28 Facts About Tim Follin

Tim Follin ended up in video games due to his older brother Mike Tim Follin learning how to program for the ZX Spectrum and obtaining professional work at Insight.

Tim Follin then developed a three-channel sound routine which he used to create the music for his third soundtrack, Vectron.

Tim Follin then went on to create 4- and 5-channel music for games such as Chronos and Agent X In his early career, Follin's music was praised in magazine game reviews.

Tim Follin wrote the music for Black Lamp in one night after a bout of writer's block.

Tim Follin described the NES title Solstice as "a very inspiring game to do music for," demanding atmospheric music within the game's dark castle environment, as well as powerful music choreographed with the title sequence.

Tim Follin would spend the remainder of his video game career as a freelancer.

Tim Follin joined the development team of Ecco the Dolphin: Defender of the Future as the title's lead composer around mid-1998, leaving Attila Heger no longer responsible for providing the entirety of the soundtrack.

Around August 2005, Tim Follin announced on his website "with much delight" that he had chosen to stop composing music for video games, citing its irregular work not providing a substantial income, light-heartedly adding that the situation caused him "distress and illness".

The tenuous nature of game development caused several instances of Tim Follin being hired and subsequently having the project shelved.

Towards the end of 2012 Tim Follin decided to dust off an idea originally conceived as an interactive audio adventure game and reworked the concept as a video-based adventure game called Contradiction, which he designed and scripted, then filmed and programmed, composing the game's soundtrack.

Much like his brothers, Tim Follin has changed careers, choosing to pursue films, television advertising, graphic design, visual effects and game design.

Tim Follin never considered himself a gamer as much as a musician or developer.

Tim Follin's website offers a brief overview of his video game music career.

Rather, Tim Follin believed game music was "more of a sort of atmospheric thing" and had "always written music to be part of something else", intending for the video game to provide the image or scene of context.

Whether dealing with the audio limitations of older consoles or a game's narrow style guidelines when composing for modern soundtracks, Tim Follin regarded the challenge of creating music within constraints to be an interesting part of working in video game music.

Tim Follin cited progressive rock as well as many musicians as having had some casual or subconscious influence on his music, and has enjoyed music by Deep Purple and Guns N' Roses.

Tim Follin acknowledged that in one instance he went for a more contemporary style when scoring the award-winning soundtrack to Bionic Commando, actively choosing to mimic other people's music for fear of potentially losing his job.

Particularly in the earlier days of his career, Tim Follin often composed game soundtracks while the games themselves were still in the writing stages, meaning that there was usually no frame of reference or genre objective in mind.

Back then, Tim Follin instead focused on exploring the various consoles' audio limitations.

Outside of Ghouls'n Ghosts however, Tim Follin later described his Commodore 64 work as nonsense that he was not particularly happy with.

Tim Follin noted Ghouls'n Ghosts on the Commodore 64 as his favourite work, though the game was a known entity, unlike many of Tim Follin's early projects.

Software Creations programmer Steve Ruddy, who created the music driver for the game recalled Tim Follin describing a wide array of imagery for the title theme.

Tim Follin disliked working with the Atari ST and the ZX Spectrum's AY chip, feeling the NES had more character.

Tim Follin described writing for the C64's SID chip as "playing an instrument in its own right", appreciating the analogue sound it produced, despite having only three channels to work with.

Several contemporaries of Tim Follin's have cited him as an inspiration or top composer including Richard Jacques, Jesper Kyd, David Wise, Frederic Motte, Markus Schneider, Matt "Gasman" Westcott, Ramiro "Extremer" Vaca, graphic artist Haydn Dalton, and programmer Dean Belfield.

Tim Follin has written, directed, produced, and composed for two short films: Body Counting and The Sun Circle.

Since semi-retiring from video game music composition, Tim Follin has gone on to work in the television industry, working as director of photography for TV ads and dramas, as well as creating graphics, CGI, and music for commercials.

Tim Follin has expressed that he does not use recreational drugs, perhaps counter to inferences made by fans of his music.