The Making of Turrican's Music - Chris Huelsbeck Interview (VGM Legend)

[@Arcade_Adriano]

The Making of Turrican's Music - Chris Huelsbeck Interview (VGM Legend)

What are your memories of the Turrican games? How amazing was the music? Chris Huelsbeck is a true VGM legend and helped establish Turrican as one of best action platformers of the 90s. Enjoy this fun interview where Chris reflects on his amazing career:

[ Show youtube player ]

[TCD]

There's a reason why Turrican 2 has a music menu that isn't very hidden

[Adropac2]

probably like a lot of Amiga users I used to listen to Chris Huelsbeck as it was the bar of excellence and gave you something to aim for. Previously to this it was mostly Rob Hubbard I would listen to and the two defined tune and structure better than I think any other, despite other wonderful artists too at the time of course. Helped shaped many I'm sure and when you still listen to the stuff, you know it's great work

A very interesting interview thanks

[TuRRIcaNEd]

Originally Posted by TCD

There's a reason why Turrican 2 has a music menu that isn't very hidden

Well yes, it was how you accessed the cheat mode!

All joking aside - as I just mentioned in another thread, I was nerdy enough to rescue what was left of my family's old hi-fi from the garage, hauled it up to my bedroom and hooked it up to my A500. I have no idea how many hours I spent listening to the music via that menu (and for extra nerd points, noticed a few puns in the music titles that only worked with German pronunciation [e.g. "Check The Gripper"]).


I have no problem metaphorically dying on this hill, but I still maintain that the intro/attract mode music of Turrican II is one of the greatest pieces of video game music there has ever been :

[ Show youtube player ]

Over and above the fact that Chris very smartly adapted Jochen Hippel's ST software sample playback routine to give Paula seven channels [unlike Oktalyzer or OctaMED's approach, it only reduced the sample resolution on a single channel (which Chris mostly used for drums, percussion and bass) and kept CPU overhead to a minimum], in terms of composition and artistry it arguably stands alone up until that point in time - it ties in perfectly with the illustrated backstory.

[EDIT : I reckon it's also important to note that Chris's intro music for the original C64 Turrican was for the most part a note-for-note remake of Vince DiCola's "Escape" cue from "Transformers : The Movie". That cue appears at the first crucial plot point of the story - when Prime and Megatron are both clearly seriously injured (Megatron, who has always taken pride in never having to ask for anything, practically has to beg Soundwave to take him from the battlefield). Point being, within a year, Chris has figured out why that music cue works as well as it did, and arguably came up with something better on his own. ]