Tim Follin

Overview

Tim Follin made sound chips do things their designers never imagined. His compositions were showcases—complex arrangements, unusual time signatures, techniques nobody else attempted. While other game composers wrote catchy tunes, Follin wrote prog rock symphonies for hardware that could barely beep.

Fast facts

Born: 1970 in Manchester, England.
Started young: Composing commercially at 16.
Multi-platform: Spectrum, C64, NES, SNES, Mega Drive, Amiga.
Style: Progressive rock influences, technical complexity, unusual time signatures.
Notable works: Solstice, Silver Surfer, Plok, Time Trax.
Later career: Left games industry, works in music education.

Technical mastery

Follin approached each platform as a challenge:

ZX Spectrum: Coaxed melody from a single-channel beeper.
NES: Silver Surfer’s soundtrack is legendary—complex arrangements from limited hardware.
SNES: Plok demonstrated what the sound chip could really do.

He learned each system’s quirks and exploited them ruthlessly.

The Silver Surfer soundtrack

The NES Silver Surfer game was mediocre. The soundtrack was extraordinary:

Multiple movements, dramatic shifts.
Technical complexity that seemed impossible.
Became more famous than the game itself.

Musicians still analyse and cover it decades later.

Progressive influences

Unlike most game composers, Follin drew from prog rock:

Unusual time signatures (7/8, 11/8).
Long-form compositions with multiple sections.
Emphasis on technical display.

This made his work stand out—and sometimes clash with the games it accompanied.

Legacy

Follin proved game audio could be art independent of the game. His soundtracks are studied, performed, and celebrated long after the games themselves are forgotten. He showed what was possible when a composer treated limitations as inspiration rather than constraint.

The virtuoso of limited hardware