8-Bit Symphony - Knight Tyme

Knight Tyme
R. Hubbard, 1956-

Knight Tyme is part of David Jones' "Magic Knight" series of games. It's the third in the series after "Finders Keepers" and "Spellbound". While Knight Tyme appeared on all the usual 8-Bit platorms, it appeared on the C64 much later than the others thanks to the need to convert the codebase between CPUs, and with different music from composer David Whittaker.

“The original was just a three-voice score that someone then programmed into the Spectrum 128. To take that sketch and transform it
into a full orchestral piece was quite an interesting challenge!

Eventually ideas do come, and you’re off and running! The original was radically expanded and some elements were transformed.

For instance, the intro fanfare is actually based on the middle fanfare played backwards. The main tune, at the end, is played in a major key,
rather than the modal version, and finally ends with the intro fanfare.” - Rob Hubbard

Unlike most of the arrangements featured here, this was was submitted to software house Mastertronic as sheet music rather than code. This is because at this point in his career Rob did not have the tooling to program on computers with a Z80 chip such as the ZX Spectrum, the Amstrad CPC and the MSX range of machines.

As a result of this, it was necessary for the game coder to implement the music, which they did (with varying degrees of quality).

For our "Just the Chips" companion CD to 8-Bit Symphony 1, producer Max Hall re-imagined the original on the SID chip in quite a bendy way based more on the orchestral version than the OST

Composed by: Rob Hubbard
Arranged by: Rob Hubbard
Orchestrated by: Rob Hubbard & Robin Tait
© High Technology Publishing Ltd.