Tim Follin
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Tim Follin is an English composer and sound designer. He is the younger brother of Geoff Follin, another popular video game musician, and Mike Follin. Tim is one of the most popular video game musicians. Some of his best known works include Ghouls 'N Ghosts, Plok, and Silver Surfer.
Tim did not have prior music training before starting his music career. He attended the Liverpool Sandown Music College, but dropped out after a year of studies. Mike gave Tim a brief tutorial on creating music on the Spectrum via machine code, and Tim later wrote the music driver and soundtrack for their first professional game, Subterranean Stryker.
Tim and Mike were then hired at Software Creations by co-founder Richard Kay. It was while working at this company where Geoff came along. Tim and Geoff composed the music to a vast majority of their video games, including all of their NES titles. During Software Creations' SNES and Genesis development, the Follins would usually compose the music to the SNES versions while Tony Williams converted their compositions to the Genesis.
Citing a declining work environment, the brothers and 2 other employees left Software Creations in 1994.
The Follins then joined Malibu Interactive. However, this only lasted 18 months due to the company filing for bankruptcy. While 3 games were made by the company, only Ultraverse Prime / Microcosm got released, with Time Trax and Firearm getting cancelled.
After Malibu's bankruptcy, Tim spent the rest of his career as a freelancer.
Tim often didn't pay attention to the games he did music for, and as a result, many of the soundtracks were unfitting to the game itself (Pictionary being a prime example). He said that if he were to do game music again, that he'd try to make the music more fitting to the game he worked on. Tim also isn't a big fan of his video game work, with the exception of Ghouls 'n Ghosts. He described his C64 work as nonsense he wasn't particularly happy with. However, he likes the SID chip, saying making music on it was "playing an instrument in its own right". Tim seemed to enjoy his music on SNES and onwards more.
Tim said that he isn't much of a gamer and just likes to compose music, his sole game programming credit (not counting music drivers) came with his fourth title, Future Games, where he created one minigame of the several featured.
Tim Follin's Game Boy / Game Boy Color music was sometimes arranged by Andy Brock.
Contents
Audio Development
Follin used drivers written by Stephen Ruddy for his early music on the Amstrad CPC, Atari ST, C64, Game Boy, Game Gear, Master System, NES, and ZX Spectrum. To utilize these drivers, Follin wrote the music in hexadecimal notation in assembly language. While Tim and Geoff did not program these drivers, they did get to design it.
Follin also explained in various interviews that he usually didn't get to see the game during development to get inspiration for music, so he just wrote what he wanted. In addition, Tim stated that he never composed music on instruments and solely typed in the hexadecimal notation in the sound drivers to compose his music. Tim said that this wasn't a problem for him, as he was familiar enough with the drivers to efficiently write music and sound. Tim said that this was because he could hear what the music sounded like in his head, so there was no need for an instrument.
Commodore 64
Tim Follin never saw a C64 until one of the bosses of Software Creations told him to have a go. Follin thinks he listened to one Rob Hubbard song before having that go. He was aware that the filter sounds different on every C64 and picked a specific one of the company's C64s out to test his music. Although the C64 became his favorite 8-bit, he never owned a C64 personally.
On Stage 1 - Agent X II: The Mad Prof's Back, he arranged in Ubik's Musik. Apart from that, he designed a music driver which Stephen Ruddy implemented, and arranged songs by typing on an Einstein computer.
Game Boy
For his Game Boy music with Software Creations, Follin would use the aforementioned method of writing music in Z80 assembly in Stephen Ruddy's sound driver which was designed by both of the Follin brothers.
For his music with Probe, Andy Brock would receive Follin's MIDI files and have to convert them into Probe's IMED sound driver by Edward Haynes.
Genesis
Tim Follin helped Dean Belfield to design and program a music driver. According to Tim, he arranged the music for Time Trax (GEN) in assembly. Unfortunately, this was the only game he ever composed on the Genesis, so the driver was never used again.
Tim also said the Genesis was his favorite console to work on because it had the right amount of limitations and sound variation, as well as the fact that he only composed one soundtrack for it.
NES
Tim used a sound driver programmed by Stephen Ruddy, which was designed by Tim and his brother Geoff. He programmed the music in hexadecimal on MS-DOS, and then the music was burned onto an NES cart for playback.
SNES
Tim switched to a sound driver written by Mike Webb (with assistance from Ruddy). Follin used an Ensoniq ASR-10 keyboard. He also said that guitars were recorded from actual guitars, and some of the bass guitars as well. Even at this time, Tim still had to write and program the music in hexadecimal. He also wrote on his Ensoniq and converted his sequenced files to the sound engine. He later ended up creating MIDI files in Cakewalk.
For his time with Probe Software, Tim would write MIDI files which were then given to Andy Brock to convert to their IMED sound driver.
Tim said in 1998 about the Batman Forever soundtrack:
ZX Spectrum
The loudspeaker driver is the only one Tim Follin programmed himself. It constantly mixes five pulse waves:
The aforementioned "switching the speaker" forms a pulse wave. The pulse width can be 25% maximum and indeed emulates a volume control. It is also constantly modulated to add decay and attack.
Between notes (i.e. during the aforementioned "jump out"), melodies cannot play, but drums can. Those rests and drums are so short that humans do not hear the rests and instead perceive the drums like an overdubbing sixth channel. As common on the Spectrum, half of the drums "misuse" the computer's built-in ROM as sound data.
In later versions, the "jump out" triggers more effects: portamento, snare drums on the AY-3-8912, echo, and chorus.
Gameography
Picture Gallery
Your Sinclair, August 1987.
Playing a Mandolin. Unknown source.
Edge, April 1994.
His website, 1998-12-07.
During the development of Solstice (NES).
Tim Follin's Facebook, 2024-06-03.
Dean Belfield's blog, 2024-06-22.
Aliases
In Rock 'N' Roll Racing and Troddlers, he is credited as Software Creations, the developer he worked for.
Links
- mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,56818/ - MobyGames.
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Follin - Wikipedia.
- w.atwiki.jp/gamemusicbest100/pages/309.html - AtWiki (in Japanese).
- linkedin.com/in/tim-follin-82969020/ - LinkedIn.
- vimeo.com/user21326665 - Vimeo.
- youtube.com/channel/UCOxd-q5A0YbDh0IyZu5tdHQ - YouTube.
- youtube.com/watch?v=894_PNqBkx4 - Video interview about Solstice (NES) from 1990.
- csdb.dk/release/?id=8763 - Commodore 64 disk interview from December 1990.
- web.archive.org/web/20021118161113/http://www.mono211.com/follindrome/interview1.html - Interview from 1998.
- web.archive.org/web/20021223070706/http://c64audio.valuehost.co.uk/edge/czone_follin.htm - Interview from 1998.
- web.archive.org/web/20030224044627/http://www.kdvs.org/6581SID/timfollin.html - Interview from 2000-03-04.
- youtube.com/watch?v=bQkicZOG-Z4 - Video interview from 2007-06-20, part 1.
- youtube.com/watch?v=EWjMd5JRclQ - Video interview from 2007-06-20, part 2.
- youtube.com/watch?v=XVHqWf7x9GA - Audio interview from 2015-07-19 (questions in German).
- youtube.com/watch?v=HdvXiG0t1eg - Video interview from 2019-10-12.
