard the nintendo story hundreds of times, and it's great, but it doesn't change the fact that they ended up never getting the music out on games that would ever have gotten them the well deserved attention they should have gotten from the time.
@klaymodopostoffice9885 It's not contempt, it's just the fact that it didn't perform well down here. We just never heard about it because the games never made a big impact in America, that's that. I'm not even trying to be cynical here, I just genuinely believe that the Folin brothers deserved better and should have been recruited for a big name IP rather than just relegated to a lot of smaller titles at the time.
This 'Artist Feature' series has made me realize that many of the best compositions in the industry come from the C64 and Amiga. Hopefully one day people like Patrick Phelan, Neil Biggin or Jason Page will have the same level of recognition as the Follin brothers.
Such a tease with Solstice. Cutting it off at the beginning like we were going to return later, dropping tons of references to it, while saying almost nothing directly... I was so certain that the ending would be some like: "And now, I leave you with Tim's masterpiece..." I brought Plok to a friend's place a few nights ago, and jaws were hitting the floor at the beach theme.
Soooo, he had to run self modifying code in order to push progressive music through a 1 bit speaker? I'm sorry, but this guy isn't just a musician, he's a mad sound scientist and also an alien 😂
What an incredible Mix and information/history given about one of the most legendary composers the VGM scene has ever seen. The last 10 years Tim Follin has been a name I'm glad has gotten more attention and pretty much all his work he's done from his impressive ZX tunes to his last with Lemmings, that 20 years of his initial time in the industry and even though he's looked back on it with not the fondest of memories (especially for his chiptunes), he can't deny he truly made stuff that blew people away and did stuff with the soundchips barely anyone else could. Target Renegade & Treasure Master were my first introductions to him and it's been the start of my journey for pretty much everything in VGM, let alone NES music and all I've done with 8BitStereo. Love the flow of every section and transitions are just phenomenal. Hope someday Geoff Follin gets his own Artist Feature or like a Mini Feature, his work is just as fantastic even if it hasn't received as much attention as Tim's, but he certainly helped in making the SNES OST's he composed with Tim as fantastic as they are. But this video was absolutely fantastic and very well made! And to think this is the very first video of yours I saw actually very close to when it released, and sadly back then after seeing this I never fully checked out your channel, which has now become a tranquil hub for me recently from a lot of personal events and overall mood of what the last 2 years have been. I can't thank you enough GST for being such an amazing channel and showing true love, passion, interest, talent, and dedication to the niche parts of VGM, after rechecking this and going through all your mixes, it's been a real treat and look forward to your channels future content and growth! :)
Son of a !!!! 😭😭😭 Tim Follin is an insane composer, I hadn't heard half of these before at all and my god he really made these machines sing!! I had intended to play this in the background while working on things but every time I had to stop and look because I couldn't believe what I was hearing.
Tim Follin is simply a genius. The fact that he could make music far too advanced for the hardware he used, as a teenager too! He's a big inspiration for me. And what a smooth transition at 18:55
@klaymodopostoffice9885 No, they were SHIT. Shit games, with a great soundtrack. And all your comments on this video prove that you were somehow involved in Software Creations, because your fanboy is showing.
I'm happy a video like this exists on UA-cam, and I'm thankful someone like you took the (ungodly amount of) time to put something like this together -- and to do it so well! Tim Follin of all VGM composers deserved this kind of honorable treatment. Thanks to you, others can learn more about the man and his music in depth! Keep up the great work! I hope there are more videos like this from you in the future. You rock.
The Devil: "Foolish human, you'll never beat me. You have 1 bit to work with and a single sound channel." Tim Follin: "Just give me the gold fiddle already before you embarrass yourself."
I honestly did not know Follin recently made a game after not hearing about him for years. That sucks it did not get that much attention but it is easy to see why.
Nice exposition! Tim Follin is one of my favorite composers and I find his music amazing, especially considering the limitations of the hardware he worked on.
Conjo Bo Mama Mia There were definitely composers who only created supportive boring headaches on the 8bit machines. Tim Follin really stood out. Listen to L.E.D. Storm on C64 and you know why.
What I really enjoy about this particular documentary is that it really focusses on the musical aspect as a whole. The interviews don't get in the way of the listening experience, and sometimes it all just stops for the sound alone. I can tell you made this out of sheer passion for the music ♥
Utterly brilliant coverage of one of the best videogame composers in history. I wish more people knew about Follin, and I also wish he would get back into the industry. Even without chip, his music was beautiful (consider Ecco on Dreamcast).
@klaymodopostoffice9885given the work he did, that makes sense. His music was leagues better then just about any other game at the time of each of his releases. Honestly I'd have been surprised if he was on time with any of his compositions
Oh man, I did not intend for this video to be so long, but then: 40 minutes. I poured a ridiculous amount of time into making the video. Glad to see my efforts are appreciated!
your audio cuts were really precise, from a musicians perspective, it was nice to see that you were able to show a good bit of comparing and contrasting. i think when you have an introspective about an artist such as follin, its icing on the cake when theres some attention to detail like you put into it here. especially when you show their work chronologically and across more than one platform too. the time and effort shows, and i definitely subscribed and will pass this vid on, great job!
This completely blew me away! I've long been a fan of Tim Follin but this is next level. The mix from 15:41 all the way up to LED Storm at 17:30 is phenomenal, jazz prog chiptune. Just amazing.
When Follin entered the game scene (for me it was the Commodore Amiga) we finally knew: games got on the pro level. I didnt know he did such great work on the Speccy before. Thanks for this video. Can hardly pick a favourite, but without any order: Ghouls ´n´ Ghosts, L.E.D. Storm, Bionic Commando. And all of the other stuff this genius wrote.
This was such an awesome feature! It's kind of interesting that Tim preferred the more instrumental stuff over the chip stuff. His chip work really stood out, but the more he went into modern consoles, the more his music just kinda sounded like everything else. I didn't even realize he'd composed stuff outside of the old chip music.
Caught a really bad case of COVID a week back. I had nothing to do, so I put this video on and fell asleep. And lemme tell you, falling asleep to this music while your brain is literally being cooked by a fever is quite the experience.
Dude, Plok! has one of the best soundtracks ever made and you only gave it a couple of seconds in this compilation?! Seriously?! What about the track "Beach" where it sounds like a real e-guitar is playing?
Yeah I know! Beach is my favorite song from the soundtrack and was what I was hoping to show, but with the way that the mix flowed, Akryllic meshed better. Also note that I was, at this point, 23 minutes into a video that I intended to be 10 minutes long. :S
This is absolutely fantastic. Video Game Music has always been a guilty pleasure of mine and this video beautifully describes the career of one of (if not) the greatest composers to ever do it. These days you can hire a live orchestra or a great producer (or both) to score your game, but to me there is something magical in one person stretching a old, simple sound chip as far as it can possibly go. Follin was a master at this. I certainly hope you can do other exposes on other legends of video game music, such as Jeroen Tel, Jochen Hippel and David Wise to name a few. You've earned a subscription today, friend.
As for my favorite track by Follin, I'd have to say the title theme from Ghouls n Ghosts, close second going to the title theme from Time Trax (not shown in the video). Both themes show omniscient knowledge of the sound chips and sound like nothing else on their respective systems. (ghouls n ghosts came with experience with the c64's sid chip, and Follin helped make the sound driver which made Time Trax's stellar OST possible)
Treasure Master gets an honorable mention, because... Simply... Who the heck wrote their music in damn 17/8 on nes?! Or 17/8 on any type of music for that matter? Also worth noting the Amiga Bionic Commando is also on a funky time signature
A streamer I watch played a few games which contain some of Tim Follin's music and I was just sitting there completely blown away. A friend in chat linked me to this video and... wow... seriously incredible work. Like nothing I've heard from game music from the era of tracker and chiptunes. I can't believe it took me this long to discover his work!
Wow, very good stuff! I recommend leaving the screen messages on for a bit longer, I found myself pausing the video a lot, though I can imagine that might be hard in some cases as the song needs to be mixed properly as well.
That's definitely an issue that I fret over a lot. I know there were a few spots where I cut the text a little shorter than I wanted, just because the next song was starting. I even had to remove a few blocks of text. :( Fun fact: the title theme for Solstice (used as the intro in this video) was inspired by a YES concert where they opened with "Starship Trooper". The first two chords are even the same!
I'm a very slow reader and had to do a lot of pausing. Still, it's a wonderful tribute to Tim Follin. I love how everything is in the style of the corresponding computer :)
Tim Follin is the best chip tune musician of all time, that's undisputed as far as I'm concerned. I totally get why he hates chiptunes. In the 80's, we were all frustrated kids with our limited spectrums and c64's. Making music was immensely frustrating on these computers due to the limitations. Most of these sound chips only had 3 sound channels, yet he was able to used arps and arpeggios with such skill that they actually sounded pleasing as opposed to just being workarounds. Tim Follin chip tunes might sound limited today, but they are all little miracles of mastery and musicianship. His later stuff is equally as great.
That transition from Ghouls N' Ghosts to Puzznic (18:50) made me want a full mix of the two, or at least one where the percussion from Puzznic rolls in whenever appropriate
"Who's interested" in learning more about Tim Follin? I am! I've never heard of him until today, when I sat through all 39 mins of this video. This guy's insanely talented!
So from what I've gathered here and listening to tracks around UA-cam, Tim is exceptional because: 1) Tim got the absolute MOST out of the sound hardware he was given, AND 2) He was an excellent musician and very creative composer. Very few video game composers in history I feel can honestly claim BOTH of these things.
I played so many games that he made music for and I had NO IDEA. If I ever made a video game, I'd have loved to get this guy to make music for it. Genius.
Tim Follin is a rare example of maing FMV games that people actually like. But he was definitely fantastic with music. May the equally talented Geoff rest in peace. Another underrated musician.
Yeah, there is a interview where they make listen songs to Tim and, actually, quite a lot of them were initially composed by one and then the other completed it. Even there are songs that they we're actually made entirely by Geoff but they quite mimic Tim's style, or nothing at all.
You can imagine how amazing it was hearing sound come out the arse end of your 48k machine when it was done by T.Follin. Today it would be like if someone got the LED from your laptop to project a 3d image.
The drums on the Agent X music are not playing properly, on a real spectrum they sound different, I can tell the sound in this video was from an emulator.
It's a fantastic video. Tim, Rob et al, were so inspirational to many of us C64 owners who later bought synths &, set up our own studios, etc, to make music. 🌅
Really informative and really cool man , i hope you'll do a lot more of these . Tim was one of my favorite composer , i hope one day he'll come back to do some music for games
4 роки тому+3
Hello!? Why don't you have more subscribers? This video is the bomb! Thank you for the tribute to Tim. Super informative indeed.
To me, Tim's most spectacular piece was the intro music to Agent X-II on the Spectrum. That was something in and of itself. Amazing. All that complexity....PLUS A GAME IN 48K.
The computer and videogame industry would welcome Tim's music (and Geoffs) back with open arms. I maintain if some of his Amiga and SNES music was commercially released on CD it would sell. It's right up there with some of the best prog rock around!
I know I’m 6 years late finding this video but thank you for putting this together. I have been a massive fan of Tim’s music since I first heard Vectron and just wondered at how it was even possible. He says nobody would be interested in knowing more about him but he is wrong and he inspired me to always want to write video game music not that I’ve ever got anywhere in 40 years. A true legend.
Check the comments to Time Trax genesis. Tim Follin left a comment. He says he preferred doing chip tunes to the tech that came after it and that's one reason he retired and for a long time no one was doing chip tunes. So maybe he did like it after all.
yeah, listening to his thoughts more recently, I get the impression that he was just frustrated with the gap between the sounds in his head and the sounds he was able to pull out of the machine, which is pretty relatable as an artist. his enjoyment seemed to come from the technical challenge of it all
I didn't know how appropriate it was for a piece on a composer to be text only. I'll remember you fondly the next time someone with an expensive mic blathers on over a the 25% volume actual music 21:45 damn... this story rings eerilie similar to the Mario 64 and Croc story (Argonaut showed up before the release of the Nintendo 64 with a prototype of a Yoshi game, got rejected, re-branded it as Croc, but it has many similarities with Mario 64)
It's wild to me that you don't have more subscribers. This kind of in-depth overview of a musicians catalogue and your more documentary style videos with voice over are both tremendous. Thanks!
I think I understand where he's coming from regards to not liking his own music. It's a bloody marvel technically and there are some tunes and aspects of others that are also melodically rich and marvellous but it's technical accomplishment does I feel overshadow the composition side a lot of the time. I've always been super impressed by his work but more for his mastery of arpeggio etc than themes or lines that conclude. No denying some very epic stuff though at least in how impressive it comes off and how gorgeously atmospheric he could get but I can understand why he might have thoughts the way he does on it. His later more considered moody approach is I think something he's likely more pleased with but I think by this point he probably feels he's done with the artform as it can rather take it out of you some 20 years at it Didn't stop me being hugely influenced by his early work however and it was a very impactful time having these very talented tunesmiths around for a bar to aim towards. Great times and I hope he's in an at least reasonable place right now
@@Plasmariel I've listened to some of his more recent work in the form of more incidental and film like approach and It's rather good and I wouldn't be surprised if he wanted to write this way during his C64 days. I think he's more advanced than his earlier work would suggest and that was always very good. Looking back to something like the Plok for example,, I imagine he's less impressed by it in composition terms these days but damn was it impressive at the time. I think he understood that there was a limit to how musical structures in the form of arpeggio can sound if it's mostly the basis to how you work. There's such a lot I love from what he's done from that time but it's mostly the melody based parts that endure for me personally because that's where the heart of music lies
@klaymodopostoffice9885 Oh interesting. It was all quite experimental to everyone doing it and being so young for a lot of them it must have impacted how they took to their work. It took me a long time really understand anything about myself and I would have failed miserably doing what they did. But yeah still very much a topic of discussion because no matter how it was, they did mean a lot to so many. Cheers
someone should just give this guy a million dollars to make music again, because its not every day I play pictionary on the NES but when I do, its because of his genius composing skills.
Tim Follin feels like a modern day Greek tragedy... It feels like he had the potential to be one of the greats. I could totally see him being just as celebrated as, say, Grant Kirkhope or David Wise, among many MANY other excellent video game composers. Now barely anyone remembers him or knows who he is. :(
"Barely anyone" If you think Tim Follin is unknown, what about others talented chiptune composers such as Allister Brimble or Alberto Gonzalez ? I see their names a lot less often than the Follin one.
Tim and Geoff were never video game guys themselves when they were at Software Creations. They slowly loathed the experience when they worked on various licensed projects.
![Tim Follin - "Ghouls 'n' Ghosts (C64)" Soundtrack [Oscilloscope View]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/wz36JWHTk-A/mqdefault.jpg)
And Bach composed music to use to test out pipe organs.
Sometimes the line between technician and musician is micron thin.
Insert Wintergatan
Oh, don't worry! I know the line!
Intention
Bach was primarily known in his lifetime as an organ technician.
Bach does sound like demo music now that you mention it
@@indoor_vaping That’s more because demo composers are all poaching Bach because it’s public domain and Bach is popular with programmers for his intellectual rigor (see, like, Gödel Escher Bach)
If Follin's music had been in better games, he'd be as well known as names like Koji Kondo, Nobuo Uematsu, and David Wise. At least, decades latter, the internet didn't let such talent go without praise.
Rock n roll racing,spider-man and xmen te arcade revange
Fun fact, Kondo and the Follins influenced David Wise for DKC
what about PLOK
"he'd be as well known as names like Koji Kondo, Nobuo Uematsu, and David Wise" - the best composers were all on C64, which as a machine has more great tunes than any other in history. However, I'm realistic, not being Nintendo that fact is never going to be recognised. If you look for top tune compilations for any machine, including NES and Genesis (I'll listen to anything good) there aren't a fraction of great tunes compared to what Rob Hubbard, Martin Galway, Ben Dalglish, Chris Huelsbeck etc (and Tim Follin) were putting out on the commodore.
Edit - actually the point here is that Tim Follin is way MORE recognised than the C64 composers mentioned above simply BECAUSE he has some genesis and NES games to his credit. Without them, this video would not have over 250k views and like Hubbard etc, a few thousand people would know who he was.
Edit 2 - I just saw there's a Rob Hubbard video - 14k views. I think my point is made.
The worst luck indeed. Someone needs to go find him and give him the recognition he deserves. He quit making music a long time ago, and I bet it's partially because of that bad luck..
He did a panel a little bit ago. He said he had some bad experiences with the way he was being managed on teams, but moreso he was just kind of bored of working writing music. He just wanted to change indistries.
He's actually on youtube and sometimes comments on his work. If you look for "Tim Follins NES" you should get a few big playlists, chances are he responded there.
I believe he's made music for his two recent games that he headed himself, however it was not chiptune, and I doubt he will make any more chiptune music considering how much he disliked it.
@@jg-7780 What are you talking about? He never said he disliked it.
@@buwayanialt did you watch the full video?
tim follin deserves so much more man, he was such a fucking good composer who lost to some of the worst games to have his fucking banger ass music be included in.
@Klaymodo Post Office I've played Renegade and Ghouls and ghosts conversions.. well, ehm.. Not great. LED Storm is said to be a nice game. Silver Surfer isn't generally appreciated. Gauntlet 3 is the least appreciated of the series, etc. I can imagine that there were top coders there. But good code doesn't necessarily make a good game (or demo).. and I'm speaking from experience here. If I'm honest, Follin's contribution is the best part to a lot of these conversions and titles.
@Klaymodo Post Office I don't think the games were that bad. While the SNES and PC versions of Batman Forever are problematic the Mega Drive version is almost great. Regardless the soundtrack is terrific to listen to.
The games sucked. End of story
@klaymodopostoffice9885 i know you probably hold a soft spot for these games but the sales don't lie. whether it had bad gameplay or not, the man deserved to be working on a big title rather than being stuck in indie hell. i meant the worst games as in giving them little to no recognition just due to the lack of attention on those titles in specific. i've heard the nintendo story hundreds of times, and it's great, but it doesn't change the fact that they ended up never getting the music out on games that would ever have gotten them the well deserved attention they should have gotten from the time.
@klaymodopostoffice9885 It's not contempt, it's just the fact that it didn't perform well down here. We just never heard about it because the games never made a big impact in America, that's that. I'm not even trying to be cynical here, I just genuinely believe that the Folin brothers deserved better and should have been recruited for a big name IP rather than just relegated to a lot of smaller titles at the time.
RIP to Tim's brother Geoff. Learned he passed away just a few days ago.
16:17 This is the only walk cycle powerful enough for Tim Follin's music.
He walks like Vince McMahon!
*The Original Starwalker:* Finally, a worthy opponent.
The Chad Stride.
And that skateboarder jump too.
I remember the Dark Ages walk cycle being appropriate
Tim Follin has such a magical, optimistic, and adventurous sound.
This 'Artist Feature' series has made me realize that many of the best compositions in the industry come from the C64 and Amiga.
Hopefully one day people like Patrick Phelan, Neil Biggin or Jason Page will have the same level of recognition as the Follin brothers.
It's bloody amazing how he figured out how to tap out 5 channels of music from the spectrum speaker
Tim Follin is the TASBot of music
Such a tease with Solstice. Cutting it off at the beginning like we were going to return later, dropping tons of references to it, while saying almost nothing directly... I was so certain that the ending would be some like: "And now, I leave you with Tim's masterpiece..."
I brought Plok to a friend's place a few nights ago, and jaws were hitting the floor at the beach theme.
Yeah, Akryllic got the response "What the fuck, this sounds like a Final Fantasy theme."
He should've included the part right after the part from acrylic that he did :S It has all sorts of layers
@Advent Arcane
Wait, don’t tell me he did Ecco the Dolphin! That game is scary!
@@redking36 Not the Genesis one, no.
Im only this far down the rabbithole because of the Solstice music
I’m coming back to this video again and again… and I’m blown away by Tim’s talent every single time.
Soooo, he had to run self modifying code in order to push progressive music through a 1 bit speaker? I'm sorry, but this guy isn't just a musician, he's a mad sound scientist and also an alien 😂
I played through some crappy games just to hear more of Follin's awesome music. He's a legend.
@klaymodopostoffice9885 don't forget PLOK !
Skyshark is super awesome
@klaymodopostoffice9885wrong.
What an incredible Mix and information/history given about one of the most legendary composers the VGM scene has ever seen. The last 10 years Tim Follin has been a name I'm glad has gotten more attention and pretty much all his work he's done from his impressive ZX tunes to his last with Lemmings, that 20 years of his initial time in the industry and even though he's looked back on it with not the fondest of memories (especially for his chiptunes), he can't deny he truly made stuff that blew people away and did stuff with the soundchips barely anyone else could. Target Renegade & Treasure Master were my first introductions to him and it's been the start of my journey for pretty much everything in VGM, let alone NES music and all I've done with 8BitStereo. Love the flow of every section and transitions are just phenomenal. Hope someday Geoff Follin gets his own Artist Feature or like a Mini Feature, his work is just as fantastic even if it hasn't received as much attention as Tim's, but he certainly helped in making the SNES OST's he composed with Tim as fantastic as they are. But this video was absolutely fantastic and very well made!
And to think this is the very first video of yours I saw actually very close to when it released, and sadly back then after seeing this I never fully checked out your channel, which has now become a tranquil hub for me recently from a lot of personal events and overall mood of what the last 2 years have been. I can't thank you enough GST for being such an amazing channel and showing true love, passion, interest, talent, and dedication to the niche parts of VGM, after rechecking this and going through all your mixes, it's been a real treat and look forward to your channels future content and growth! :)
I feel the love in this comment. Glad I could share the joy and the knowledge of VGM
"I think I'm a band member working alone." -Ecco quote
What a legend his feelings. If he returns to music please give this dude great games to jam to
Son of a !!!! 😭😭😭
Tim Follin is an insane composer, I hadn't heard half of these before at all and my god he really made these machines sing!!
I had intended to play this in the background while working on things but every time I had to stop and look because I couldn't believe what I was hearing.
Tim Follin is simply a genius. The fact that he could make music far too advanced for the hardware he used, as a teenager too! He's a big inspiration for me.
And what a smooth transition at 18:55
I love that transition too!
@klaymodopostoffice9885 No, they were SHIT. Shit games, with a great soundtrack. And all your comments on this video prove that you were somehow involved in Software Creations, because your fanboy is showing.
I'm happy a video like this exists on UA-cam, and I'm thankful someone like you took the (ungodly amount of) time to put something like this together -- and to do it so well! Tim Follin of all VGM composers deserved this kind of honorable treatment. Thanks to you, others can learn more about the man and his music in depth!
Keep up the great work! I hope there are more videos like this from you in the future. You rock.
The Devil: "Foolish human, you'll never beat me. You have 1 bit to work with and a single sound channel."
Tim Follin: "Just give me the gold fiddle already before you embarrass yourself."
based devil went down to georgia reference
All those arpeggios. He's amazing creating that layer in any game. Giving the melody beautiful space to swim in.
WAIT.
HOLD UP.
CONTRADICTION WAS MADE BY THIS GUY??
...and it flopped...
bruh... salt in wounds...
I honestly did not know Follin recently made a game after not hearing about him for years. That sucks it did not get that much attention but it is easy to see why.
Tim follin: always has been
contradiction did not flop friend, its widely loved today by fans of the genre, he is also wanting to make a sequel aswell :)
It didn't flop mate
but didn't all FMV games?
i know this doesn't make it better
Nice exposition! Tim Follin is one of my favorite composers and I find his music amazing, especially considering the limitations of the hardware he worked on.
that counts for every 8 bit game composer
Conjo Bo Mama Mia There were definitely composers who only created supportive boring headaches on the 8bit machines. Tim Follin really stood out. Listen to L.E.D. Storm on C64 and you know why.
What I really enjoy about this particular documentary is that it really focusses on the musical aspect as a whole. The interviews don't get in the way of the listening experience, and sometimes it all just stops for the sound alone.
I can tell you made this out of sheer passion for the music ♥
Oh my god, the mixing in this video gave me goosebumps more than once. Subbed, this rules.
Utterly brilliant coverage of one of the best videogame composers in history. I wish more people knew about Follin, and I also wish he would get back into the industry. Even without chip, his music was beautiful (consider Ecco on Dreamcast).
@klaymodopostoffice9885given the work he did, that makes sense. His music was leagues better then just about any other game at the time of each of his releases. Honestly I'd have been surprised if he was on time with any of his compositions
This is great. Thanks!
Aren't you that guy who composed those Smurfs games? You're a legend.
Oh Am I? Thank you! : )
You are a legend from my childhood, at least. Those Smurfs and Astérix soundtracks on NES were amazing.
wait Infogrames Boy
Una leyenda frente a otra!!!
1:37 I don’t know why or how, but I love the character that this kind of music has. It’s so unbelievably gritty yet so slick.
The sound quality on this video is quite impressive.
28:50
That transition from Time Trax to Ultraverse Prime is sooo damn smooth. Incredible work putting this together.
Man. What an amazing mini-documentary on Tim. Thanks for this incredible showcase of his talents.
What a great dedication to a GOAT of a composer.
thanks for taking the time to make this video, it shows that you put a lot of time into it.
Oh man, I did not intend for this video to be so long, but then: 40 minutes.
I poured a ridiculous amount of time into making the video. Glad to see my efforts are appreciated!
your audio cuts were really precise, from a musicians perspective, it was nice to see that you were able to show a good bit of comparing and contrasting. i think when you have an introspective about an artist such as follin, its icing on the cake when theres some attention to detail like you put into it here. especially when you show their work chronologically and across more than one platform too. the time and effort shows, and i definitely subscribed and will pass this vid on, great job!
Yes thank you very much for your time & effort making this video!!!
TIM FOLLIN is a sound design genius!!
These ultra-informative artist features are a fantastic idea, and I wholeheartedly look forward to hearing more in the future!
I love everything about this video.
This completely blew me away! I've long been a fan of Tim Follin but this is next level. The mix from 15:41 all the way up to LED Storm at 17:30 is phenomenal, jazz prog chiptune. Just amazing.
When Follin entered the game scene (for me it was the Commodore Amiga) we finally knew: games got on the pro level. I didnt know he did such great work on the Speccy before. Thanks for this video. Can hardly pick a favourite, but without any order: Ghouls ´n´ Ghosts, L.E.D. Storm, Bionic Commando. And all of the other stuff this genius wrote.
Huge fan of Mr. Follin here, and this is one mighty fine documentary/medley mix! Thanks for all your amazing work!
1985 -1989 Discovering
1990 -1995 Master
1996 - 2006 Underestimating
2007 - 2020+ Humble
1970 - 2020+ British Guy
This was such an awesome feature! It's kind of interesting that Tim preferred the more instrumental stuff over the chip stuff. His chip work really stood out, but the more he went into modern consoles, the more his music just kinda sounded like everything else. I didn't even realize he'd composed stuff outside of the old chip music.
I really enjoyed this video. Thank you for making it.
Plok and Equinox were already awesome games on their own, but Follin's music made them legendary. Thank you Tim =)
Tim Follin is love. Tim Follin is life.
shrek aprooves it
tim follin in love
I just found this guy due to "treasure master " title music in the NES, insanely good shit
Caught a really bad case of COVID a week back. I had nothing to do, so I put this video on and fell asleep. And lemme tell you, falling asleep to this music while your brain is literally being cooked by a fever is quite the experience.
lmao what the heck 2:24 tim follin invented sidechain
lol yea
nah they'd be doing sidechain long ago, in the 60s or earlier even before synths were invented
side chain on a fucking beeper though
reminder. a fucking BEEPER
This is a brilliant, inspiring chipumentary, Follin is the Beethoven of chip tune…and like that he was gone
Dude, Plok! has one of the best soundtracks ever made and you only gave it a couple of seconds in this compilation?! Seriously?! What about the track "Beach" where it sounds like a real e-guitar is playing?
Yeah I know! Beach is my favorite song from the soundtrack and was what I was hoping to show, but with the way that the mix flowed, Akryllic meshed better.
Also note that I was, at this point, 23 minutes into a video that I intended to be 10 minutes long. :S
GST大好き you cannot show off a Follin in 10 minutes ;)
Yes... Forasmuch Follin isnt just a name, its a style of life. :)
@Rashad Harris Ever heard Interstate 76 soundtrack? I think thats a game that shows a slower style of funk works fine for driving games
tim starts working on agent x and immediately becomes good at any console, what a legend
Just a superb video and the mixing of the music really added to the story. Well done!
Thank you so much for not talking over the beautiful music.
This is absolutely fantastic. Video Game Music has always been a guilty pleasure of mine and this video beautifully describes the career of one of (if not) the greatest composers to ever do it. These days you can hire a live orchestra or a great producer (or both) to score your game, but to me there is something magical in one person stretching a old, simple sound chip as far as it can possibly go. Follin was a master at this. I certainly hope you can do other exposes on other legends of video game music, such as Jeroen Tel, Jochen Hippel and David Wise to name a few. You've earned a subscription today, friend.
As for my favorite track by Follin, I'd have to say the title theme from Ghouls n Ghosts, close second going to the title theme from Time Trax (not shown in the video). Both themes show omniscient knowledge of the sound chips and sound like nothing else on their respective systems. (ghouls n ghosts came with experience with the c64's sid chip, and Follin helped make the sound driver which made Time Trax's stellar OST possible)
Treasure Master gets an honorable mention, because... Simply... Who the heck wrote their music in damn 17/8 on nes?! Or 17/8 on any type of music for that matter? Also worth noting the Amiga Bionic Commando is also on a funky time signature
Another favorite music composer added to my list....Besides Nobuo,Koji Kondo, Yokojama,David Wise,etc
A streamer I watch played a few games which contain some of Tim Follin's music and I was just sitting there completely blown away. A friend in chat linked me to this video and... wow... seriously incredible work. Like nothing I've heard from game music from the era of tracker and chiptunes. I can't believe it took me this long to discover his work!
Wow, very good stuff! I recommend leaving the screen messages on for a bit longer, I found myself pausing the video a lot, though I can imagine that might be hard in some cases as the song needs to be mixed properly as well.
That's definitely an issue that I fret over a lot. I know there were a few spots where I cut the text a little shorter than I wanted, just because the next song was starting. I even had to remove a few blocks of text. :(
Fun fact: the title theme for Solstice (used as the intro in this video) was inspired by a YES concert where they opened with "Starship Trooper". The first two chords are even the same!
I'm a very slow reader and had to do a lot of pausing. Still, it's a wonderful tribute to Tim Follin. I love how everything is in the style of the corresponding computer :)
This series is wonderful and demonstrates Tim Follin's music very well. Such talent!
Tim Follin is the best chip tune musician of all time, that's undisputed as far as I'm concerned. I totally get why he hates chiptunes. In the 80's, we were all frustrated kids with our limited spectrums and c64's. Making music was immensely frustrating on these computers due to the limitations.
Most of these sound chips only had 3 sound channels, yet he was able to used arps and arpeggios with such skill that they actually sounded pleasing as opposed to just being workarounds. Tim Follin chip tunes might sound limited today, but they are all little miracles of mastery and musicianship. His later stuff is equally as great.
I heard the intro to C64 Led Storm.
My jaw hit the floor. That came out of the C64 SID?!
That GhoulsnGhosts intro. Unbelievable.
Excellent video! Learned a whole lot.
If there only was half as good music in Castlevania...
That transition from Ghouls N' Ghosts to Puzznic (18:50) made me want a full mix of the two, or at least one where the percussion from Puzznic rolls in whenever appropriate
"Who's interested" in learning more about Tim Follin?
I am! I've never heard of him until today, when I sat through all 39 mins of this video. This guy's insanely talented!
So from what I've gathered here and listening to tracks around UA-cam, Tim is exceptional because:
1) Tim got the absolute MOST out of the sound hardware he was given, AND
2) He was an excellent musician and very creative composer.
Very few video game composers in history I feel can honestly claim BOTH of these things.
THAT TRANSITION BETWEEN G&G AND GAUNTLET WAS AMAZING
i discoverd tim follin about 1 hour ago... absolutley brilliant music mind! thank you gst for this fantastic presentation!
I’m obsessed with his Ecco ost
PLOK MENTIONED 🗣️🗣️🗣️🔥🔥🔥
I played so many games that he made music for and I had NO IDEA. If I ever made a video game, I'd have loved to get this guy to make music for it. Genius.
This is some great editing; the transitions from one song to another are basically seemless and it's never distracting. Great work!
Tim Follin is a rare example of maing FMV games that people actually like.
But he was definitely fantastic with music.
May the equally talented Geoff rest in peace. Another underrated musician.
Wow. So at one point, Tim was pretty much a chiptune artist before chiptune artists were a thing? That's pretty cool!
I really like how Time Trax and the the previous two tracks have very similar chord progressions. That is well done mixing!
But how about Geoff Follin? No one remembers the guy..
Aside from that, totally awesome video! Keep up the good work, GST!
Yeah, there is a interview where they make listen songs to Tim and, actually, quite a lot of them were initially composed by one and then the other completed it. Even there are songs that they we're actually made entirely by Geoff but they quite mimic Tim's style, or nothing at all.
ua-cam.com/video/idilpAOYKio/v-deo.html this is the interview if you wanna watch it
Woah, I had no idea he wrote music for Ford Racing 3. My little brother used to play that game all day and we both loved the tunes.
You can imagine how amazing it was hearing sound come out the arse end of your 48k machine when it was done by T.Follin. Today it would be like if someone got the LED from your laptop to project a 3d image.
The drums on the Agent X music are not playing properly, on a real spectrum they sound different, I can tell the sound in this video was from an emulator.
i doubt he has a zx spectrum laying about his house nor could he find one cheap
He used eq. He said it on the video.
No shit. I'd argue that true for most of these tracks
It's a fantastic video. Tim, Rob et al, were so inspirational to many of us C64 owners who later bought synths &, set up our own studios, etc, to make music. 🌅
Ghouls and Ghosts blows my mind away! So different and unreal for C64!
Concerning prog, I can't help but feel he was heavily influenced by the band _Kansas_
And Styx, Rush, and Emerson, Lake and Palmer.
Jethro Tul, Yes, 70's prog basically
@@D56IS don't forget Genesis
@@Plasmariel Don't you tell me what not to forget. I'll forget whatever I damn well please.
...I just don't currently feel like forgetting Genesis...
@@Grease-Goblin If you see it like that, sure.
Really informative and really cool man , i hope you'll do a lot more of these . Tim was one of my favorite composer , i hope one day he'll come back to do some music for games
Hello!? Why don't you have more subscribers? This video is the bomb! Thank you for the tribute to Tim. Super informative indeed.
i really love Mission Briefing from Time Trax, honestly I think that is one of my fav tunes of Tim
other than the Plok boss theme this is the first time i've ever heard his music and im absolutely losing it
these videos are absolutely the best. I appreciate them so much.
Extremely well done. Hats off to Tim Follin!
To me, Tim's most spectacular piece was the intro music to Agent X-II on the Spectrum. That was something in and of itself. Amazing. All that complexity....PLUS A GAME IN 48K.
The computer and videogame industry would welcome Tim's music (and Geoffs) back with open arms. I maintain if some of his Amiga and SNES music was commercially released on CD it would sell. It's right up there with some of the best prog rock around!
The sad part is they probably would not. Geoff became a school teacher and Tim did some filmmaking but also developed his own games.
I know I’m 6 years late finding this video but thank you for putting this together. I have been a massive fan of Tim’s music since I first heard Vectron and just wondered at how it was even possible. He says nobody would be interested in knowing more about him but he is wrong and he inspired me to always want to write video game music not that I’ve ever got anywhere in 40 years. A true legend.
Check the comments to Time Trax genesis. Tim Follin left a comment. He says he preferred doing chip tunes to the tech that came after it and that's one reason he retired and for a long time no one was doing chip tunes. So maybe he did like it after all.
yeah, listening to his thoughts more recently, I get the impression that he was just frustrated with the gap between the sounds in his head and the sounds he was able to pull out of the machine, which is pretty relatable as an artist.
his enjoyment seemed to come from the technical challenge of it all
very smooth transnitions. Respect for the time put into that.
Like so many, a brilliant prog musician, lost in the noise of life. Thanks for showcasing his work! ☺️
I didn't know how appropriate it was for a piece on a composer to be text only. I'll remember you fondly the next time someone with an expensive mic blathers on over a the 25% volume actual music
21:45 damn... this story rings eerilie similar to the Mario 64 and Croc story (Argonaut showed up before the release of the Nintendo 64 with a prototype of a Yoshi game, got rejected, re-branded it as Croc, but it has many similarities with Mario 64)
It's wild to me that you don't have more subscribers. This kind of in-depth overview of a musicians catalogue and your more documentary style videos with voice over are both tremendous. Thanks!
I think I understand where he's coming from regards to not liking his own music. It's a bloody marvel technically and there are some tunes and aspects of others that are also melodically rich and marvellous but it's technical accomplishment does I feel overshadow the composition side a lot of the time. I've always been super impressed by his work but more for his mastery of arpeggio etc than themes or lines that conclude. No denying some very epic stuff though at least in how impressive it comes off and how gorgeously atmospheric he could get but I can understand why he might have thoughts the way he does on it. His later more considered moody approach is I think something he's likely more pleased with but I think by this point he probably feels he's done with the artform as it can rather take it out of you some 20 years at it
Didn't stop me being hugely influenced by his early work however and it was a very impactful time having these very talented tunesmiths around for a bar to aim towards. Great times and I hope he's in an at least reasonable place right now
Nah Follin's tracks were greatly composed. It's just that he feels like his tunes aren't fully his because of his musical inspirations at the time.
@@Plasmariel I've listened to some of his more recent work in the form of more incidental and film like approach and It's rather good and I wouldn't be surprised if he wanted to write this way during his C64 days. I think he's more advanced than his earlier work would suggest and that was always very good. Looking back to something like the Plok for example,, I imagine he's less impressed by it in composition terms these days but damn was it impressive at the time.
I think he understood that there was a limit to how musical structures in the form of arpeggio can sound if it's mostly the basis to how you work. There's such a lot I love from what he's done from that time but it's mostly the melody based parts that endure for me personally because that's where the heart of music lies
@klaymodopostoffice9885 Oh interesting. It was all quite experimental to everyone doing it and being so young for a lot of them it must have impacted how they took to their work. It took me a long time really understand anything about myself and I would have failed miserably doing what they did. But yeah still very much a topic of discussion because no matter how it was, they did mean a lot to so many. Cheers
14:00 "We've got this crappy game." And Tim's like "Hold my cocaine, I'm going IN."
someone should just give this guy a million dollars to make music again, because its not every day I play pictionary on the NES but when I do, its because of his genius composing skills.
To do great work within limitations is the definition of genius
Tim Follin feels like a modern day Greek tragedy... It feels like he had the potential to be one of the greats. I could totally see him being just as celebrated as, say, Grant Kirkhope or David Wise, among many MANY other excellent video game composers. Now barely anyone remembers him or knows who he is. :(
"Barely anyone"
If you think Tim Follin is unknown, what about others talented chiptune composers such as Allister Brimble or Alberto Gonzalez ? I see their names a lot less often than the Follin one.
@@supmattboy That's a fair point.
Tim and Geoff were never video game guys themselves when they were at Software Creations. They slowly loathed the experience when they worked on various licensed projects.
@@MrXabungle I can definitely sympathize with the terrible working experience they went through.
I had no idea Tim did stuff past the Sega CD. His music for the Ford Racing games were a nice surprise and pretty killer on their own.
Title LED Storm. Holy hell that's amazing. Just learned I've actually played a game with his music. Ford Racing 2.
His Gambit track remains one of my favorite game songs ever.
"The only drawback was that it sounded like a vacuum cleaner with nails stuck in it"
I should dump nails in my vaccuum cleaner more often
Most accurate description for the thing I've ever heard.
Mic Gordon: hold my beer