Wing Commander's music

MannPower

Commodore
It might just be me, but it seems like a lot of remakes / remixes of the Wing Commander music seem to be centered around the WC3 / WC4 scores. Am I alone in my preference for the original WC1 / WC2 tracks? Compositionally, I felt they were stronger, and only afflicted by their dated instrumentation.

I've been very surprised that - with all the video game remixes swimming around the net - there's no re-orchestration of the original theme anywhere to be found.

If anyone has found one, please link it! (I don't mean a wave-table recording from a midi, either, but an honest-to-goodness resequencing.)

The original overture is one of those few pieces of music that puts butterflies in my stomach whenever I hear it. Must be the force of nostalgia, but even after all this time, WC3's intro doesn't bring about any similar sensation.

What's your favorite score or piece of music in the series?
 
Space Point - but I don't know of any remixes of the original theme (other than Fatman's own surf music version, if that counts.)
 
As cool as it is, I don't necessarily count the surf music version. I think it'd be awesome to hear it orchestrated on modern sampling systems (or an actual orchestra).

I was a bit disappointed when I finally got to witness what was to be included on Wing One. I was under the false impression that the music was being re-sequenced and re-sampled to sound 'real' and improved, rather than "as heard circa 1990, on newer equipment."
 
Yeah, it's kind of a shame - he wanted to get Dave Govett to come back and do exactly that... but they just couldn't work it out, so we got the MT-32 versions. It's nice to have them, and we certainly showed our support - it's possible that an updated version of the music is still forthcoming.
 
I wouldn't be surprised, and hopefully it'll be sooner than later. I had created a nifty re-sequencing a long time ago (we're talking a decade, here) utilizing the Kilrathi March and a confed-march melody I came up with, and mixed together. I used it on my pretty - though atrociously low-content - Space Sim news site, "JumpPoint."

Now, had WC been a Japanese game, there'd be hundreds of different live orchestra variations. ;)
 
Hehe, for some reason Wing Commander never caught on in Japan - and not for lack of trying...

Ultima, however, was *incredibly* popular there.
 
Doesn't surprise me. Wear a shirt that says "RPG" in Japan, and someone will try to kidnap you.

Though the definition of 'RPG' has changed between our markets since then. I enjoy RPG's, but not JRPG's.

I actually really enjoyed the little classic overture tease at the end of the Kilrathi Saga intro cinematic that Oldziey scored.
 
It might just be me, but it seems like a lot of remakes / remixes of the Wing Commander music seem to be centered around the WC3 / WC4 scores. Am I alone in my preference for the original WC1 / WC2 tracks? Compositionally, I felt they were stronger, and only afflicted by their dated instrumentation.
Personally I dont agree with that at all. Oldziey seems like a much better composer to my ears, and also writes to picture very well. As much as I like Hans Zimmer John Williams is a better composer, in the same way IMO. Although... in this case I dont really enjoy WC1+2 music that much, whereas I do like Hans Zimmer. Maybe its because I started playing WC with WC3 and if I had started with WC1+2 I'd have more of a connection to the old music.

But if you liked the Wing Commander main theme, Dave Govett was planning to do a "remix" of his old Wing Commander music recorded with modern equipment. He once posted a work in progress of his Wing Commander main theme to the forum northernsounds.com several years ago now mainly as an early user demo of a new orchestral sample library.

That was the last I heard about it and I think since he is now apparently a police officer, probably given up that project. I posted it to this forum a while back and it didnt seem to get much interest and as far as I know it wasnt even added to the CIC music page, rather strangely as they have lots of other things on there! It sounds so much better than any other recording of it around and kind of a shame he didnt finish it as even he said it was still in a rough form. Im at work now so I wouldnt be able to post it until I get home. :)
 
My favorite has always been the Wing Commander briefing music. It really got me in the mood for skinning kats.
 
Completely agree, I love the WC1 - 2 music much better than the later iterations. This could be because I played them first but who knows. The main theme that plays in WC1's "In the distant future mankind is locked in a deadly war..." is my favorite of the series.

Actually I don't really even like the music of WC3 & 4 all that much. I think they're fitting and they make a good background to what's happening on screen but they lack the... umph that the original musics had in my opinion.

Do have a question though. I was playing Unknown Enemy not so long ago and -loving- the music that plays during the fight sequences. Is that an original composition or was it from Secret Ops? I never played SO so I wouldn't know.
 
I believe UE had original music - you'd know if you were hearing the Secret Ops music (it's techo-industrial-electronica-whatever from Cobalt 60.)
 
I don't remember that - I'd certainly like to post it to the music page (and the news.)

It was quite a while ago, I even showed people in Wingnut! :D I cant seem to find the thread now maybe it was too long ago, but I'll definitely post it when I get home. Do I get double space points for this?

:D
 
Cool, thanks a lot, we'll do an update in the next few days.

Great. Maybe if you bugged him enough he might do it in his spare time or maybe he might be tempted to release some more recent tracks lying around if he made any more :cool:
 
Great. Maybe if you bugged him enough he might do it in his spare time or maybe he might be tempted to release some more recent tracks lying around if he made any more

Maybe you should contact him - let him know fans are interested in such a thing even though Wing One has already been released...
 
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