Welcome to Back in Time 4: Sidventure, part of the 8-Bit Symphony series of projects. It’s a series of symphonic tales, told with passion.

I planned Back in Time 4, 5 and 6 two decades ago to take over from where Back in Time 3 left off. It was always planned that they’d be largely symphonic, but it took a while (and many twists and turns) for reality to catch up.

This series of CDs contains computer-based performances of arrangements from the 8-Bit Symphony project. I used mostly VSTs from Orchestral Tools with additional libraries from Spitfire Audio, 8Dio, Impact Soundworks and Embertone. These were all integrated into Sibelius, and the scores were then marked up for realism (this is where the art comes in!). After that, they wereoutput into Cubase where they were timing-corrected, enhanced with light reverb, mixed, and then rendered. The CD was co-produced by Kenneth “Slaygon” Mutka who worked closely on this project since its inception, and without whom it wouldn’t exist. Many of the production ideas are his.

Arrangements were created by myself, Rob Hubbard, Gari Biasillo, Alisdair J. Pickering, Ben Daglish, Paul Norman, Peter Connelly, Julian Breeze, Alistair “Boz” Bowness, Marcel Donné. They were orchestrated by Rob, Alisdair and 8-Bit Symphony conductor Robin Tate.

Big thanks to “Back in Time Symphonic Collection” Kickstarter backers for their patience!

This project is of course dedicated to the memories of Ben Daglish and Richard Joseph. They would have got a kick out of all this.

Back in Time 4: Sidventure (Sample)

Chris Abbott