* This digital album was created as part of the multi-disc "Back in Time Symphonic Collection" project, also known as "8-Bit Symphony Box-Set" and "Symphony 64" *
Welcome to Back in Time 4: Sidventure. It’s a series of heroic symphonic tales, told with passion!
Note: live orchestra versions of some of these arrangements performed by the amazing Czech Studio Orchestra can be found in 8-Bit Symphony Pro. This album contains no recordings that also appear on 8-Bit Symphony Pro.
01. Barbarillax (Joseph/Galway), arr. Abbott/Pickering, orch. Pickering/Tate
02. Super Huey (Norman) arr. Norman/Abbott/Pickering, orch. Pickering
03. Shadowfire (Gray) arr. Biasillo/Abbott/Pickering, orch. Pickering
04. WAR (Hubbard) arr. Hubbard, orch. Hubbard/Tait
05. Delta (Hubbard) arr. Biasillo, orch. Pickering
06. Flash Gordon (Hubbard), arr. Hubbard/Abbott/Bowness, orch. Hubbard/Tait
07. Mission Fred (Gray) arr. Abbott/Manganoid, orch. Abbott
08. One Man and his Droid (Hubbard) arr. Biasillo, orch. Pickering
09. Trap (Daglish) arr. Daglish/Abbott/Bowness, orch. Pickering/Tait
10. Aztec Challenge (Norman) arr. Connelly/Abbott, orch. Pickering/Tait
11. International Karate (Hubbard) arr. Hubbard, orch. Hubbard/Tait/Pickering
12. The Last Ninja® Suite (Daglish) arr. Abbott, orch. Pickering/Tait
13. Thanatos (Breeze) arr. Breeze, orch. Breeze
14. Ark of Lore (Galway/Mills-Cockell) arr. Abbott/Donne/Liljedahl, orch. Abbott
About this album
I planned Back in Time 4, 5 and 6 two decades ago to take over from where Back in Time 3 left off. It was always planned that they’d be largely symphonic, but it took a while (and many twists and turns) for reality to catch up.
This series of CDs contains computer-based performances of arrangements from the 8-Bit Symphony project. I used mostly VSTs from Orchestral Tools with additional libraries from Spitfire Audio, 8Dio, Impact Soundworks and Embertone. These were all integrated into Sibelius, and the scores were then marked up for realism (this is where the art comes in!). After that, they were output into Cubase where they were timing-corrected, enhanced with light reverb, mixed, and then rendered. The CD was co-produced by Kenneth “Slaygon” Mutka who worked closely on this project since its inception, and without whom it wouldn’t exist. Many of the production ideas are his.
Arrangements were created by myself, Rob Hubbard, Alisdair J. Pickering and 8-Bit Symphony Conductor Robin Tait, with guest arrangers Ben Daglish, Paul Norman, Peter Connelly, Julian Breeze, Alistair “Boz” Bowness and Marcel Donné.
Big thanks to “Back in Time Symphonic Collection” Kickstarter backers for their patience!
This project is of course dedicated to the memories of Ben Daglish and Richard Joseph. They would have got a kick out of all this.