Chris Hülsbeck

Christopher " Chris " Hülsbeck ( born March 2, 1968 in Kassel) is a well-known mainly from the home computer area musicians.

Life

With 12 years Hülsbeck got his first instrument ( a home organ), a year later, a drum set and with 15 years of its first MIDI synthesizer. At about the same time began his interest for the home computer. The first success was in 1986, the song " Shades" on the Commodore 64, which won the first place of a competition -based computer magazine 64er magazine. His sound monitor was a few months later the "Listing of the Month", also in the 64's magazine.

Shortly after the success of the magazine Hülsbeck employed at the firm Rainbow Arts, for which he founded songs for the games Jinks, Bad Cat, To Be on Top ( a complete Chris Hülsbeck thought up and implemented computer game), Katakis and The Great Giana Sisters wrote was. Soon he got from gaming magazines nicknamed " sound magician" missed. 1988/89 he published together with Peter Thierolf the music program TFMX for the Commodore Amiga.

From 1989 Hülsbeck worked mainly for the Amiga (among the soundtracks to the Grand Monster Slam and X - Out and the quite well-known implementation of Ramiro Vacas original music for " Rock ' n' Roll" ). In 1990, his career a boost with the music to the game Turrican; above all his music to Turrican 2 quickly reached cult status in the gaming scene. So he made it, for example, one of the first to produce on the usually 3 voice Commodore 64 five votes or extract from the normally 4 -voice Amiga seven votes. Turrican Turrican 2 and therefore belong to the sound technical masterpieces of the home computer scene. He was also responsible for the 1991 released Amiga version of the classic The Secret of Monkey Iceland.

End of 1990, Chris Hülsbeck with Frank Matzke and Peter Thierolf the company AUDIOS (Art Under Design, Imaginations Of Sound ) and their sub-labels KAIKO. Appeared in 1991 with Gem'X and Apidya two hit games and with " Software Manager " is a fun simulation under the Kaiko label. Under the AUDIOS label appeared in the same year Hülsbeck's first audio CD " Shades".

Kaiko was dissolved in 1993 because of insolvency. At the same time reduced Hülsbeck the work on the Amiga and produced more and more for a variety of systems: From 1993 to 1998 worked Hülsbeck inter alia, to Turrican 3, Jim Power, Tunnel B1, Ball Blazer Champions for companies such as Software 2000, Factor 5 and LucasArts.

In 1997 he founded his own record label called synSONIQ Records, not only for our own works, but for game music in general to provide a professional marketing channel. To date, synSONIQ successfully sells soundtracks both classics as well as new publications in the games market. Until 1998, he produced eight Soundtrack CDs and two normal audio CDs.

Also in 1998 he moved to the U.S. and worked there for Factor 5, LucasArts, Nintendo and other companies.

2003 was played live during the opening concert of the Games Convention ( Game Music Concert ) in Leipzig music from Hülsbeck's Apidya from the Czech National Symphony Orchestra. In the years 2004 music came from the Turrican project and Giana Sisters with the FILMharmonic Orchestra of Prague under the direction of Andy Brick to the performance.

His music from Apidya also came to the concert PLAY! A Video Game Symphony in Stockholm in June 2006 Performance, the first world tour with video game music. Was presented to the music from the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of Arnold Roth. Chris Hülsbeck was among the guests. On the fourth opening concert of the Games Convention a suite of Turrican 3 was presented as a piano solo. At a concert in 2007 an orchestral version of music from Turrican 2 was performed, also unveiled Chris Hülsbeck before his new album " Number Nine ".

On August 23, 2008 in Cologne the concert " Symphonic Shades - Hülsbeck in Concert" under the direction of Grammy - winning artist Arnold Roth instead. Here at the radio station Wallrafplatz led more than 120 musicians of the WDR Radio Orchestra Cologne and the movie harmonic choir Prague before a packed hall works of Chris Hülsbeck. This event was broadcast as the first game music concert in the world live on the radio on WDR4 and the Internet. Under the personal guidance of Chris Hülsbeck the arrangements from Jonne Valtonen, Yuzo Koshiro and Takenobu Mitsuyoshi were implemented for orchestra and choir. Also celebrated the world premiere composed by Hülsbeck title "Caravan of Elephants".

Chris Hülsbeck Currently working on a " Turrican Anthology ", a complete new recording (some with orchestral support ) of the Turrican soundtracks on planned three to four CDs. For the realization of this project Hülsbeck estimated a sum of U.S. $ 75,000, which was applied using the crowdfunding platform Kickstarter.com in less than two weeks from fans and supporters. The fundraiser ended on June 3, 2012 with a total revenue of more than U.S. $ 200,000 and was thus at this time the third most successful musical projects. The limited Anthology should appear in late 2012 exclusively for the 2600 financial supporters of the project and be limited to 2,000 boxes for CD and 150 vinyl versions. Another commercial marketing is excluded to date. In January 2013 Hülsbeck but still working on the third CD. In April 2013, he worked with guest musicians such as Yuzo Koshiro and Vince DiCola, at the fourth CD. On November 27, the download version was released for the Kickstarter supporters than 50 U.S. $.

Private life

Hülsbeck is married to Tracy Sheppard since 2008 and lives in Petaluma, California in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Discography (selection)

Own productions:

Investments:

Current Projects

• Zombie Smash! for iPhone
• R-Type for iPhone
• Star Trek: Infinite Space for PC ( MMORPG)
• Space-Rat: Xplode!
• Turrican Anthology ( new recording of the Turrican soundtracks on 3-4 CDs)
• Project Giana