Is Rob Hubbard overrated? What did he actually compose himself?

[eXeler0]

Sensitive topic I guess, with many fans maybe having varying opinion in this matter.
I speak for myself here however, so here goes.

Many of the famous Rob Hubbard tunes are *heavily* influenced by other people's work (ripped off I assume, not officially licensed, but please prove me wrong here)

Delta Intro, Ingame.. --> Original source: Philip Glass, Koyaanisqatsi
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(ingame inspiration at ~1.34 and forward) Delta Intro at 2.04 and forward..

International Karate --> David Sylivian & Sakamoto, Forbidden Colours
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Even the main notes in Monty On the Run were most likely inspired by Charles William's, Devil's Galopp
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Admittedly still a lot left to do with the Monty score which I will admit I love. He really performs magic with the SID chip there.. (For that alone he deserved cred.)

Ok, then we have other famous Hubbard songs were kind of "ports", like Commando was based on the Arcade but arguably much improved by Hubbard.

So he was technically very competent, no one is questioning that part, and he really proved over and over again that he knew how to push the SID to its limits, BUT, does he get too much cred as an artist?

I personally always favoured Jeroen Tel and IMO in retrospect he deserves more credit that hubbard for having both the technical knowlede AND the artistry to compose original tracks.

Opinion? And do you have other examples of stolen music (maybe from more obscure sources) where credit should go to the right people?

[Amigajay]

I always liked his Megadrive work, could always tell an EA game just from the music most of the time!

[jizmo]

Every musician borrows or gets inspired by other songs, either intentionally or by accident.

I've gathered quite a lot of these straight loans and samples to a thread here in EAB - if I was to add a section of songs that were merely inspired by or ones that sound like other songs, the list would go on and on.

In my book Hubbard is all good.

[Predseda]

Hm, the same you could say about Richard Joseph for example. Rob Hubbard was excellent in bringing SID to its limits, thats his major value.

[kamelito]

Rob is the best regarding C64, he often talked about it’s inspirations during interviews, nothing hidden here.

[Predseda]

And so the flamewar was born :-)

[gimbal]

EAB: where you can be called overrated and a hack 25-30 years after the fact I'm sure Ron will travel back in time so he can do better.

Why the SID chip needs to go down in flames along with him I don't know, it did its job and the C64 wouldn't have been as memorable without it.

[cv643d]

I think he is good but JT is slightly better.

[saimon69]

with the time i realized Amigans somehow have a bit of superiority complex, especially on audio: me too was victim of it when was younger, and despised some games that did sound like chiptunes, however lately i rediscovered the cleanliness of some chip sounds and used it in lot of soundtracks - especially the ones that need to go with limited RAM - Bomb Jack Beer edition rendition of the track has been bashed on some facebook groups (the italian arcadian comes to mind) but did you know that thanks to microsamples was able to cram all interactions per level in a 50k mod? And in TWO channels? So now am working to bring musics to three because the upsetness

And btw drums there are microsamples too, using a very tiny loop of white noise and modulate it with tracker effects

[nobody]

Originally Posted by Foebane

Maybe it SHOULDN'T have been. It's vastly, VASTLY overrated as it is.

Aren't you the guy that says that Atari 8bit is better than a C64, and all C64 games run sluggish?

[chip]

I really love thanatos.ma, an Amiga conversion from C64 SID by Rob Hubbard

[Shoonay]

Are painters "stealing the appearance" or "getting influenced by" objects/people they paint?
No, they's just using the tools they have to recreate them the way they can.

When it comes to music there are only so many notes and combinations of notes you can use. The real fun is in using the tools, instruments and combinations of them.

Our civilization is living for so long one can argue that everything was already done.

[Mark36]

Martin Galway would mimic a lot of Jean Michel Jarre work and Matt Gray Last Ninja 2 with some covers too. I put this down to them being young musicians at the time looking for inspiration.

Hats of to Jeron Tel for the Turbo Outrun and Savage intros.

[Coagulus]

It's hard not to be influenced. I did a great cute platform game time once and only afterwards I realised it was very like Iron Maiden's Run To The Hills!

[Avanze]

Don't worry, everyone rips off Philip Glass.

[Solo Kazuki]

Originally Posted by Foebane

Maybe it SHOULDN'T have been. It's vastly, VASTLY overrated as it is.

First of all, it's Your opinion? It should be, because technically SID beats everything in this time. With 4 kind of waves: square, triangle, sawtooth and noise (new SID also has mix option between them!), ADSR and analogue filters. Mind that POKEY and AY/YM has only square and noise wave.

About samples, SID also can play them. Even with 6 (!) channels (4 mixed sample/digi, 2 synth).

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[cv643d]

Originally Posted by Foebane

Yeah, but the developer of SID was so preoccupied with creating a versatile sound chip, he didn't stop to think if everyone would LIKE it, and I certainly don't like most of the stuff I've heard from it.

You are a minoroty I think. Maybe you have gone through a list of best SID songs and listened to every tune for 5 seconds and deciding not to like it.

When I listened seriously I used to go through each tune in a composers folder in the NemeSIDs collection, thats how you find the tunes you really like and get to know the composers style. For example IK+ is a great song but I would never listen to it outside the game. I can understand that if you read a top 10 list of best SIDs ever and you listen to IK+ it is not exactly a tune you would sit and enjoy IMHO (but it works beautifully in the game).

Originally Posted by Foebane

Rob Hubbard isn't overrated, but SID certainly is. IMHO, nothing beats sound samples.

I dont agree, there are good tunes in most sound formats, for example Future Composer, AHX, YM, RAD, even mono Spectrum or original GB (although personally I am not a fan of the hipster chipmusic GB scene).

How old are you?

If you where not "there" when it all happened I can sort of understand your point of view.

[jizmo]

I'm not quite sure why I even bother to reply to this obvious provocation - but anyone atrocious enough to make claims of SID being overrated should probably have a listen through MultiStyle Labs' Modern Love Classics that gives even an Amiga a run for its money.

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[chip]

It's not only a question of personal taste ?

Just for example, i tried a lot of times to listen to SID tunes, but i renounced

I simply prefer Amiga sound but i have nothing against C64 music

[idrougge]

Most people like their music in tune. That's one reason the POKEY sound isn't appreciated, either by musicians or music-lovers.