Rob Hubbard
You remember this? It was the title theme to... and we just don't know, because the tape was not entirely clear on this point, since it was high pitched and echoey. But we do know it's Rob... enjoy the nostalgia!
Auf Wiedersehen Monty - by the Dead Guys
One word: outrageous!
Chimera High Score - by Makke (XM)
A dancified High Score? Sure is... gets that Hubbard hiccuping and a cool guy into the same song... drumriffic.
Chimera Title Theme - by Chris Abbott
Originally, this was supposed to be on Back in Time 2. Why wasn't it? Partially because it became a bit uncontrollable (listen to how compressed it is), and partially because beta-testers felt uneasy about the mix between SID sounds (no SID here, BTW, it's all Supernova) and real stuff. It just didn't gel for some. I put a lot of effort into this though. Enjoy!
Hehe... MayBeBop are excellent. The story goes that MayBeBop are a famous vocal group, and they were hired to perform at the "Mekka Symposium"... these are recordings from that. I wouldn't want to have been the hiccuping guy, that's for certain!
Confuzion Title Theme - by Chris Abbott
An obscure game from Incentive Software, and one of Rob's really early pieces. I first heard it in a demo that was merely a screen with the tunes from Thing on a Spring, Action Biker and Confuzion. When you had an Action Replay cartridge in, and pressed Run/Stop the music sped up! It was also unique in that in quitting the game, it gives you Rob Hubbard's phone number! True! Here's the proof...
Crazy Comets - by the Dead Guys
Everything you've come to expect from the Dead Guys, including obscure vocoding, echoey house drums, and hints of the original tune here and there... Did you know Warner Bros. own the rights to this? They "bought" the rights in 1986, but never did anything with it.
Peter did this in 96 before joining Core Design as a tribute to Rob (he actually went round to his house while they both lived in Newcastle: he was out!)... a straight version of the tune we know and love.
A spirited rendition that was originally an XM, but recorded here just as the arranger thinks it should be heard: played through a decent XM player!
Delta Evolution (Hi Energy Version) - by the Sound Wavers
A mixture of cool beatz and the Delta we know and love. A possible dance floor hit...?
Delta In-game - by Marcel Donne
Here Marcel bravely attempts the whole tune. Way to go Marcel!
Dragon's Lair 2 is sometimes overlooked, but is amazing music, very atmospheric. Almost Spellbound-esque, with occasional similarities to Nemesis the Warlock. The first tune is a cover, of course. This cover is not.
Echoes of the Master - by Makke
A megamix of IK+ and Commando.
Makke and friends.... (Makke
is the one with the "hacker" T-shirt in front of the Swedish flag.
And is that Stefan Edberg second from the left? Nah... can't be... ;)
email: makke@trebel.org
http://listen.to/makke
Flash Gordon - by Marcel Donne
A segment, rather than the whole piece, but still the best version I've heard (actually, the only version I've heard!!)... the whole tune is surprisingly symphonic.
The Sherlock Holmes Collection
If you remember the Back in Time 1 CD-ROM, the Electronic Arts sampler had two tunes from Rob that came from the 1994/5 EA game "Holmes". This is the rest of the suite, kindly made available by Rob. These are in Mono, since that's how they were originally done (the stereo version on BIT 1 were recomposed for the EA sampler).
Holmes - Watson Distracts Manager
Human Race tune 4 - a Ferrara special!
Another ambitious tune to cover (strange that two came along at once, although Scorps' has been around for a time in its original XM form).
Knucklebusters - by Marcel Donne
Another brave cover by Marcel Donne. As Marcel says, some of his covers were more successful than others, primarily depending on what stage he was at when he did it. This one makes some lead mistakes, and is slightly earlier work. Still inspirational though.
Analog synths abound here in a version which (due to the evolution of my Lightforces) is now much closer to the original than mine.
Lightforce 2000 - by Chris Abbott
This is the last Lightforce you'll hear from me, and represents the Industrial side of the tune. As Rob commented himself that the rhythm in the original was good (he thought the rest wasn't), the rhythm is what has been worked on here. Plus the normal melange of analog synths in the C64Audio studio. Encoded at 256kbps.
Mega Apocalypse - by the Sound Wavers
Now here's something new: who's been listening to "Cher" then, eh? I have to say that the beginning is an awesome take: where DID they get that woman singing the Mega Apocalypse notes. The rest is good, but unfortunately can't live up to the beginning: my recommendation would have been to stray _further_ away from the original, because it's obvious they've got something, but in a sense, they've created a completely different piece of music from Mega Apocalypse, which deserves further development.
Monty on the Run High Score - by Marcel Donne
Poweful rendition of this popular piece by Marcel. I was surprised at how full-sounding this was. Vibrant...
A well done example of the "thrash drum" SID remake, though not quite my cup of tea. Very very fast, and considering the original, that's going some!!
One of Rob's "forgotten" tunes, it's a nice oriental romp. Probably if Rob had done "Last Ninja", it would have sounded a bit like this! Scorp's version is very nice, with all the blips you'd expect. Nice to hear an unusual tune like this get covered so well...
One Man and his Droid - by Marcel Donne
One of Marcel's earlier covers: nice, but tame.
Some interesting history behind this one: the original Spectrum version was written by Clive Brooker (clive@autolaunch.freeserve.co.uk), and was converted exactly to the C64. Clive found Rob's music awesome when he heard it. He also turned down the opportunity to be on the Spectrum Flash Gordon development team...
Shockwave
In 1994, the 3DO was a viable entertainment machine. EA released a futuristic
game called "Shockwave", music by a certain "Mr Rob Hubbard".
Here is it, courtesy of Rob himself. It was originally in AIFF format.
Spellbound - by Scorpion/Passion
Make no mistake: Spellbound is a hugely difficult tune to cover. Kudos, Scorpy baby!
80s electro style? Sort of. This is the final tune I made for the CD-ROM. Much underrated, it was always an attractive piece for me, the staccato bass and drums really putting some punch into this. Here I replaced the warbling filter with a warbling-type filtered sync voice, but I'm pleased with how I captured the essential choppiness.
Thalamusik - The original tape
You know what to expect. This allows you to compare the original with my remake. MP3 appears courtesy of Waz 'n Kenz, who both sent copies to me! This one is the one cleaned up by Kenz. 256kbps, 11Mb download, eek!
Thalamusik - the Ferrara mix (XM)
It's Jarre meets Star! What can I say: so French it could easily win the soccer world cup! Excellent rendition in soft focus. Wonderful.
The Last V8: a fast tune? You'd have thought so, but Trace has other ideas. Trace is very good at turning pieces on their head, and here is another example. You've never heard Last V8 like this before... but it works!
Who's brave enough to tackle one of Rob's hardest pieces? Stand up Boz! An excellent rendition with all the SFX of the original. It's a very difficult piece to cover because it's a strange mixture of SID weirdness, more or less unreplicable on any other source, and parts which should really be played by real people, a la Stoat and Tim.
Warhawk - the Ferrara Mix! (XM)