Tim Follin's computer music - cover versions

Tim Follin created his most famous compositions on ZX Spectrum 48 between 1986 to 88. They are sophisticated progressive hard rock suites. I will not post the originals, you can find them in many other persons' channels.

The ZX 48 sound source is very limited, it is 1-bit (one volume level - sound on or off) and 1 channel audio output controlled by the Z80 CPU. The software he used allowed to increase channel number to 5-7, with dynamics control (various volume of the particular notes, fading and rising envelopes). Everything by software mixing. Each of his works lasts 3-5 minutes and requires only 5 KB (!)

He composed music in this tracker for these games: Agent X, Agent X 2, Chronos, Future Games and Raw Recruit. When the producer added the AY 3-8910 sound chip to ZX Spectrum, Tim Follin used the AY chip as a snare drum in Chronos and Agent X 2. Later he composed music for the AY only without the use of the original "beeper" on Spectrum.

He also composed game music for Atari ST (a compatible sound chip with ZX 128), Commodore 64, Amiga, Nintendo NES and newer consoles.

Here I present cover versions of his works made by various artists on ZX with AY, C64 and Amiga.
1 - TDM - Chronos (ZX Spectrum AY)
2 - Yerzmyey - Agent X (ZX Spectrum AY)
3 - Graff - Chronos (Amiga)
4 - TDM - Future Games (ZX Spectrum AY)
5 - S. Zeidler & N. Sjösvärd - Chronos (Commodore 64)

The video is a visualisation from Winamp.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Tim
• Follin
• music
• computer
• covers
• cover
• version
• ZX
• Spectrum
• Commodore
• c64
• amiga
• compilation

[andym0908]

Absolute genius. Such lack of memory, and NO feature-rich sound chip (NO sound chip!!). Just amazing... again, not just technically, but musically!

Mr Follin, to this day we applaud you for this work!

[Abrimaal]

@andym0908 The music presented here is not original T. Follin's work, these are covers (remakes).

[tatsujincorp]

very excellent chronos versions!

[Abrimaal]

@tatsujincorp Especially the C64 version made in 2008 or 09.

[TurboHz]

Excellent. Both technically and musically. What he was able to accomplish seems like back magic even today!

Mad props to him!

[Abrimaal]

@TurboHz The musicians who made cover version also deserve a great appreciation, these compositions are very difficult to port onto other machines. I wonder why none of rock bands made any covers.

[andym0908]

@Abrimaal Yes, I know this. I was around the first time when the original chip music came about, so I was just applauding the genius of how it all came about.

[CoolDudeClem]

Can someone tell me if there are any AY files of these available? The original beeper songs are OK, but I want to find the AY remakes that are in this video and I can't find them at Project AY.

[SpiralPegasus]

@Abrimaal Just so that you know, Abrimaal, a guy called pojo81 has done a 100% accurate solo guitar cover of the introduction to Solstice.

It's FANTASTIC, I guarantee it! Go check it out!