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carlosrox

carlosrox

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
10,270
Vancouver BC
Top class bloke and so freaking prolific.

Julian Eggebrecht mentioned on a podcast recently, that Chris is sort of twisting his arm to get a new Turrican project going by already pushing forward with a new soundtrack for it.

Oh this is all kinds of awesome. Would be a dream come true.

-------

I have one more question actually. How much say does the director (or whoever you may work closely with) have when it comes to the music in something like Turrican?
 
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Deleted member 9305

Oct 26, 2017
4,064
I also have a question for Chris: What's the story behind the R-Type title being so different than the arcade version?



 

angel

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
2,333
That's not really something Chris would be involved with, and besides...Amiga Rtype was completely different to the arcade, weapon wise, enemy wise, background wise, screen aspect ratio wise. Probably the most interesting thing about it (amazing title music aside) is that they got the port gig because they produced such a nice rip off game in Katakis, which then got banned. Hence the floating "Katakis lives" flag in the Turrican 2 shooter levels.
 
Apr 20, 2018
7
USA, Arizona
I didn't even think the arcade original had any title music or maybe I thought that this short loop wasn't very exciting. In any case I decided to compose a new one... after I was done with the C64 version and turned my attention to the Amiga, I also felt that just porting the C64 title (with which I was quite pleased at the time) would not do the Amiga sound capabilities justice and so I composed even another title track for the Amiga version (and another one much later for the mobile versions)! ;)
 

Fularu

Member
Oct 25, 2017
10,609
I love me some Chris Huelsbeck, best Amiga composer with David Wittaker

I own every Turrican game :D (except the GB versions I must confess)

The ST music is also veeerrryyyy good, Jocchen Hippel was a beast. I love the C64 chiptune kind of sound of it. I almost prefer some of the tracks too compared to the Amiga version
 
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Deleted member 9305

Oct 26, 2017
4,064
I didn't even think the arcade original had any title music or maybe I thought that this short loop wasn't very exciting. In any case I decided to compose a new one... after I was done with the C64 version and turned my attention to the Amiga, I also felt that just porting the C64 title (with which I was quite pleased at the time) would not do the Amiga sound capabilities justice and so I composed even another title track for the Amiga version (and another one much later for the mobile versions)! ;)
Cheers for clearing that up! I was wondering about this for so many years, lol.
 

angel

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
2,333
Question 1: did you read, or have much contact with, the British press regarding praising your work? For example, Team 17's Projext X was reviewing at the same time as Apidya, with a supposed techno soundtrack. The game turned out average and the soundtrack very unremarkable (and not techno at all). My absolute ultimate fave magazine of all time Amiga Power came out and called Apidya's music the best Amiga music in years. (review here by the way: http://amr.abime.net/review_520 ). Did you ever get interview requests, or at least read their high praise?

Question 2: How close were the Apidya Amiga tracks to incorporating some of the extra elements added in the high quality versions on the soundtrack album? Ie: the extra voice samples (wait a minute..) and so on? Were they all totally added by yourself at a later date, or were they composed / thought of then cut back due to restrictions?

Question 3: Who else's music did you enjoy around the 16 bit era, my personal other c64 / Amiga hero was Tim Follin.
.

Pardon me for requoting these up to the current page, any thoughts on these please Chris?
 
Apr 20, 2018
7
USA, Arizona
Oh my word, I didn't expect this. I do have some nerdy questions, if that's ok please Chris.

Question 1: did you read, or have much contact with, the British press regarding praising your work? For example, Team 17's Projext X was reviewing at the same time as Apidya, with a supposed techno soundtrack. The game turned out average and the soundtrack very unremarkable (and not techno at all). My absolute ultimate fave magazine of all time Amiga Power came out and called Apidya's music the best Amiga music in years. (review here by the way: http://amr.abime.net/review_520 ). Did you ever get interview requests, or at least read their high praise?

Incidentally, The Turrican 2 soundtrack made a 15 year old me force my parents to take me to an electronics shop, to buy the leads to hook my Amiga to my new stereo after it blew my tiny mind.

Question 2: How close were the Apidya Amiga tracks to incorporating some of the extra elements added in the high quality versions on the soundtrack album? Ie: the extra voice samples (wait a minute..) and so on? Were they all totally added by yourself at a later date, or were they composed / thought of then cut back due to restrictions?

Question 3: Who else's music did you enjoy around the 16 bit era, my personal other c64 / Amiga hero was Tim Follin.

I'll stop there, but cheers for your work. Impossible to explain how much I've listened to it over the last 25 years.

Thanks much! :)

A1: I had little exposure to British press except for the mid 90s when I started to read the Edge magazine for a while... but yeah, somehow I do remember that review and sure made me happy! :)

A2: The Soundtrack CD came later and was extended upon what was in the game, so I thought it would be fun to add some new elements.

A3: Galway and Hubbard were my favorites on the C64 and I love Yuzo Koshiro's work on the SNES and Sega Megadrive.
 

Fularu

Member
Oct 25, 2017
10,609
Thanks much! :)

A1: I had little exposure to British press except for the mid 90s when I started to read the Edge magazine for a while... but yeah, somehow I do remember that review and sure made me happy! :)

A2: The Soundtrack CD came later and was extended upon what was in the game, so I thought it would be fun to add some new elements.

A3: Galway and Hubbard were my favorites on the C64 and I love Yuzo Koshiro's work on the SNES and Sega Megadrive.
What did you think of composers like David Whittaker? Or Alister Brimble?
 

angel

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
2,333
Thanks much! :)

A1: I had little exposure to British press except for the mid 90s when I started to read the Edge magazine for a while... but yeah, somehow I do remember that review and sure made me happy! :)

A2: The Soundtrack CD came later and was extended upon what was in the game, so I thought it would be fun to add some new elements.

A3: Galway and Hubbard were my favorites on the C64 and I love Yuzo Koshiro's work on the SNES and Sega Megadrive.

Awesome, thanks for answering.

Without wanting to bore you too much, Amiga Power were famous for being very critical, so when they gave praise it really meant something. You might like to check out Streets of Rage Remake which is absolutely full of amazing remixed Yuzo Koshiro tunes.
 
Apr 20, 2018
7
USA, Arizona
Awesome, thanks for answering.

Without wanting to bore you too much, Amiga Power were famous for being very critical, so when they gave praise it really meant something. You might like to check out Streets of Rage Remake which is absolutely full of amazing remixed Yuzo Koshiro tunes.

Thanks for the pointers... I would definitely be interested to hear those remixes! :)
 
Apr 20, 2018
7
USA, Arizona
Hi Chris - since you're posting in the thread, I am wondering if you were influenced by the song "Don't You Want Me" by Felix for the first stage in Super Turrican? It was the Super Turrican soundtrack that made me a fan of you!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bj8xF2bnxp0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6gW975XDwA

I know the Felix tune, but I don't hear too much of an influence besides the rhythmic back and forth of the chords and single notes... I remember doing this kind of stylistic feature for a long time before T3 and Super Turrican, all the way back to the C64 days...

I have done some covers, openly referenced some (admired) tunes in the past and in at least one case subconsciously almost copied a complete composition, but I'm owning up to it and that's something that probably happens to all composers at some point. There's only so much iteration that one can get from those 12 "western music" notes and their rhythmic variations... ;)
 

Elandyll

Avenger
Oct 25, 2017
8,822
Some of the best memories of my Amiga years, Chris is a musical genius imo.

R-Type, Apydia, Giana Sisters and of course Turrican are ofen mentionned, but I also have very fond memories of X and Z Out.


 

Zeel

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,164
I just want to say, your music is a big part of my childhood and your Turrican work is among the truly legendary game soundtracks, sharing a place with the likes of Zelda, Ys and classic Final Fantasy.

Thank you.
 
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OP
carlosrox

carlosrox

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
10,270
Vancouver BC
This is cool and the perfect thread to post this. Can't believe I didn't think of posting this earlier.

Me and my brother instantly noticed the similarity when Super Monkey Ball came out and we first played Monkey Target way back in the day.

Does this jingle at 3:35 sound familiar to anyone in here? Maybe Chris Huelsbeck himself haha?


..........

It has sure always sounded like this to me!!
 

angel

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
2,333
Some of the best memories of my Amiga years, Chris is a musical genius imo.

R-Type, Apydia, Giana Sisters and of course Turrican are ofen mentionned, but I also have very fond memories of X and Z Out.

This is a big problem, for me, with modern gaming. Ultra slick licensed vocal soundtracks bore the hell out of me. Orchestral scores are all very nice for drama, but you'd not listen to them on their own. By far the greatest era of game music I would say is from the 8 bits, probably up to and ending at the Playstation 1. Once real orchestras got involved it all got very samey. Chip soundtracks on computer and console remain almost timeless, whereas I barely have any recollection of any Playstation 3 soundtracks.

There are occasional exceptions, like the Halo soundtrack, but they are really rare. Gaming is such a big, no risk market these days, you can't entrust a soundtrack to a bedroom genius any more, and creativity is definitely lost. Although I will say that Doom 2016 did a great job of standing out in a sea of mediocrity.
 
Oct 27, 2017
6,411
I haven't played these games so I can't really comment on music, but I've always seen gameplay of them and they look so fucking good.

With Factor 5 still around and kicking with the Turrican rights, I really, really hope they are rereleased for modern systems.
 

PC98_Audi

Producer @ Limited Run Games
Verified
Oct 26, 2017
261
Raleigh
Slight necrobump, but I figured this is the appropriate place to update with news on Chris' stuff

This December, Chris released a new Turrican album, Rise of the Machine. Basically, this is the soundtrack to what could be Turrican 4, as it is fully new compositions done on Chris' TFMX Sound System, the very same he used to compose Turrican II and Turrican 3.

a0510613459_16.jpg

https://chrishuelsbeck.bandcamp.com/album/turrican-rise-of-the-machine

I didn't listen to all of it yet myself, but from what I am reading, its a true Turrican soundtrack that seems to have welcomed by the fans.