This 1990 NES Soundtrack Just BLEW Me Away

In today's episode of "watch me lose my mind over early video game soundtracks" we're taking a look at the Pictionary game for the NES. Yes, somebody decided to make Pictionary into an NES game. And nobody told Tim Follin that it didn't need to go THIS hard.
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[@CharlesCornellStudios]

TIM IT WAS JUST PICTIONARY

[@The_T-Bone]

Please Listen to daft punk!

[@The_T-Bone]

they have very similar music but its also very drastic and you would absalutly love it

[@JamesAlanTube]

Thanks so much for covering this! My piano tutor knew Tim back in his college days, he’s gonna love this!

[@Creatively_Bored]

You need to do a short series on the rest of Tim Follin's works. It's pure musical insanity.

[@tylermccaw8092]

Holy crap! You look younger! Nice shave, dude!

[@galelululu]

something I’ve noticed about Tim Follins songs is that they all start with “hehe im a little nes song :)” and then play a couple things you Didn’t Think The NES Could Do and then becomes a full-on modern chiptune track

[@Plasmariel]

That's about the surface of it, Follin bros are pretty diverse

[@robbyrobot3303]

I listened to an interview with him and he said that he was embarrassed at the time to be making music for games and his intent was to make music that sounded like it didn't come from game hardware

[@davemarx7856]

Compositional genius

[@FyreofShadow]

And/or immediately slap you in the face, a la Solstice

[@Lord_Darkson]

That what I was thinking when I was listening to it. I was like...this sounds way too much of a modern 8-bit/chiptune song to be made in the past. I find this impressive.

[@juanmoralesvideo]

Well... When a jazz musicians says "it's hard to transcribe that" we all should be starting panicking.

[@cooldebt]

Or ask The Consouls to do a jazz cover 😉

[@combomamba]

​@@cooldebt consouls are absolutely amazing, they really need more exposure

[@cooldebt]

@@combomamba Agree. I have been listening to jazz for decades and when I listen to Consouls covers alongside the 'jazz greats' I don't hear 'amateur' - I hear clever musicianship. And they play so many styles of jazz it is a real education.

[@TheDragoncowStudios]

When music thwarts a jazz musician you should be terrified, I mean this would make Mozart scream

[@JSSMVCJR2.1]

We're all going to die.

[@BaggyCatEntertainment]

So, so surreal to find this - recommended because I've been watching Charles for years, such a great, great channel. Btw it's me Tim F. Pretty sure I don't deserve a whole video Charles but thank you so much for this, it's a massive compliment coming from you!

[@melissawickersham9912]

Oh my freaking God. The legendary Tim Follin himself...commenting on this channel AND being a fan of this channel? Awesome. This is so heartwarming and sweet that it makes me shed tears of joy.

[@Efreeti]

Awesome to see you Tim! ❤ Don't worry, you easily deserve MULTIPLE videos!

[@patera83]

Hats off to you sir 🎩 ❤

[@w1ck3dz0d1ac]

You need a music playlist of your old compositions in a playlist. I know your current page is there to advertise your newer work but people need a catalogue of your old tracks, possibly with some commentary. Please make a collection of your work on either the page you have or a new page. Your works are actually an important piece of gaming history.

[@AbrahamLure]

Bro your music is so rich and intense it legit sounds like the Gameboy's gonna burst into flames. As someone big into the chiptune and demo scene, I tip my hat off to you, you're such an inspiration on what we can do with retro hardware

[@mikegrisafi541]

I redid the Solstice theme with guitars like 15 years ago! Omg what fun that was to work out...I actually had a brief talk with Tim when he came across it shortly after I put it up and he was talking about how my version was actually faster than intended due to US using 60hz power vs 50hz used in UK where he composed all these masterpieces. He also mentioned some of the coding tricks he would do involving phase and weird PWM stuff to literally make sounds those chips were never intended to do. What an absolute genius!

[@nahidelsanto]

So where can I listen to it? 🥺

[@pojo81]

​@@nahidelsanto Hi Nahi, responding from my other profile where the video is located. Apparently even describing how to search for it from there is enough to trigger the filters.

[@breakthecycle5238]

I want hear like a trans siberian orchestra cover

[@Baby_boodle]

​@@pojo81Those phasing tricks and such is what makes it sound like modern chiptune music and it absolutely rules! I love the musical and programming skill it took to make it.

[@PeterCamberwick]

Yes indeed you did. DO you remember when I got in touch with you about that? I played your version on my show too. :) Epic version.

[@ChatookaMusic]

This is a man who realized there is no separation between "real music" and "videogame music" this man was just making music

[@mikegrisafi541]

For sure. And apparently he often had little idea of what the actual game would be like as he was composing...sometimes having nothing more than a working title to go off of.

[@KingC89]

Any noise can be music

[@Carbine64]

​@@mikegrisafi541I mean it's pretty easy to imagine what "Pictionary" would be like as a game 😂 dude just wanted to gift some amazing music to the little kids that got shovelware for Christmas

[@RSK412]

No difference for me tbh.

[@JaggedToys]

A lot of musicians realize this early on playing games... hence 40 year old dudes jamming to old VG music 😂

[@rdoursenaud]

Tim Follin is the GOAT of NES music. I clearly remember the first time I started Solstice as a child on a Christmas morning. I was so blown away by the title music that I stayed there listening to the whole thing twice before even starting the game. Not only was the music crazy good but I also had never heard such convincing drums and bass sounds coming out of this hardware. It was wizardry which was very fitting Solstice's theme. It's still an all time favorite of mine all those years later and is ingrained into my memory forever!

[@althejazzman]

I love the game Solstice. Fascinating atmosphere, visuals and music, just a shame it's so annoyingly difficult to play!

[@JennFrank]

Ahhhh, seeing someone’s reaction to a Tim Follin composition is so gratifying! I appreciated the analysis of Solstice because it’s like hearing it with fresh ears 😊

[@AronFigaro]

Tim Follin and Software Creations is responsible for a huge amount of the technical depth of NES music. They worked with CAPCOM, they worked with Sunsoft, they worked a bit with Konami, everyone learned from their greatness.

[@PeperonyChease]

They did some ports and mediocre sequels for those companies.

[@Draelyn]

Its okay, you can say he and his. I believe in you.

[@PeperonyChease]

@Draelyn we are saying they as in the company. What are you on about?

[@Draelyn]

@@PeperonyChease Its okay, apparently I don't know how to english. Very good, carry on.

[@MegaBubble]

@@Draelyn I thought the same thing. it wasn't quite properly phrased. but that's the internet :3

[@TheXtremeBoltGuy]

That's Tim Follin for ya. Absolutely insane music design

[@minamur]

...for trash games

[@TheXtremeBoltGuy]

@@minamur unfortunately also true

[@FabbrizioPlays]

I've always wondered what would happen if you gave Tim Follin a VRC6 chip. I'm forced to assume you'd go mad, like listening to the whispers of an eldritch god.

[@RikouHogashi]

@@minamurThat's the Point my dude he and his brother makes said trash games TOLERABLE though I do like "Plok!" even as difficult as it is.

[@dyfedhitchings3226]

​@@RikouHogashiPlok has some fantastic music though. Allegedly Miyamoto was blown away with it.

[@jarsenberg]

I love when NES music gets appreciation like. People often relegate early video game music to "bleeps and bloops," as if vgm had no value until the technology developed further, but there are so many amazing crafted melodies and tracks in these early games. It still blows me away what these unsung hero composers managed to accomplish in this era with such constraints. They deserve way more recognition.

[@benjaminskatzes]

I’m so happy that Tim Follin is finally getting the recognition he deserves after all these years.

[@GXAPlayer]

Tim and Geoff Follin's music is such a fun rabbithole to look into. Time Trax, Rock and Roll Racing, Spider-Man and X-Men in Arcade's Revenge, Plok, Silver Surfer, the list goes on...

[@tonightsbigloser]

Solstice as well!

[@SmaMan]

His Time Trax soundtrack is incredible... shame it never saw retail release.

[@tawoorie]

PLOX

[@MrKeplerton]

Rock&Roll racing sparked my interest in 70s rock

[@EBattousai]

The Wolverine NES soundtrack is another banger

[@bunnyrape]

For anyone who doesn't know, he made absolutely absurdly impressive stuff using the single-channel, single-bit *buzzer* on the ZX Spectrum. Check out his work on Agent X, for example. Tim's wizardry on full display.

[@RichardCarlsson]

Came to say exactly this. Agent X was nuts!

[@mima85]

Chronos is another Tim Follin's 1-bit buzzer masterpiece, check it out!

[@overand]

@@RichardCarlssonAgent X II for the 3 channel Commodore 64 was amazing too!

[@chloesmith4065]

Chronos is one of my favorites

[@Pobotrol]

The day I came home with my copy of Agent X, loaded it from tape and then my jaw hit the floor at what the tiny speaker was doing, I will never forget.

[@gamechops]

so glad you discovered this OST! Tim Follin one of the very best. So stoked that they did a limit run vinyl pressing

[@Holgast]

hi gamechops

[@LilDeuceDeuce]

I haven't even watched the video yet but I feel confident saying nothing makes me happier than watching Charles Cornell talk about Tim Follin, because Tim and Geoff Follin are both incredible

[@LavaCreeperPeople]

You again!

[@owenwexler7214]

NES Pictionary music director: "OK Mr. Follin, we need you to compose a theme for the NES Pictionary game's title screen... nothing too crazy or anything." Tim Follin, levitating 14 feet above the ground as smoke and flames begin to billow up epically behind him: "Got chu."

[@BirchPig]

Tim Follin, Martin O'Donnell and Grant Kirkhope shouldn't be in the same room or the world would end... the soundtrack to our demise would be metal as fuck tho

[@1mariomaniac]

​@@BirchPig Can't forget Kojo Kondo, such a great composer.

[@Mr_APeezy]

@@1mariomaniacand Yoko Shimomura who did most of the Street Fighter II music!

[@NotABot55]

@@BirchPig...and if you add George "The Fat Man" Sanger to the mix, you'll be fortunate to hear the first five notes

[@T3KNUG3T5]

@@NotABot55 Let us not forget Eveline Novakovic! or Jeroen Tel

[@sock2828]

The theme to Solstice is amazing. I didn't think NES music could be that complex before hearing it.

[@auradmg]

It's not "video game music" but I'd recommend listening to The Mutual Promise (EP) by Chibi-Tech as an example of what NES sound hardware can be pushed into doing. Absolutely mind-blowing. I say it's not VGM because it allows for all the processing power to be focused on producing and processing audio instead of running graphics etc at the same time, but all the sound is produced by NES chips and she performs live using real hardware.

[@bryede]

The intro literally sounds like Yes.

[@HalfMoonProphet]

​@@bryede Somewhere between Yes and Jethro Tull. That main melody absolutely sounds like something Ian Anderson would play on his flute.

[@bfish89ryuhayabusa]

​@@bryede it is based on Yes

[@sniffyflakes8953]

@@auradmgI’m not trying to discredit Chibi-tech’s here (she is a really great chiptune artist), but i don’t really consider her works as an example of what the nes could do at its peak. Mostly because she works with NES emulations like Famitracker, which is a lot more easy to work with than a real NES plus it has a lot more capabilities (such as overclocking, significantly less RAM restriction,…)

[@andrewtintle2857]

Tim is one of my all time favorite video game composers. As a kid I had “silver surfer” for the nes and that soundtrack is branded into my brain from all the hours spent trying to beat it. It’s a masterpiece. Thank you for making this video!

[@Nintendrew]

Thank you for bringing more attention to this legendary composer!

[@LavaCreeperPeople]

Cool

[@Frog_Puppet]

A few things about NES sound: The first four of the five sound channels are pretty much fixed tones: The first two are PWM wave channels, the third is a triangle wave, and the fourth is a noise channel. The fifth channel is actually a PCM sample channel, so some games do actually used sampled sounds, such as bongos in SMB3.

[@Plasmariel]

more specifically, it's usually *1-bit DPCM, PCM is too high quality and uses more space, a few games like Battletoads did use it (7-bit I think). In Follin bros' case, they never used that fifth sample channel.

[@inthefade]

@@Plasmariel The "8-bit" NES sound chip only uses only 7-bits of dynamics, yes. I forget why, but one of the bits is wasted for technical reasons, leaving it with only half as much dynamic range.

[@insertcolorherehawk3761]

@@inthefadeMaybe for Konami-style special chips and FDS support?

[@RiotEXE]

​@@insertcolorherehawk3761 the special chips were only in Japan. US NES production made all the companies use a standardized set... Imagine Tim Follin working on the VRC6...

[@riskvideos]

​@@RiotEXE that would've been an absolute treat for the ears.

[@Owlettehoo]

One of my favorite things about people is when you tell them they can't do something, they turn around and say, yes I can, and then actually do it. Limitations breed creativity.

[@hundvd_7]

"Wtf do you mean you wanna make a full prog rock song in the style of Yes for this shitty fantasy game? You have like 4 channels to work with, and barely a few hundred bytes of space!" Tim Follin: "Bet."

[@Novous]

I love every time a new person discovers the wonder of Tim Follin.

[@RutabagaSwe]

Tim Follin is a damn legend. I don't think anyone made the NES sing quite like he did.

[@NineTeraByte]

Holy shit how have I never heard of this composer. This is pure fire. I had no idea these NES games existed until now. Wow. Just wow.

[@trashtrash2169]

There's good reason for never knowing the games as they all suck, but the music is legendary. Solstice Theme is literally the most impressive track in gaming. Ever. To. This. Day.

[@theKashConnoisseur]

If you weren't a kid in the 80s, there's a low probability you'd be exposed to most NES games or their music.

[@MediaMunkee]

Tim was a goddamn wizard no matter what system he was on. It's a shame he has absolutely no interest in revisiting systems with those limitations to flex his magic.

[@vidarsmestad9143]

You'd might want to check out Plok on the SNES then. Soundtrack also by Follin. Especially Beach and Akrillic stands out there, solid prog. Mindblowing.

[@JosephTavano]

Limitations demand creativity, and the NES music chip brought out some of the best and most creative conpositions.

[@esmooth919]

Agreed! A lot of my favorite composers come from the NES era

[@JosephTavano]

@@esmooth919 Definitely. Game music was just a different beast after the 16 bit era.

[@osvaldoroman58]

well until you hear castlevania bloodlines on sega genesis you will see it in true form

[@JosephTavano]

@@osvaldoroman58 The chip on the Mega Drive/Genesis was something special.

[@johnnypatterson77]

F-Zero had stellar music in that game on the NES, every time I hear it I'm instantly back in the 90's.

[@andyrobinson2653]

A true northerner(UK). His Amiga stuff is brutal. The beginning of Led Storm Is one of the most amazing introductions ever.

[@benanderson89]

Commodore 64 music absolutely deserves a look. Three sound channels and that was it, but my god the level of genius on display is mind twisting.

[@nenadcocic]

Yes. Definitely. I would love to get a reaction of music from Ben Daglish, Jeroen Tell, Rob Hubbard, Matt Gray and bunch others. Ben Daglish's Last Ninja music are a masterpiece. The way he composed the music on guitar and recreated it on a 3 channel sound chip is amazing. Even Dragonforce thaught so that they "borrowed" one of those tracks in one of their songs.

[@danporter643]

The master of magic

[@Gainn]

Wizball

[@jamiewilliamson9829]

Unless you mess with the volume register and get the amazing "4th channel" which could be used for sound samples.

[@pauljs75]

SID definitely has it's stuff. But don't forget Pokey on the Atari side too. Some clever hacks pushed digital-analog conversion into the low end of audio sample rates, and effectively made it a digital audio converter. Thus you would occasionally find bit-crushed sounding sampled sounds interspersed on tracks in some rare cases. There was even a thing where Antic Magazine did a 4-second sample of Rob Palmer's "Simply Irresistible" as an example of full digital audio being possible on one of their disks. Kind of at the limit, since you didn't see much of that until 16-bit computers were a thing.

[@TheClassyAlien]

Please for the love of god, take a listen to Plok. Even though it’s SNES, The main theme sounds like real instruments, it’s genuinely insane.

[@GugureSux]

To be fair, SNES was capable of MIDI music, and the devs often had to provide their own samples for it. So it's much easier to deliver a song that sounds like "real instruments"... because they in a way WERE real instruments. MIDI's been used since the late 1970s to make some real deal mainstream hit songs.

[@RWL2012]

​@@GugureSuxMIDI didn't exist until 1983.

[@jsrodman]

Not sure where this modern confusion is coming from. No game console ever has used midi. The Super Nintendo sound hardware is sample based. There is no seriel transfer of note data. There are no note events. There is no velocity. There are dac channels that get pointed to memory locstions that pump out waveforms.

[@1mariomaniac]

Fun fact: there is actually a sample channel on the NES sound chip. Usually it was utilized for percussion from what I've noticed (such as the percussion in many of the themes in SMB3)

[@TheGoggengames]

In some games like the ones from Sunsoft it was used for bass samples.

[@joemaxwell8361]

I used a lot of Tim Follin on my undergraduate radio show. Was always geeking out over how technically insane his music was. Great to see him on here!

[@AFNacapella]

when you're thinking "Ian Anderson would be proud, all this needs is a flute solo" and then the flute solo comes in...

[@albishie]

I heard the Jethro Tull, too. Glad to have it confirmed.

[@tmtmtlsml]

I was thinking more along the lines of Steve Howe and Yes's "Starship Trooper" but I can hear some Jethro Tull in there as well. Both bands evoke the same sort of imagery, so that makes a certain amount of sense

[@Fritz641]

​@@tmtmtlsmlIndeed I hear a lot of Yes influence.

[@maedotwav]

i definitely recommend looking at Plok's soundtrack, also made by Tim Follin! it's one of the best soundtracks for the snes

[@ExperimentIV]

plok beach is one of my favourite video game tracks of all time

[@BeeBwakka]

​@ExperimentIV I had to come and find this comment, probably the first song I think of when I think of truly legendary video game songs

[@essixthedutchie8617]

What's even crazier is that only the title track uses all 8 sound channels! Everything else is technically 5-bit music to save room for sound effects.

[@karalouise18]

I love that he worked in bits that sound almost like popular prog songs into that soundtrack. Off the top of my head there's Jethro Tull's Living in the Past in Beach, and another one is like something off Dark Side of the Moon.

[@BridgetGX]

The Plok boss music is iconic

[@peterplaysbass]

This is my first video of yours and I loved that you broke down the Solstice intro. I literally hooked my NES to a home console CD burner so I could listen to this song in my car (through a discman and tape adapter no less) in the 90s

[@udance4ever]

lol I had a cord going all the way from my NES across the room to my stereo so me & my friend could make mix tapes - we were still buying vinyl so burning CDs is next level! 💿

[@WyrdieBeardie]

I was thinking "Well he should hear Tim Folin's stuff... Solstice man..." And then well, the big reveal... 😆 I listened to the start screen music of Solstice more than I played the actual game. 🤔

[@mariosbrother6845]

his soundtrack for Plok deserves its own 10 part video series

[@Wyrdwad]

So glad to see Tim Follin getting more love on the internet! He has something of a disciple, though, too, whose work is every bit his equal -- another self-trained chiptune composer who was inspired by Tim and wound up composing for largely licensed Game Boy games over the years. His name is Alberto Jose Gonzalez, though he sometimes is also credited as Joe McAlby. I absolutely recommend looking up his soundtracks sometime -- particularly the main theme "Metal Beat" from Metal Masters on Game Boy, "Another World" from Smurfs Nightmare (yes, really) on Game Boy, and pretty much anything from the Game Boy Turok games (Turok 2's soundtrack is just amazing across the board, though Gonzalez did the soundtracks to them all and gave each one a bit of a distinct vibe, so you can't go wrong with any of them). Alberto Jose Gonzalez is like the undiscovered successor to Tim Follin, and I'm hoping that as time goes on, people will start to realize just how amazing his music is as well! And with your absolute enthusiasm for the subject, I have a feeling you may be just the man to spread the word. ;)

[@Plasmariel]

Alberto was and is a big fan of Tim Follin, he's an acquaintance of mine, although I don't believe he was a direct disciple. That would be Matthew Cannon from Software Creations, listen to Ken Griffley Jr's Major League Baseball SNES and you'll be in awe from how Follin it sounds.

[@SinisterSwiss]

Baby Felix Halloween is an impeccable soundtrack by him too!

[@nldstone]

8-bit big band needs to adapt some of these ASAP. I would LOVE to hear Solstice with a full big band🤯

[@mostlyokay]

I need this

[@cooldebt]

Also The Consouls. They will be playing 90s PC games music for their next live gig in 2 weeks (27 April) but I’d love to hear what they could do to Pictionary!

[@segadreamer]

I CAN'T BELIEVE THIS JUST HAPPENED. I was listening Time Trax OST on an external player, no search on google no search on my phone NOTHING. I searched for some more info of Tim on my work computer, out of my accounts etc... I just went to youtube for another thing, and saw this video, the caption, I just thought about Tim and I was like "Ok, but whatever this man says I will comment something about Tim Follin.... WOW!! Time Trax is one of best OST I've ever heard from the Mega Drive chips, and it's the same as here, the sound, the composing, the tempos, the chills, the excellent and top quality... CRAZY. THANK YOU TIM FALLIN! This inspired me from the first moment I got hooked with your tunes

[@FizzyK-45]

Finally, Charles talking about the GOAT, the legendary composer *Tim Follin,* Tim's compositions are 🔥af. You should also check his work on the game Plok! 😁

[@pendaco]

Plok! - Beach / A Line In The Sand 🤘

[@sniffyflakes8953]

The plok fandom approved this statement, all three of us

[@Battery64121]

@@sniffyflakes8953 I'm one of them!!

[@sniffyflakes8953]

@@Battery64121 Hell yeah, Plokaholics unite!

[@acrouzet]

Glad you're discovering the joys of chiptune music. A lot of it is quite complex compositionally. By the way, chiptune music for these systems exists outside of the context of old games. Look into the demoscene, which is a whole other monster.

[@RushJet1]

Seriously check @acrouzet out if you want a wide sample of good chiptune music.

[@SpinningSquareWaves]

Hi, acrouzet! 👋 It's really cool to find you here, especially since your oscilloscope videos of TIm Follin's work helped me get into chiptune 😁

[@StrayBoom]

I second that, especially the modern demoscene chipmusic on various platforms like Commodore 64 is something that only a small group is aware of - tho there's A LOT to discover.

[@bytesabre]

Would be good timing too with Revision being at the end of the month

[@Bobbias]

The demoscene has some absolutely incredible composers. And that's too say nothing of the technical achievements in the demos.

[@hyperelliptik]

YES!!! I remember watching your previous video game music videos and commented something like "man, I wish Charles would go over Tim Follin" and here you are. Beautiful.

[@ModernArtery]

I've been getting your videos in my recommendations for a few weeks now but haven't clicked on one until today. Turns out I really enjoy your presentation style, and you actually clued me in to Tim Follins, who I'd never heard of before. I never played Solstice, but I did play the sequel Equinox on SNES. I don't recall the music but I want to look it up now, as Tim Follins and his brother Geoff are credited as composers. I'll definitely be checking out more of your videos, and I hope you'll make more videos highlighting interesting retro videogame music. In my opinion it's one of the greatest examples of "limitation breeds creativity" that we've ever seen in the world of music.

[@joekelly7505]

I dabbled in 8 bit music when I was kid on my Commodore 64. The SID chip had 3 voices, so to make any kind of more complex music, there were several tricks: first of course is the rapid fire arpeggiation (hallmark 8 bit sound) allowing you to create a harmonic structure with one voice. The next is to use 1 voice for dual purposes, rapidly switching the waveform, pitch, and ADSR. So you could have a voice playing the bassline and switching every 2 beats to white noise+filter snare, another doing the arpeggiation and kick, and the third doing the solo instrument and cymbals (white noise, quick attack, long release). Fortunately there were a series of nice music editors that made all of the above a lot easier. Some of the greats in the SID world were Rob Hubbard, Ben Daglish, and Martin Galway to name a few.

[@beatpeitsi6853]

Same here. My first exposure to Tim Follin was the UK version of Bionic Commando on C64. It's interesting to compare the level 1 theme from US and UK versions. US follows diligently the arcade theme whereas UK version decides to take it to another direction. It also demonstrates nicely what a skilled composer can do with dynamic assignment of the waveform in each channel.

[@ExperimentIV]

no, the intention of the arpeggios with the tremolo is to create the illusion of chords! that technique is used in modern chiptune as well!

[@Bobbias]

Yep. Instead of using 3 or more channels for a chord you could create the illusion of one using a single channel.

[@germansnowman]

Very common in C64 music as well, as its SID chip had only three oscillators.

[@thatotherandrew_]

Isn't that exactly what he said?

[@Blutzen]

Oh, so you're saying that tremolo thing was a great way to utilize a *single channel* to give the _illusion_ of chords? .... 10:11

[@thatotherandrew_]

@@Blutzen I'm getting progressively more and more confused now... is there an issue with that statement?

[@joshwizinsky1979]

The other thing that people dont realize that impresses the fuck out of me, is that these old ass games use whats called "Trackers" to program the music, which means, you have to INPUT EVERY NOTE, BY TYPING IT UP, BY FUCKING HAND, to come up with this shit, truly incredible

[@LavaCreeperPeople]

Yup

[@blknmild]

TIM FOLIN!! Thank You! You can do a WHOLE SERIES on his music!

[@ExperimentIV]

oh god yeah that solstice intro is INCREDIBLE. god i love to hear arpeggios like those ones at the intro. so so sick

[@yamer_hammer]

fun fact, the Treasure Master song is just a cover of the theme song for a TV show called "Starsky and Hutch" and one of Tim's last projects he did was the soundtrack to the PS2 game of Starsky and Hutch! also please be sure in the next video to give credit to Tim's brother Geoff Follin, he pulled allot of weight as well!

[@radiantxpdd]

As someone who grew up with this kind of music and has been making it for thirty years now, this was a great watch! The term most commonly used for the technique you describe is "arpeggio" rather than "tremolo", but I can see where tremolo is coming from. Tim is a genius indeed! Not least because like most early video game musicians (at least the ones here in Europe) he had to invent and program all the software techniques himself; there weren't any readily available tools to make this kind of music until later.

[@IgnizStudios]

One thing that has always surprised me from mr Follins' tracks, apart from the complex compositions, is the drum lines. They sound so solid... it almost feels like it was sampled... in a chip that had no such functions. Is always a nice treat to hear some good Tim Follins tracks.

[@illusorywall]

Man, seeing this made my day. I've been enjoying your videos for a while now, and the comments you were reacting to are from my upload of the Pictionary soundtrack (on my old channel explod2A03)! Seeing you get a laugh out of the comments that flooded my inbox all those years ago was incredible. Where do I begin with Tim Follin? His music is incredible and his mastery of limited sound hardware was incredibly impressive. Another great moment from the Treasure Master soundtrack can be found in the "Microchip" levels, it features two different sections that cross-fade, fading into a newer section that's in a different time signature. It's incredibly jarring and weird, and I literally cannot name a single other NES/ Famicom tune that attempted a similar kind of cross-fade within a single track. It's almost certainly the only time that's happened, most sound engines for NES games probably weren't designed to even handle something like that. And as a drummer, the beat that it transitions to is incredibly sick and entertaining to me as well. I love how the intro to Solstice starts so basic and then erupts with a colorful explosion of sounds. It's almost mocking your expectations, making you think it's going to sound really simple at first. The BGM theme does neat stuff with the noise channel too, where it mimics a triangle (the percussion instrument, not the waveform). Noise is what usually makes your typical drum/ percussion sounds on the NES (though they can be made by other things too), like short snippets of static on an old CRT. However, you can't really make something that sounds like a triangle out of that, right? So to do that he switches to a much lesser-used "periodic noise" setting for the noise channel, which can get "scratchier" and pitchier sounds out of it. The Mega Man 6 intro also used this method to attempt a triangle or something like that, but it was an otherwise incredibly rare sound design technique that almost no one else ever did. Something else worth gushing about in the sound design is how beefy the drums sound. There's a low end to them that you can't get out of just using the noise channel; He doubles up bass drum and snare hits with the triangle channel. But the triangle channel is mostly used for basslines, so how can you have drum sounds and basslines in a single channel at the same time? Well, just have the drums interrupt the bassline! Let's say you have both a kick drum and a note that are both supposed to hit on the downbeat of a measure. They can't actually play at the same time, so it'll attack with a downwards pitch bend for the kick drum sound, and then snap back to and sustain on whatever normal note is actually supposed to be played. This means a lot of the basslines are slightly behind in time in a way, but it's very quick and works pretty seamlessly to our ears. But if you isolate the sound channel and slow it down, it sounds INCREDIBLY jank. It's really neat. I could gush on and on about Tim Follin and video game music in general. I've been enjoying all of your non-VG-related music reactions and breakdowns as well, but seeing these two worlds collide has been great. If you ever have any questions about particular sound design tricks in retro games please reach out, and I would be more than happy to dump all the weirdly impressive and lesser-known retro VGM I can think of on you if you're ever looking for more. :)

[@neothunderx]

Wow, your old channel hosts Ecco the tides of tube ost and that soundtrack is what inspired me to learn the ym2612 chip so I could write video game music! I love your comment also, it's very nice to see and hear people so fondly speaking of old chiptunes!

[@illusorywall]

@@neothunderx Oh wow, I'm happy to hear that! I've never actually made any Sega Genesis music myself but when the sound is used well it hits a sweet spot that I personally prefer over SNES audio. Not that there aren't a lot of great SNES soundtracks that I also love, but the Genesis/MD at its peak is something special.

[@Moshugaani]

One of the major reasons why NES music was so limited and why the songs are usually very short loops is because of memory limitations. Not only is it a banger composition, that Solstice theme song is extremely impressive for how long and complex it is!

[@SaltPyramids]

heard a lot of Tim's work on this that i had never heard before. thanks for sharing!!

[@GUNUFofficial]

Tim and geoff are legends. The 3rd follin brother, mike, is now an ordained priest and geoff is now a teacher btw.

[@sharkembark4784]

The Follin Bros always tear it up! Plok!’s “Akryllic” is one of my favorite songs of all time. Such a gorgeous composition!

[@waynetastic1746]

This, and Rob Hubbard (Who made the _"Monty On The Run"_ theme), absolute legends whose work is severely underrated!

[@Janteslov]

Rob Hubbard did "monty on the run" and a LOT of other great chiptunes.

[@waynetastic1746]

@@Janteslov That's who it was, thanks!

[@facundopetrolo1999]

Tim is a national treasure. When you have time, check the OST of the silver surfer nes game. It's freaking crazy. Thanks for another fantastic video!

[@cueball981]

So glad you talked about Solstice! I was thinking about this exact game when I saw your video pop up in my feed.

[@bfish89ryuhayabusa]

So glad to see you highlight Solstice! I enjoyed everything about that game growing up. Reading the little story in the manual (which doesn't really get conveyed in game), exploring the castlegrounds, the atmosphere, and of course, the music. There were days in high school when I would turn on the NES just to listen to that title theme before going to school. Definitely got some notes on this: It was common to use the sample (5th) channel for punchier percussion rather than just the noise channel (unless you're Sunsoft), but Tim never used it at all. He figured out how to add punch with the triangle channel while still maintaining the bassline on that same channel. The bass very briefly drops out on each "snare" and "kick" hit and comes back in, but when you hear it together, you can't tell. Tim was programming this stuff as numbers, thinking only about the intervals and harmonies individually. This allowed him to think more chromatically than he would have done using anything resembling an instrument. He has commented that Solstice should actually be heard at the slower PAL speed. That Treasure Master theme is loosely the Starsky and Hutch theme. And what was one of the last games he worked on before changing careers? Starsky and Hutch. I'm excited for you to dig into his earlier stuff, which is technically absurd and musically awesome, but don't sleep on his later stuff. Plok, Equinox, Gauntlet III, and the gorgeous Dreamcast Ecco the Dolphin game all have incredible music.

[@karalouise18]

Seconded on his Ecco the Dolphin soundtrack. Perils of the Coral Reef sounds like musical waves.

[@udance4ever]

OMG! I love ecco & Dreamcast was so beyond its time - why didn't it occur to me SEGA would take this franchise to Dreamcast? 🐬

[@VersusMe101]

We gotta talk about Plok sometime. The boss theme alone is legendary.

[@MarioKartSuperCircuit]

The beach theme cooked though

[@Ravenpaw1313]

Holy cow, these are SO impressive! I've heard them before either playing these games myself or watching reviews on them, etc. But now I can REALLY appreciate these amazing soundtracks in a whole new way! The absolute creativity in these is so amazing! It definitely supports the whole: limitations breed inovation idea!

[@josemarti7487]

Bach:"Hold my NES beep thingy!"😅😅😅

[@eoin4529]

I had that solstice theme as my alarm for some time, it starts off calm to give me a chance to wake up / get up by myself. And if I try to ignore it, it goes nuts and amps all the way up, gets me pumped and hyped for the day.

[@udance4ever]

lol I LOVE it! 🎸

[@Donmeister85]

Terrific idea!

[@Bane_Amesta]

Most of the time is not really a good idea to use music you like as an alarm, but I can see your logic and hmmm 🤔 👀 Interesting idea, ngl

[@sk8bit]

Fun fact, the tremello effect you're pointing out is actually shifting the pulse channel width back and forth like an arpeggio. So the overall frequency stays the same, but the square wave shape changes quickly. It's the classic 'chiptune' sound. Love that you are showing off this sick music 👍

[@Plasmariel]

it's not, in Tim's case he rarely used quick cycle switches, much more note arpeggios, I rarely heard even an instance of pulse width switch in a Follin tune because he was extremely entitled to make tracks with defined textures for each instrument instead of all making them sound the same. A big issue I have with modern chiptuners is precisely that overuse of cycle switches.

[@chloesmith4065]

Glad you're hearing this and sharing it with people. These are phenomenal soundtracks. All of Tim Follin's work is amazing, you should check out his other games too... What he managed to accomplish with such limitations of the soundchips he worked with is nothing short of a technical miracle. I stronfly suggest you look up the title music for "Chronos" for the ZX Spectrum. And then compare it to other zx spectrum "music" and be blown away that he did this on a 1-bit beeper / pc speaker that has only toggles for "on" and "off" In fact, that theme was eventually sampled in a Deadmau5 track...

[@Priz80]

Charles I'm so happy you introducing people to this amazing, but fairly unknown part of the music culture as video game music, and Follin brothers in particular. Thanks man ! You doing an amazing job ! Video game music has so much good tunes and talented composers that SHOULD BE KNOWN !!! Thanks again buddy ! HOORAY !

[@ExperimentIV]

can’t wait until you drop a video about the 1-bit ZX Spectrum music work he did. Absolutely incredible

[@chaxinitus]

Guy got Lead, Rhythm, Bass, and Drums out of a single goddamn channel

[@gedbyrne8482]

Alistair Bimble did an excellent cover of Agent X and Chronos on his Spectrum Works albums. Spot on cover using real instruments.

[@suburbanindie]

Charles. This is one of my favorite chiptune composers, you've done him great justice. I'm so happy you covered him, I feel like he's a bit on the obscure side considering none of his games were true hits. Of note, the Maniac Mansion soundtrack is quite amazing on NES. Of course the best music in video game history (in my opinion) is PlayStation era Final Fantasy. Cheers my dude, thanks for making my childhood smile

[@vorpalmachine1504]

So excited for you to do more Tim follin! Has to be my favorite videogame composer of all time.

[@Nomenloony]

Tim Follins' Agent X music was epic! Remember my mind being blown when I heard it back in the day. 5 channel music on a beeper.

[@ExperimentIV]

so the NES is using 2 square waves, a triangle wave, and a noise channel (plus the optional sample channel). i’d say he was pretty talented to get all the sounds he did out of it. a modern NES composer i like is FearofDark - you should definitely check his stuff out!

[@esmooth919]

I would also suggest Jake Kaufman. From the FX series all the way to Shovel Knight

[@picori.]

also think charles would love button masher /jake silverman

[@proxmbeats]

fearofdark is awesome! glad i could find another fan of his :)

[@Sauraen]

fearofdark for the win!

[@esmooth919]

Yeah, man. FearOfDark is an awesome composer. I have their Coffee Zone album on my phone

[@44tmr]

Solstice sounds like an 8-bit Yes track, and Treasure Master could easily be a Jethro Tull track. The prog rock influence here is palpable. Incredible. EDIT: WOW. I just did about 30 seconds of digging, and sure enough, Follin credits Yes and Jethro Tull as his two biggest musical inspirations. He captured their sound beautifully!

[@JohnnyAndTheUniverse]

This Solstice progression is featured prominently on Tales From Topographic Oceans

[@limonade2684]

Treasure Master is in 17/8!

[@Plasmariel]

That Treasure Master theme is quite literally the Starsky & Hutch theme which is a show Tim was a fan of

[@reshpeck]

At 7:31 in the video I was like, yeah, no question about it, this guy listens to Yes. Tales From Topographic Oceans is accurate but it sounds more Gates of Delirium to me

[@Plasmariel]

@@reshpeck Really? Gates of Delirium is my fav Yes track, but Solstice is much more inspired by The Remembering, Close to the Edge and Awaken than Gates

[@ClearComplexity]

He's able to get that much out of the available hardware because that was the era when the musicians were usually hardware/software engineers first that then composed the music. Even if it were second, you had to understand the hardware you were using at the lowest level and how to interact with it mathematically through programming (usually assembly to save space if we're talking early 8-bit consoles/home computers) to get the closest to what you want. Later on we got trackers that put out a more "universal" format and eventually got MIDI after that. Point is, when you're that close to the hardware and have such a great understanding, that's where you get the early demo scene and crack tunes before it (and still as kind of a tradition/homage with keygen midi tracks). Sound and video most people didn't think was possible for the hardware used. Demos are a treasure trove of insane optimization and skill/knowledge.

[@RASbit]

It's nice to know who composed those master pieces. My first exposure to Tim's music was through Silver Surfer on NES. Tim's music is fascinating but it appears there's talent everywhere, your ability to play by ear is just as amazing. :)

[@chrisjamesr77]

Wow, I haven't thought about Solstice in YEARS! That was one my favorite NES games as a kid back in the day. Of course at the time I didn't even realize the music was INSANE lol

[@hobbified]

Tim worked a lot on the Speccy and the C64 before the NES, and they both had 3-voice sound chips (the SID was awesome, but still just 3 voices). What people learned working with those chips was to arpeggiate the crap out of everything. You can't do much with straightforward chords, you'd be using your entire sound capability just to play a triad. But you can outline a chord on a single voice while another one gets the melody and a third maybe splits its time between countermelody and percussion. Works especially well if you use the chip's sequencer-like capability to alternate between notes at inhuman speeds.

[@Efreeti]

I could immediately tell that was a Tim or Geoff track. The Follin brothers are legendary. Tim was also behind the amazing horror game At Dead of Night!

[@JimboJammy]

I enjoy going down the Follin rabbit hole from time to time. Absolute genius!

[@blueberry1c2]

One of my favourite tricks of his is to have the bassline and drum kicks on the same channel (the NES' incredibly stairsteppy triangle wave) and it's completely unnoticeable

[@nicktomato7]

it sounds like basically sidechaining lol ahead of his time

[@taitano12]

I think I remember a friend that worked for Nintendo America saying that Tim had a few keyboards that had that sound chip in them in his studio to play with the sounds the chips were capable of. Each keyboard had to be programmed with an available sound, recorded to a standard mixer used by recording studios in order to layer the sound. If something wasn't quite right, he would have to figure out which of the four tracks to change and how to do it. The combination of musical and programming talent that goes into making four tracks sound like sixteen or more is astounding. You have to know how to make the sounds resonate so that they multiply by adding just the right offset and delay. Then be able to program those parameters into the keyboard BEFORE playing the music. The right sound on two keyboards with just the right tweak can amplify and multiply that sound exponentially. Which also means knowing the maths behind the whole thing. I am in awe of all those videogame music programmers, and Tim rises above the rest of them with VERY few that one could call peers.

[@DelatoDarion]

Tim Follins was a mad man, in the best way possible. Also, I very much enjoyed your reactions to his incredible jams~ You earned a follower! :)

[@wkmr]

The detuned sound at 00:10 is pretty cool. You know the NES has two PWM wave channels. This sound is achieved by playing the same melody on both at once, same PWM, same octave, just one a little detuned from the other. A neat way to expand your sound vocabulary beyond the typical suite the NES gives you.

[@tomburns7544]

It's always so nice to discover people doing WAY more than they need to do (in any discipline, not just music) to get the job done. It's also nice when people with the technical knowledge like yourself to show it. Thank you, Charles.

[@cooldebt]

Until I discovered The Consouls I never noticed how clever (especially 90s) vgm is - I went back and listened to all of the OSTs after hearing the covers

[@shinyplaid]

Wow. I didn't know about Tim Follin or Pictionary, but the Solstice theme is one of my all-time favorite pieces of music. It's nuts.

[@SNMG7664]

This last few weeks I have seen three videos of people discovering this music I have been loving for years! It's been great!

[@Scizyr]

Man it's great to see such excitement from someone discovering Tim Follin's music, especially someone like Charles who can dissasemble and truly appreciate the work involved. I can't wait until Charles discovers the mighty Jochen Hippel and his work with the Amiga. :D

[@kickasskris]

You seriously should do a video on SNES f-zero soundtrack if you haven’t already. They hired an actual jazz composer, recorded an album, and then did their best to emulate the sound in 16-bit. Nailed it in a lot of ways too. One of the best rabbit holes I ever explored.

[@anthonybird546]

oh man I absolutely loved that soundtrack, but reading that made it all click into place

[@mortimerreed]

I'd tune in to hear that

[@kickasskris]

Found the link to the actual f-zero jazz record: kzbin.info/www/bejne/eZyYfmyZhpdle7csi=jfloJ-nOwkRUHEbv Enjoy!

[@mikosoft]

That Solstice theme is BEAUTIFUL! It reminds me of Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis soundtrack in how it changes although the Fate of Atlantis soundtrack is actually dynamic and changes and crossfades as the game progresses. You may actually want to have a look at that game soundtrack, some nice interpolations on Indy theme and original compositions.

[@SebastianWeinberg]

The first Tim Follin tune that blew me away was the one for _Bionic Commando_ on the C=64, back in 1988! Well… maybe not that one track that was just rhythmic but intentionally dissonant clanging and shooting - but the actual _music_ tracks… man! I'm listening to it again right now.

[@Symmetriad]

Guys like Tim Follin, Rob Hubbard and their contemporaries had to be amazingly talented programmers as well as musicians to be able to do so much with those hardware limitations. The NES was limited to two square waves, a triangle wave, a noise channel and a seldom-used PCM sample channel, but there are lots of tricks you can do within those limitations - complex envelopes, modulating the duty cycle on the square waves (basically pulsewidth modulation), using a channel for multiple "instruments", and so forth. The rapid arpeggiation you mentioned to create the impression of chords is a long-standing trick in old video game music and early trackers. These guys don't get nearly enough credit for how mindblowing and influential their work is. Also, NOBODY can make the NES sound like a good guitar riff like Follin. Check out his work on Silver Surfer!

[@SomethingWellesian]

7:16 that trick of rapidly alternating two notes to create chords on a single channel was very popular with American and European game composers at the time, but oddly it never caught on in Japan. Tim Follin knew every trick in the book, and was an expert at all of them, including the ones he invented.

[@maryhearn692]

Heyyy, wait a sec... that's exactly what I've done with a few midi files for playing music in FFXIV, with its Bard Performance mode. It's limited to only 1 note being pressed at a time, just due to limitations of the game being an mmorpg and whatnot - because of that it's common for people to do groups of multiple bards (free trial version has access, so 1 person with multiple accounts), but I've always done solo, and this was my workaround.

[@tatsujincorp]

There are some rare exceptions for example in Magical Chase for the PC Engine.

[@awesomereviews1561]

Can’t wait for this guy to find out about Super Castlevania IV…

[@ExplodoPantsuit]

Solstice intro has big time Yes influence. Very Wakeman/Howe lines, ripped off from Tales of Topographic Oceans and Relayer. There's a riff lifted from a Focus track in there too. I love it as an independent piece of music, regardless of its origin as a game soundtrack. This era of chiptune music primed me for loving prog.

[@jessicapinto3817]

video game music from that time was out of this world. I still find links between new songs that I instantly love and the parallels I can draw with C64 music, which is what we had as kids (I actually still have it). Haven't heard these beauties before but Solstice is going on the list! Awesome work Tim Follins!

[@v-1nce]

this was me discovering Rob Hubbard around a year ago 😄 it's wild the pioneering composition/arrangement work a handful of folks were doing 30-40 years ago, and how well it holds up still. thanks for the intro to Tim's work!

[@VGMFan20XX]

Keep the game music love coming! So many amazing tracks people have yet to discover :) Also, Tim….. bro….. it’s just Pictionary 😂

[@ezmo55]

I've been waiting for this composer to make an appearance on your channel, especially knowing how much Charles loves prog. Shout out to his brother Geoff Follin too.

[@Bakamoichigei]

I cannot even fathom how that Solstice intro could even be _possible_ with the NES' audio capabilities...but I know damn well I've gotta have a copy. 🤩👍 I've got an NES again for the first time since the 1990s...and it needs more games! 😌