Muzax 8, 3rd and final part – Turrican or Chris Huelsbeck’s music references

In the third and final part of Muzax, dedicated to Chris Huelsbeck, you will hear music from the games "The adventures of Quik and Silva", "Apidya", "Jim Power: In Mutant Planet" and "Turrican 3" as they appear on Amiga, Atari ST, Super Nintendo and on audio CD.

Listen to and download this podcast in MP3 format by clicking on this link. (comments in French)

Content of broadcast:
Welcome to Muzax, the video games music broadcast.

Let's continue to discover music composed by Chris Huelbeck.

Highly appreciated in the 80s and the 90s, digitalized voices show off the skills of the developer/musician and produce amazing sound effects.
The intro of "The adventures of Quik and Silva" on Amiga is an excellent illustration of the use of digitalized voices.
We are now listening to the music you hear during the game.

The first CD of Chris Huelsbeck, called "Shades", was published by "synSONIQ" in 1991. It is a best-of of his most famous hits including R-type, Turrican and Shades, of course.

Apidya, a very well-designed production, is released in 1992. It is also a shoot 'em up game and unexpectedly the player doesn't pilot a spaceship but a bumblebee.
The music of this game was played by a symphony orchestra during the « Symphonic Game Music Concert ».
This event has been taking place several times a year since 2003 in Leipzig, Germany.
Let's go right to the heart of the game.
Let's go to level 4 with a completely different style of music.
We can easily identify the 90s music style.

« Jim Power: In Mutant Planet » is published by « Loriciels », one of the most dynamic French companies in creating and publishing video games in the 80s and the 90s.
At that time, Loriciels published famous personal-computer games. But unfortunately, just after Jim Power release, the company went into liquidation because of a large outstanding payment from its American distributor.
Now listen to the Atari ST version.
The style is different but the adaptation remains faithful to the original version.

Chris also made console versions for PC-Engine, Super Nintendo, Sega Megadrive and PC
The third episode of Turrican is called "Super Turrican" on Super Nintendo and "Mega Turrican" on Megadrive. Fans put pressure on them to produce a version for Amega. It was released under the name "Turrican 3".

When the golden age of 16-bit computers such as Amiga and Atari ST had passed, video game companies decided to release their new games on the latest generations of consoles and PCs.
Let's go to the first level of Turrican on Super Nintendo.
Of course Chris follows this evolution and composes music for games published on these new machines.
He also composed film and show music and brought out several audio CDs of his most famous hits.
Listen to the music from the end of Turrican 3 on the CD version.

Since the age of 17, Chris has composed the music for over 70 games.
In 1998, he left Germany and followed the company Factor 5 to California where he composed several pieces of game music for them, including those for the Star Wars series.

This broadcast dedicated to Chris Huelsbeck is now over. Thanks for listening and tune in soon for a new episode of Muzax.

Muzax 8, part 2 – Turrican or Chris Huelsbeck’s music references

In the second part of Muzax dedicated to Chris Huelsbeck, you will hear music from the games Turrican, Z-out, Turrican II and Gem’X as they appear on the Amiga, the Atari ST, and the Commodore 64.

Listen to and download this podcast in MP3 format by clicking on this link. (comments in French)

Content of broadcast:
Welcome to Muzax, the video games music broadcast.

Let's continue to discover music written by Chris Huelbeck.

« Turrican » was published in 1990 by Rainbow Arts. This game was a real blockbuster. We are now listening to the intro music as it appears on the Amiga.
Chris doesn’t compose the music on every device; they are adapted by several musicians.

Let’s hear the conversion made on the Atari ST by his counterpart Jochen Hippel.
The result is surprising and shows that the Atari ST, despite poorer characteristics than the Amiga, has a potential that only passionate senior programmers can highlight.
Let’s go back to the Amiga version.

While waiting the game levels’ loading, the player can listen to the famous music of the loader.

We are now ready to enter the first level of the game.

Let’s continue with the Amiga version produced by Chris Huelsbeck.
The game consists in the exploration of huge levels which are infested with enemies and traps in order to find the exit and so go to the next level.
The player moves a soldier through 13 levels over 5 worlds.

Still in 1990, « Z-out » is released. It’s a shoot’em up game having the same characteristics as the famous “R-type”. Chris writes the introducing music of the game.

As Turrican had a great success, the episode 2 is released just one year later and Chris composes some of the best music he has ever written.
This second episode has technical characteristics even more impressing than the former episode. It has more colours, larger levels and more voices in the music, a nearly perfect multidirectional scrolling. It is not surprising that Turrican II is considered as one of the games the best completed.

Jochen Hippel is the creator of a routine on the Amiga called “Amiga 7 voice replay routine” that includes 7 voices simultaneously whereas this micro-computer has just 4 voices.
Chris reuse this technology in his own routine called « The Final Musicsystem eXtended » alias « TFMX », for intro and ending music of Turrican II.

Also developed on the Commodore 64, the music we are listening to is the one of the loader on this machine.

We are in the first level of the game listening to music in the Atari ST version adapted by Jochen one more time.
Let’s observe the versions from the Atari and the Amiga.

Chris produces in 1991 music for the game “Gem’X” on the Amiga, the Atari ST and the Commodore 64.
While listening to the music in C64 version, this second part dedicated to Chris Huelsbeck is finishing. Tune in soon for the next episode of Muzax!

Muzax 8, part 1 – Chris Huelsbeck’s music

The eighth broadcast of Muzax is part of the mini-series « Presentation of a famous videogame music composer ».

The pieces you will hear are composed or adapted by Chris Huelsbeck, a major composer in the videogame world.


In the first part of this broadcast, you will hear music from the demo of Shades and the games Bad Cat, The Great Giana Sisters, R-type, Grand Monster Slam and X-out on the Commodore 64 and the Amiga with a version by Machinae Supremacy.

Listen to and download this podcast in MP3 format by clicking on this link. (comments in French)

Content of broadcast:
Welcome to Muzax, the video games music broadcast.

Today we are going to discover the music of Chris Huelsbeck, a major composer in the videogame world.
“Shades”, his first composition on the Commodore 64, was the music which won him the competition organised in1986 by the German magazine “64’er” read by Commodore 64 fans. This was the beginning of a long career.

One year later, Chris has already composed music for 9 games. We are listening to “Bad Cat”.
Most of the sounds he uses are digitalized. These sound completely compared to the existing music on the Commodore 64 and provide a better sound quality.

One of his first big hits - the music for the game “The Great Giana Sisters” was released in 1987.
This game is very similar to the famous “Super Mario Bros game”. Too similar according to Nintendo who sued the game publisher Rainbow Arts and succeeded in banning its distribution outside Germany.
This tune/melody is used over and over. This is a cover version by the Swedish group “Machinae Supremacy”.
Despite being illegal, “The Great Giana Sisters” remains a reference in micro-computer games.

“R-type” is one of the most famous shoot’em up games and has been adapted for several consoles.
The arcade version has no music before the beginning of the game, that is to say when the title of the game appears and the player is asked to insert coins.
Chris is in charge of writing the intro music. We are listening to the Commodore 64 version.
He wrote another version for the Commodore Amiga in a completely different style.
The quality of the sounds he uses gives a real depth to the music. We can note through this composer’s various musical creations how important digitizing is to his creations.

Still in 1989, Chris writes the “Grand Monster Slam”.
This game is published by Rainbow Arts, one of the main companies he works for.

From the late 80’s, more and more video games have an animated sequence as an introduction to the game. Here is the intro music of “X-out”.
Progress made in micro-computer programming allows games to be more advanced in terms of the level of animation level but also terms of their graphics and music.
This requires a higher level of data storage and consequently it takes longer to load the game.
As a result some music is specially written to entertain the player while he is waiting.

Let’s listen to the X-out loader.
Used for short instants, this music is generally pretty repetitive.
As we listen to music from the 2nd level of this game, this first part dedicated to Chris Huelsbeck is coming to a close. Tune in soon for the next episode of Muzax!