"Rob Hubbard - The Official Reference" will contain the most detailed look yet at the timeline and content of Rob's releases on the Atari 8-bit machines (POKEY) and Atari ST (YM2149)

The "Project Hubbard" project also contains remixes of various tunes on this page, some by Rob himself, and a whole bank of unreleased Rob Hubbard tunes not tied to any chip. The remix albums are based on the music rather than the sound of the SID and can be enjoyed by all.

Pre-Driver

The first three Rob tunes that made it onto the Atari were The Last V8, Action Biker and One Man and his Droid on the Atari 8-bit (A8) range. While Last V8 had some charm, the results weren't really Rob.

Not Rob's implementation.

This neither. Also, it gets the tune wrong.

This is the weirdest music choice ever made in porting Rob Hubbard music and seems to be taking the piss out of the Finders Keepers music, but getting the piss-take wrong. It's clinically strange, and not very pleasant. Oh, how I wished this had the real music.

Ninja (A8)

For a short while, Rob was king of the 8-bit fighting game themes! His debut on the A8 platform was "Ninja": written concurrently with the C64 version, but the Atari A8's hollow, echoey, quite hard-edged sound complements the echoey feel of the game. It even makes the room feel bigger!

It was a bit of a weird decision to make the music play only when he isn't fighting though. I guess players could just stand still to listen.

International Karate (A8)

Rob made a real splash on the Atari platform with a port of his International Karate C64 music™™, composed six months earlier.

This and Ninja were the first time I heard and saw the Atari 8-bit doing something that I thought could only be done by a C64. Mind. Blown.

Warhawk

There are two different versions of the Warhawk theme on the C64: The "Proteus" version (Warhawk was originally called Proteus, which was also the developers' name) lacked the long, echoey intro of the released Warhawk theme, and had a shorter structure.

The Atari 8-bit version is based on the earlier Proteus version, kicking straight into the melody. It's impressive how the ring-mod effects have survived without there being any actual ring-mod, though the POKEY chip's naturally metallic sound might have something to do with that.

Goldrunner (ST)

Rob's first outing on the ST was one of his most famous, and of course reused his most recognisable tune from "Human Race" on the C64. The AY sounds gave it a plaintive nature, with a slightly different emotional tone to the C64 version. Very much a Sci-fi remix.

David Whittaker took over for Goldrunner II, kind of keeping it in the family!

Extirpator (A8)

Rob was no stranger to strategically re-using tunes, and here his seminal "Thalamusik" gets an Atari 8-bit rework: quite a challenge, but with triumphant results.

It's fascinating to hear how Rob himself solved the problem of implementing unimplementable bits of the original without gutting the tune. I especially like the rhythm breaks. Luckily the metallic nature of POKEY sounds and the beefy noise waveforms help beef up the tune where lesser waves might have failed.

Jet Set Willy (A8)

The last tune Rob did on the Atari 8-bit (though David Whittaker used his driver to continue his legacy!) was also one of the strangest choices: a platform-specific original track for a very old game (Jet Set Willy) that pre-dated his SID career.

However this happened, we should be glad it did, since Rob himself loves this tune, and it's a classic. If I was guessing, the fact that it's Tyne Soft doing the conversion, and Rob was local probably went a long way to explaining this!

Jupiter Probe (ST)

The ST was honoured to have an original track by Rob specific to the platform: a real badge of honour shared with its Atari 8-bit brother's Jet Set Willy.

Largely overlooked by Hubbard fans on other platforms it's sci-fi funky.

Warhawk (ST)

A month after Jupiter Probe, Rob delivered the ST port of Warhawk...

This time, the full track was implemented. As usual with Rob porting his own work, surprises were minimal.

Thrust

At around the same time as Warhawk, Rob had finished his "Thrust" port.

As with the C64 version, the SID-FX-heavy intro was dispensed with to get to the tune more quickly. A very satisfying transition. It's a pity Spectrum and Amstrad CPC owners never got this version.

Thundercats

The honour of being the last tune delivered as a freelancer before moving to EA, this port of his Spectrum/Amstrad versions was as thorough as you'd expect.

Given the wildly variable nature of C64 filters, Thundercats was a variable-quality listen on the SID: and a lot more predictable here!

And so Rob went to Electronic Arts... and left Atari behind.

Almost.

A much more detailed version of this article will be in "Rob Hubbard - The Official Reference".

Postscript:

Thanks to Jochen Hippel, the story for Atari ST fans doesn't end there...