The Follin Project - Discussion
 

Project Launched

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Alright. This is something me and Rimo have been mentioning to each others for months: create a definitive and complete music archive of the Follins' VGM works. This represents quite some work, and that is why this thread is here: to get more people to participate in any ways, from simple advices to game ripping.

What we're aiming at is a full Follin *workography* in MP3 format, ripped in the best way possible. That means we would privilege recordings from the actual hardware by default.

However, it would be ridiculous and discouraging to only proceed that way, at least from the start. That's why I've thought we could do this by a constant upgrade process. As in, we start with what we have right now, research and debate on the possibility to get better or not, and upgrade accordingly as time goes by. That way, we get a project with actual material from the start, and which only gets better and better with time.

How does that sound?

Anyone is of course welcomed to participate. Let's unite for more and better Follin goodness!

A thread in My Stuff should be created as soon as we start getting substantial data.

That is all ~ (for now)

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Planned Purchases

First off, read this carefully! What's following is the list of games rippers are about to buy soon so they can rip them. If you happen to own the game and are willing to rip it yourself, or to give/lend it, let us know! =)

Quote:

Rimo: . Pictionary (NES) . Sky Shark (NES) . Target: Renegade (NES) . Treasure Master (NES)

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Last edit: 17/01/2007 - Versions:


Tim Follin • and Geoff Follin • Workography (Ver.0.3)

. ZX Spectrum
Agent X • (recorded by niki from the AY archive)
Agent X 2 • (recorded by niki from the AY archive)
Bionic Commando • (recorded by niki from the AY archive)
Black Lamp • (recorded by niki from the AY archive)
Bubble Bobble (arrange) • (recorded by niki from the AY archive)
Chronos • (recorded by niki from the AY archive)
Future Games • (recorded by niki from the AY archive)
Gauntlet 3 •• (recorded by niki from the AY archive)
Ghouls and Ghosts • (recorded by niki from the AY archive)
LED Storm • (recorded by niki from the AY archive)
Missile ground Zero • (recorded by niki from the AY archive)
Peter Packrat • (recorded by niki from the AY archive)
Raw Recruit • (recorded by niki from the AY archive)
Sly Spy •
Solar Invasion • (recorded by niki from the AY archive)
Star Firebirds • (recorded by niki from the AY archive)
Star Paws • (recorded by niki from the AY archive)
Star Tip 2 • (recorded by niki from the AY archive)
Subterranean Stryker • (recorded by niki from the AY archive)
The Sentinel • (recorded by niki from the AY archive)
Vectron • (recorded by niki from the AY archive)

. C64
Agent X 2 •
Aigina's Prophecy •
Baby Blues •
Black Lamp •
Bionic Commando •
Bodyslam •
Chester Field •
Gauntlet 3 ••
Ghouls and Ghosts •
Ghosttown •
LED Storm •
Magic Johnson's Basketball •
Music Demo Version 1 •
Peter Packrat •
Psycho Pigs UXB ••
Puzznic •
Raw Recruit •
Scumball •
Qix •
Sky Shark •
Sly Spy - Secret Agent ••

. Atari ST
Bionic Commando •
Bubble Bobble •
Gauntlet 3 •
Ghouls N' Ghosts •
LED Storm •
Renegade •
Sly Spy ••

. Amiga
Bionic Commando • (Ripped by niki from the customplay archive in Deliplayer)
Gauntlet 3 • (Ripped by niki from the customplay archive in Deliplayer)
Ghouls and Ghosts • (Ripped by ??? - Best sound quality so far, though)
Led Storm • (Ripped by niki from the customplay archive in Deliplayer)
Puzznic • (Ripped by niki from the customplay archive in Deliplayer)
Sly Spy •• (Ripped by niki from the customplay archive in Deliplayer)

. NES
Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade •
Incredible Crash Test Dummies ••
Kiwi Kraze ••
Magic Johnson's Fast Break •
Pictionary •
Sky Shark •
Solstice •
Silver Surfer •• (Done - Hardware Recording by Rimo)
Target Renegade •
Terminator 2 ••
Tom and Jerry •
Treasure Master •
Wolverine • (Done - Hardware Recording by Rimo)

. Gameboy
Altered Space •

. SNES
Plok ••
Rock n' Roll Racing •
Spiderman VS X-Men ••
Super Off-Road ••
Equinox: Solstice 2 •• (SPC rip by Drakken)
Thomas the Tank Engine ••

. Megadrive / Genesis
Time Trax •

. Sega CD
Prime ••

. PS1
Batman and Robin •
Firearm (canceled) ••
Prime ••

. Multiplatform
Ecco the Dolphin: Defender of the Future • (DC/PS2)
Starsky & Hutch • (Done - PSound extraction from the PS2 ver. by kuttlas)
Future Tactics: The Uprising •
Lemmings • (PSP) (In progress - Line-in Recording by Kairyu)
Ford Racing 2 • (Done - Line-in Recording from the PS2 ver. by kuttlas)
Ford Racing 3 • (Done - Data extraction from the PC ver. by kuttlas)

I haven't heard much of Tim Follin's stuff but I just did a search over at Project2612 and found these 2 composed by Tim & Geoff Follin. I'll rip them for you if they haven't already been ripped.

Batman Forever & Spider-Man & X-Men: Arcade's Revenge.

Good idea and I hope to be of any use in this if it's needed. :)

A more complete list was at the now defunct(?) Follin Drome but even that is by far not complete.

Oh nice find. Thought it was gone forever ~

Anyway, I think part of this project should be to double-check that kind of information. It should be easy in most cases, I guess. =)

For those Megadrive ones for example, did he actually do the music for those or were they ported from the SNES versions by someone else?

It gives his name in the credits so I'm guessing it's his compostions. This is what the info .txt of Batman Forever says:

[E] I just noticed you made a thread on Project2612 so I guess we'll know for sure when you get the replies. =)

My C64 still works so if I can rig up a 1541->serial cable (to put the games on C64 disk), I could rip all the music off the original system. Only problem is that I've got lots going on lately with the band going into the studio shortly and such so I don't think I could do it soon.

Sounds great! I know you would do a great job, too. And well, we have all the time in the world, I guess. =)

Studio heh? Wow, congrats man! =p

I'm in. I can take a look at the PSX and PS2 versions, as I unfortunately do not have any of the older systems. By the way, I do believe he composed the music for Ford Racing 2 as well for the PS2, together with Bjorn Lynne. I don't know if this counts though, maybe you only wanted all the games that he was behind by himself?

EDIT:
Alright, these are the ones I should be able to rip - Batman & Robin (PSX), Future Tactics The Uprising (PS2), Starsky & Hutch (PS2) and Ford Racing 2 (PS2).
However, I am going to have to order and buy these, so if anyone else has them and wants to help out with this projects, better damn well step forth right now 'cause I'm not wasting money if someone's sitting around with a copy of any of these already.

Excellent. And yeah, hold for a while in case someone would step in, as you say. We'll have to double-check about Ford Racing 2, as well.

Also, yep, we do want to get his collaboration works.

Glad to see the project is gathering people already. =)

Hey Killy, "Future Tactics" was already ripped by Kaleb.G, "Ford Racing 2" was done by kuttlas and he is currently working on ripping "Starsky & Hutch". So, you won't have to buy those. For the remaining one, "Batman & Robin", I have the game. The music is stored as redbook, so if you'd like to rip it / identify the tracks (you should be able to do that in an emulator), I could send you the game.

And yes, it's good to see things are moving around this project. As for my implication, I'll most probably be able to rip a certain share of the NES titles from the real console. I have already done "Wolverine" and "Silver Surfer", and I'm planning to buy more cartridges to continue. I'd prefer not to have to buy all NES games and rip them alone (money & time issues), so if someone else still has a working NES and know how to record music, then we could split the buy list.

EDIT: For those who would like confirmations about who composed "Silver Surfer" and "Wolverine", here's how I figured it out. Silver Surfer has an ending credits and list both Tim & Geoff under "Music". As for Wolverine, there are no credits per-say, but you can see some of the game team names in the high-scores. Only Geoff appears (and not Tim). Also, Tim did not mention Wolverine on his website.

I can confirm Ford Racing 2 (the credits and manual cite him), he probably doesn't have it listed on his site since all the work he's done on it was taken from Starsky & Hutch (perhaps he wasn't told about it?).I own a copy of Solstice, although I haven't attempted ripping it yet (NES stopped working recently).

Off topic, I've been considering buying a 3rd party NES clone called the "Generation NEX", does anyone know how accurate the sound is?

I'd love to help you with the recording, but alas, I've long sold my Amiga500, so all I could do would be emulator rips.

Excellent. May I ask how Ford Racing 2 was ripped and where I could get it? =p

About the emulation rips, they're of course welcomed anyway. Just be aware that they may replaced by hardware recordings if those are findable, but hey, who knows when they will be given all the time they take ... =3

Oh man oh man, thread of the year. I would totally help out with ripping if I could. :(

Thanks for letting me know everyone, doesn't really leave me with anything to do, as I think it's alot better if you rip Batman & Robin Rimo, since you actually own a copy and we're better off without any emulation rips.

Let me know if there's anything else I could do.

Awesome idea, I think I'll help out too =D.
All I have at the moment is a copy of Lemmings for the psp. Luckily it's easy to rip since I can turn off the sfx. So I'll get started on that if no one else has.

It's all yours! =)

I won't be able to participate in hardware ripping either, since all I have home is an old SNES, and that SNES is a case you want to go with emulation anyway, according to Rimo.

I had to opt for line-in since nothing I scanned it with found any extractable files and the PC version has 64 CBR wmas. You can get it here: http://www.sendspace.com/file/5b7n7r

Here's Starsky & Hutch (PS2 version), extracted with PSound: http://www.sendspace.com/file/mi24m2

And Ford Racing 3 (which features a few tracks by Follin) extracted from the PC version: http://www.sendspace.com/file/i1vb7a

Oh by the way, didn't notice that Ecco Defender of the Future was released for the PS2 as well, anyone ripped this?

I believe that was ripped by Lian Kazairl, although I don't know where to download it.

Updated the list with kuttlas' info.

Is this actually different from the Dreamcast version ?

Doh! Silly me, I actually have a copy of it under FTP\[ Game Music Rips ]\Rips by Lian_Kazairl\Ecco the Dolphin - Defender of the Future (PS2 Rip)! Guess that means we won't have to worry about that one either.

Sounds good to me.

No idea, hard to tell unless someone owns both copies. Hopefully that someone is around here.

Indeed, but I can't remember which version between the PS2 and DC ones were sounding better. There was a discussion about it back when the rip was done, but my memory is failing me. I have a DC rip on my HD (from the Caverns of Hope website), and it's at 22KHz / 160 CBR, so that's not top.

And Killy, if you'd want to do Batman & Robin, it actually wouldn't need any emulated sound. You could extract the redbook audio tracks and then use an emulator to play the game and identify the tracks. I'm insisting because I know I'm shorter in time as the days go by and if someone else could handle that game, it would help me. If you're also not in the best position to do it, the offer also stands for anybody else.

Ah, my bad, I missed the part about it being Redbook. Guess an image of it would make things easier too and although I too feel that I won't be able to take care of much considering my future schedule, I'll accept it for now and maybe delegate if shit hits the fan.

Let's also not forget that the fact there are redbook tracks doesnt mean the whole soundtrack is made of it.

Indeed. If that's the case though we could help eachother out by letting one person take care of the Redbooks and the other one would go with hardware ripping of the remaining tracks.

Even though I don't have anything to contribute, I think that this is a great idea. The old Scoremania board had a bunch of composer projects like this, where people go together to create lists of music by their favorite composers and then set about making them available as downloads.

It's something that I think would do very well here at GFF; I'm looking forward to seeing the response.

I just checked rapidly and I was wrong, in part, since there is only 1 redbook track. There are 7 more tracks, in XA format. And also some cinematics. So, from my first impression, the music should still all be extractable, but if it happens to have sequenced tracks, I'll record them.

The credits video from the game is quite cool; it features drawings of each of the development team members. Here's Tim:

http://www.geocities.com/rimo_gff/follin_batman.txt

Are we going to be including his film soundtracks in this, too? I don't know what all he's done, but there are a couple of shorts on his website. I've only watched "The Sun Circle", but it has some pretty cool ambient music from what I remember.

Nice initiative niki. While I'm not the biggest fan of the Follin brothers' music, VGM projects like this are just awesome by default so I'll help out if I can ='D

Good idea, niki and Rimo. I'm more than willing to help in any way I can, whether it be console ripping or emulation ripping (if it comes to that). I don't think I have any games that he did the music on, other than Solstice. If anyone has games that he worked on but no means to rip them, they can be sent my way.

FYI, I already planned on ripping his music from the different versions of Ghouls n' Ghosts that he worked on (from the emulated audio files). I was going to do that later this week, once I'm back from visiting family.

Well, I guess that's more a question of "can we" since I doubt we could put our hands on it. Besides, *I* don't feel that's necessary.

Yeah Drakken, your Chiptune contest/Ghouls and Ghosts request thread combo is actually what decided me to rush things a bit. =)

If he doesn't know already, you folks probably oughta give Liontamer (ocremix) the heads-up on this thing. He's in charge of a ReMix project on the Follins in which I expressed interest.

Alright then =D

Since gff was down I actually ripped a bunch of tracks yesterday. Seeing that you guys are the gamerip experts I thought I get some critiques on the recordings. Minus the Hell theme I didn't find any audible hissing, then again I am pretty tired right now. If everything sounds fine to you guys I'll continue with this rip:

Get the Flash Player to play this audio file: - Egypt Theme (4:31) - Sounds excellent, I can see why you guys enjoy Follin's music.

Get the Flash Player to play this audio file: - Hell Theme (4:01) - I think I'll record this one over again. Accidentally caught some noise at 2:45 and there seems to be hissing in this track :(.

Get the Flash Player to play this audio file: - Main Theme (2:07) - At least I think its the main theme. It seems to play randomly throughout all the themes though (as does this other theme but I haven't gotten a chance to record that.) Also this theme plays as the game's UMD theme so I might as well say it is the main theme.

Get the Flash Player to play this audio file: - Roman Theme (4:06) - Almost forgot this one, probably my favorite out of this bunch.

Actually, watching the films I'd have to agree. I wasn't really paying attention before, but there's not really much actual music in there, though what there is works perfectly. Speaking of the films, "Body Counting" is great and should be watched.

Anyway, not sure I have much if anything to contribute to the project, but I look forward to it!

Good idea. I'll go PM him.

Toma I was meaning that in the way that I don't see any possible way to rip them. =)

Kairyu, those sound so great! Can't wait to hear the full thing ...

edit:

Totally forgot, but I realized Kaleb and CHz are co-founders of the Follin Remix project at OCremix. Guess I'll leave it up to them to warn Liontamer, since his PM box is full and that the project's url is down. =3

Including the music from his films might be a good idea, if it's possible to do in a decent way. I watched them a while back, and I don't remember exactly how much there was. All I remember is that there was some new age themes.

Good job so far, Kairyu! It's nice to see a "Lemmings" rip is on its way, finally. :D And the main theme should indeed be it, since it's one of the main ones in the original Lemmings.

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I'm planning to buy a first batch of NES games soon, which should include:

- Pictionary
- Sky Shark
- Target: Renegade
- Treasure Master

If somebody has any of these and can rip them, please manifest yourself before next week.

I'm hesitating about "Pictionary" though, since I believe the mini-games that use one of the themes don't last long enough to be able to record it completely (it's extremely borderline though, like a matter of a few seconds, which is even more frustrating). Maybe there is a Game Genie code to extend the timer or something similar? Does anyone know about one or another way around that?

I'm working on acquiring Equinox. So, um, I call that, unless someone already has it and wants to rip it.

Isn't there already a rip of Solstice?

And niki & Rimo - I understand just going off of Follin's site for now. But there are obviously other games the brothers have done. What other sources for finding games they've worked on (like Mobygames.com, the Game Music Base, and other sites) would you count as accurate for this project? I think we could at least post them, but not add them to the top list, so people could see if they have any of the other games. If they do, they can then check their manuals, and if the Follins are in there, we can add it to the official list.

EDIT: Oh, and you should mark any rips that are currently in progress in the first post.

Oh Equinox. Will you record from the SNES or convert the SPCs ?As said previously, SPCs are probably the best solution, but if you think you've got a better one ... =)

Makes me think we didn't agree on a rip format, but I guess MP3 > 128kbps looped twice is common sense.

I've got a recording of Solstice, but I have no idea where it comes from and I don't think it sounds so well.

Mobygames and Mirsoft are good starting points, but I don't think we should see them as definitive proofs. Researching in the game credits should be mandatory, unless we can get Follin himself to give us a full list through email. I'm still hesitating on that though, given the fact I have no idea how he would take the thing ...

I'll edit the list now.

SPC would be better than recording from the game? If that's so, I'll just do that then.

Well, you can run tests of your own, but Rimo said SPCs were better because of the mediocre sound output of the SNES. Knowing his usual quality standards, this is enough for me, but again, anyone is welcomed to try his own ways.

Additional Spam:
Just updated the list with the info from the Follin Drome. Those can be judged as reliable, but this will be double checked with the rips anyway.

I was looking through a list of games that Software Creations developed (since the Follins composed for lots of their games), and here's what I found. It's worth noting that SC games were published under the Acclaim name after Acclaim purchased most of SC's assets in May 2002.

Cosmic Storm (C64) - Geoff Follin
WWF War Zone (GB) - Tim Follin

Those are both according to credits listings on Mobygames.

And here's a SC game with an unknown composers (might be one of the Follins, and thus worth trying to get the manuals/credits info):

Barbie Vacation Adventure (Gen, SNES)

Would try to find more, but I have to go.

thanks a lot for doing this. after learning of follin a long time ago i'd intended to look more into his works, but im lazy and knew the process would be time-consuming. so this project is great! even if you dont quite finish i think it will be worth it just to have a nice archive of most of his works all in one place. especially in mp3 format too so it'd be more accessible to non-vgm listeners :)

good luck

The Equinox (Solstice 2) rip is complete. I'm having problems uploading it right now, regardless of which file-sharing site I use, but once I get it to work it will be posted in my ripping thread (link in sig).

Neat !

I'll take a look at those new games and research on eventual others a little more today.

He's been really busy with crud lately (or has just had spotty internet access); I haven't seen him online in a while and he hasn't voted in SotW for a while, which he was usually pretty good at.

Is there anything wrong with MobyGames's database? I've always thought its credit listings were pretty accurate, at least when it has them.

There isn't anything particularly good or bad about Mobygame's database, but it remains user-contribution based, and thus we can't see it as a whole entity nor have a real opinion about it's overall accuracy, in my opinion.

And well, I guess it can't hurt to check twice anyway. ^_^

Has anyone tried that? I think it's worth a shot.

And the Equinox rip is up.

We're thinking about it, but would like to do as much work on it as we can before sending it to him.

Rip downloaded. I'll store all those untouched, until we eventually decide on a naming/format to adopt for distribution Well, we've got time for that ... =p

I'm just done ripping the music from Gauntlet 3 Amiga version. Did it using Deliplayer's streamrecorder.

Guess I'll keep doing the Amiga ones ~

Oh, Gauntlet 3 is pretty great btw. Mix of Follin's usual rock and ambient styles. =p

Additional Spam:
So I went ahead and recorded all the Amiga ones. I already had a rip of Ghouls n Ghosts though, and it sounds a tad better than what I could come do myself, so I think we should keep that one instead.

Here are all the archives, for you guys to enjoy and judge ~

http://www.filefactory.com/file/f77d2b/

Ripped every ZX Spectrum AY files I could find tonight. Only one missing from the list is Sly Spy. Found out some of those AY archives are incomplete, but I'm certainly not playing through those Spectrum games for now ...

Anyway, I don't think this thread serves much of a purpose anymore, so I'll probably migrate the project over to My Stuff tomorrow.

edit:

http://www.gamingforce.com/forums/my...n-project.html

I intend to return to the land of the living soon, I assure you. Follin demands it.