An Encore for Pete

I had a dream about Lotus Esprit Turbo Challenge II as a bebop version years ago and had a laugh after waking up. I thought maybe I should really do this cover, but it wasn’t a top priority as it takes a lot of effort to do it well. By that time I have started singing, too, and realized I need to write lyrics for it. And I have learned to play some more jazz instruments in the meantime. Fortunately there’s still a lot of time to do it right and now I finally have the motivation to make it real!

Seems very fitting given the idea for the tune came to me in a dream in the first place. 🙂 looking forward to hearing it!

Since I already had 2 tracks in mind and Romeo Knight wrote about Monkey Island and creating a proper reggae version of it, I had a spark in me. I was in a project called Generation 500 8 years ago, was a book about Amiga 500 and the people that were in the scene. There was a demo released together with the book. There were 3 musicians from Encore involved in the music: Danko, Mattias Brian, and me. There were other talented musicians as well. But to make a long story short, the demo had an intro and I made a beep version of the intro track of The Secret of Monkey Island. And back then I wanted to do a proper reggae version of it and that spark came back to me when Romeo brought it up. Also. it is not my typical track and I do love a challenge. So if I only get this done if I will be happy. As my philosophy with my remixes is to bring out what the original composer intended. This will be something completely different.

I also picked Overload by Tip and Mantronix, and Memorydust by Codex. Both tracks have a strong connection to me emotionally. I just have very fond memories of that time. We’ll see. 😎

A huge struggle for me to find something which had the nostalgia factor this time around… and I played plenty of Amiga games and watched quite a lot of Amiga demos back in the day… So, I went looking, (listening) for something which appealed to me musically and landed on Giana Sisters. That arpeggiated subtune which is really well known does exactly that and it has enough space in its arrangement to let me get some of my own ideas into it. Optimistically, I'll find a 2nd remix for the album but first & foremost, I want to make my Giana Sisters remix memorable and different from the many others out there. (Oh, that it happens to be) dual-Platform? Double-whammy? I've no idea what you're talking about…

For Bubble Bobble I feel a bit concerned. I chose to do it in the style of a New Orleans James Bond style funeral. It'll be a very dark tongue in cheek funeral march for old Pete who I'm sure is almost as sick of this tune as he is of Parallax…

As for the Goto80 piece, I haven't decided on a style yet. I fell in love with it in as a cracktro and I found it to be quite the banger. The original had some crazy time adjustments to make it feel almost live, so maybe I'll just go heavy club style. I'm a little concerned, as the second half of the original meanders aimlessly. That'll give me plenty of space to improvise, though.

I don't have nearly as much nostalgia for the Amiga as I do for the C64 and I hadn't listened back to much Amiga music since the 90s, so the prospect of finding a song or two was a little daunting.

The more I dug around on YouTube - where I found ut surprisingly hard to find Amiga tunes - the more I started discovering long lost gems. I was quick to choose Puzznic without much thought. It's such a short tune and while I don't think it's Tim Follin's best work, It has a certain something. It's the sort of tune that you'd listen to several loops of, so I figured I'd try to connect two loops with some messing about and random noodling. At worst it'll be a nice HD remaster.

It's been a joy to play around with so far, but recently I've had difficulty getting the final part of the remix together. The main groove is this repeating 2 bar phrase, with no chord changes. It's so easy to break this song by introducing new things so it's a learning exercise and a lot of trial and error. I often think making music is like solving a puzzle and this is no exception.

Unreal was really magical to me as we went to the UK in 1990 and the game was running on an A500 in the basement of Hamley’s. The game was unbelievable and the loading screen with the song really felt unreal. Several decades later the song still works well, even better. A lot of tiny things happening there that I didn’t pay that much attention to at the time. It’s so perfect that covering it without just redoing the stuff that worked perfectly in the original doesn’t do it justice. I need to find something that sounds like it just was supposed to be there in the original but wasn’t - and that is a challenge. My aim is to make it feel a bit more human but still mystical. And I still haven’t made my mind about which instruments to use!

As for me, he - together with Danko - was the center piece holding this together. Others called him father and I can understand why. It's hard to understand that he took his time to give input on all tracks and really gave input. Always had a joke up his sleeve. The few times I was in the video chat you could really tell he was warm and kind. It has really affected everyone for sure and the Encore team has lost big with him. He and Danko were the ones keeping most of us on track. Many have great discipline, and others - like myself (or maybe just me) - is all over the place. That sounds bad, but it's not as bad as it sounds. Just had some trouble choosing songs to remix.

As I said in my letter to Pete that was read in the tribute show on SLAY Radio: it's not due to my ignorance or disrespect that I did not know the names of many when I joined. I had to look them up! To me we are all human beings doing what we love. So when I found out who most of the people were I was really blown away to be in such a fine company. Little me in these fine halls of legends. 🙂

He left a big, big void and we all feel that. We knew this would come sooner or later but you can't really prepare. I just wished I knew him better. This will be a bitter sweet release this time.

Pete was the backbone of the project and the one that kept us from not doing stuff we didn't mean to do at time (but we still did). He was like a father figure to me and I really loved the late night talks with him. A warm and a caring person whom we lost too early. Well, the old dude can show us the way when we enter the next dimension. Really glad I got to know the legend. RIP Peter!

I only got the chance to get to know Pete this year (2025), but the way we met sticks in my mind.

I was unaware at the time, but Pete actually got in touch with me in 2024, almost a year before I joined the Encore project and that message sat unread in Discord (with no notification) for nearly 12 months! Despite unknowingly ghosting him for the best part of a year, when I discovered the message and apologetically replied, Pete's answer was straight to the point: So, the question still stands. If it's something that would interest you… No pressure.

We agreed to have a chat the following day when we were both free and when I explained that I was out all day with my son at a competition he said Tell him 'Uncle Bobble Bobble' is sending him good vibes. LOL. That made me chuckle.

We had a long video chat that evening about the Encore project, remixes, RKO, music, and all sorts of unrelated things. I expected to feel a little star-struck given the names of the people involved in the project, some of whom, including Pete, I saw as heroes when I was a teenager. However, Pete was so personable, warm and friendly, always with a story or tale to tell, always with a sense of humour that I immediately felt at ease and welcomed into this team of talented musicians.

I know that Pete really valued the friendships that developed from bringing people together just as much, maybe more so than the music everyone created. And while a lot of people will look back and talk about their favourite Commodore 64 tunes by him, some of us lucky few got the chance to be able to admire Pete for much more than his musical legacy.

I always liked to joke that Pete talked like a shop steward… He could be the voice of reason in the maelstrom of herding cat-like composers. Sure he talked too fucking much, but it was to get his point across in a way that everyone could understand, which is especially important when half the team doesn't speak English as their native language. The subtleties of us teasing each other mercillesly at every opportunity can often seem quite daunting to non-English speakers, I'm sure.

I miss him a lot. I don't have messages from him when I wake up like I used to. When I see there's a new plugin or I stumble upon a nice repository of Kontakt instruments, my first thought is to tell Pete. He's sorely missed! He was always willing to listen to your latest version and offer feedback, as we all need it at times. He lived for the ROTY's and cracked the whip to keep the cats herded towards that goal, and it's been hard finding someone willing to step up to do that.

I had started a version of Bubble Bobble in the style of a James Bond creole-style funeral march as a tongue-in-cheek dark humored nod to Pete (there's a scene in a 007 movie where there's a slow creole funeral march where Bond gets stabbed and put in a coffin, and when he does, the band goes from slow morbid music to a joyful When the Saints Go Marching In style jazzy fun.)

We all knew he had serious health issues, but it felt like he had a few more years left. When I told Pete about my plan, he laughed, he got the joke! He dealt with his mortality by laughing at his situation. It helped, and it helped all of us to accept and deal with it too, but sadly when his condition took a sharp downhill turn, I felt like the remix would be received as being in very poor taste. So I abandoned it to focus on another track. Now that he's not here any more, I still feel like I want to finish it, and write the happy part for the end of the piece, to celebrate Pete and his music.

Pete’s passing was deeply personal for me. When we met at Kenilworth two years ago, he wasn’t well, but he was still up, full of energy, and cracking the kind of wise jokes we all loved. That evening/night with Dr Hubbard, as he called him, is a memory I’ll always hold onto.

Last year, I saw how much he had changed. The energy wasn’t the same, and it hit me rather hard. Still, he met me with that same warmth. After that, things got worse, though he still had moments where his old self shone through.

Even from his hospital bed, just weeks before he passed, he was joking, dark humour, but sincere. Around that time, he asked us to write what he meant to us (the Encore gang). That’s when it really sank in.

He handled it with warmth, curiosity, and his usual non-quiet strength. No self-pity, no drama, just him, still finding things to laugh at when most wouldn’t. That was Pete. He carried music and life the same way, thoughtfully, patiently, with an ear for the details most of us missed.

It’s strange knowing he’s no longer just a message away. But what he left behind still speaks, just like he did.

Even before I was asked to join Encore500 V2, me and Peter had endless voice calls and chats about music in general that very soon would get into the most intimate geekery. Many evenings we would speak about music theory, analyse instruments and speak about what we were best at, purely out of respect, love and passion for music.

Peter and I grew tight from the very first moment. He taught me so much about music and would always give me the most respectful feedback on how to improve my music, and many times it was brutal honesty! Something only a few can do to me. Still to this very day I feel how much I miss him.

Peter came with many great ideas that would get this project into the right direction. He gave me the best feedback to without a doubt made my remix shine that extra! He just had it!

His passing affected me deeply and I had a difficult time to even open this project for a long time. It felt like something had been carved out of me and just took something away from me.

I can't go on this road again and share my deepest emotions, but let me tell you this: I never felt forced to pick up where I left and complete the track! I never ever doubted that. I just waited for that feeling, let it rip. Then I knew what to do and just let the emotions flow.

'Thank you for everything - see you one day.'

Starting with the first question… I am a person who can talk a lot (just like Pete), but when it comes to losing someone important, it is quite the opposite. It feels like no words can justify or express what I feel, and I noticed it just gets harder overtime. But I will make an attempt…

What did Pete mean to me… His pure presence in the scene warmed the hearts of many of us. It is one thing that he was a brilliant musician, but he was also a wonderful human being, trying to lift up everyone who needed help to grow - or just needed a little support. He tried to teach us as many things as he could. And he really wanted to leave a legacy behind, which he absolutely accomplished, not only with his top-notch songs and teachings, but also with this whole community, the chatters, the laughs, all the jokes. To me it feels like when people like him with such a remarkable character depart from Earth, the place gets colder in every possible way.

When he wrote on Discord asking what our last words would be to him, I said that to me he feels like the grandpa I never had. (Sadly, both my grandpas passed away before I was born, and my Dad's place is sacred and taken in my heart). But I am sure he also felt like a father to many of us.

Pete also definitely held this project together, it was very hard for most of us to carry on without him. Even just moving forward with the tracks for a while felt like it's not working… But I genuinely hope that we don't cease to exist entirely. and now he is looking down from somewhere at us with a warm smile, that we finally managed to pull ourselves together and made this album happen - after all, this was one of his last wishes!

After Barry (Leitch) got the work-files from Rowena (bless her!), we had a discussion on what (and how) to finish the track. I said I would do it, so it became an obsession for me. I toyed around with some ideas on the Hi-score and started on that one. Barry already said he would do the Underground track. So far, so good!

The original plan was to have Pete's start (beginning) since it has an amazing intro, then we go to the Underground track before ending it with the Hi-score. It sounds pretty easy, but it was a nightmare to mix because of Pete's style and choice of instruments. I tried many times to find a proper transition from the abrupt Pete-stop to the underground track, but I didn't feel it was good at all. I then started composing a more quiet part with a piano, like an honouring Pete theme and thought of a funeral, church bells, Bubble Bobble, and I used that 1 minute to guide the track towards the Underground theme. Voila, it sounded quite good.

In the meantime, Barry had already finished the Underground track with the static/robotic, non-humanized bass (like the original btw!) and even got Romeo Knight to make some cool guitar stems for the part. When I glued it together and sent it to Eike (RK), he didn't like the arrangement at all, and pointed towards the bass most of all. I then started creating my own Underground part with a bass that suited Eike's guitar stems, (inspired by Pink Floyd) and found a way to make the riffs shine AND keep the spirit of Giana at the same time.

We spoke a lot (Barry and me) around this time and I shared my changes and thoughts. He liked it and a bit later on he just laughed and pointed out that almost everything he did was scrapped. I replied with I used your snare! …and there are other things in there I kept as well. We just had a laugh and agreed on the part in the end. I just had a strong feel about the part and felt it was the right thing to do. Barry has been forthcoming (as usual), and I'm really grateful for that.

When I finished with the mixing, I thought I was finally done, so I contacted Danko for the mastering. Sadly he had no time to do it due to personal reasons, so now I had to master it as well. Of course, I'm not Danko, but I got some pointers and have also learned a bit about mastering over the years. I did my best, and after (probably) 40 renderings later, it's hopefully good enough!

I feel quite satisfied with my Rings of Medusa take. It's a very haunting melodic theme that goes through the whole tune. I never played the game personally, but as soon as we got the Deliplayer and I heard it there, it stuck with me. It's not a secret that I am a huge Hippel fan, so as with Amberstar, I wanted to do my own take on this track as well. I ended up adding drums to this one and I am glad I did. The original has no drums and the bass is quite monotonous, so I really wanted to give the tune a lift with some variations on multiple parts. Maybe I did some brave choices with the overall arrangement in the end, but I feel it worked out quite well.

I ended up opting for Goto80's Underscore track. I heard it in the Welcome animation of an independently financed distribution of a popular game. It caught my ear due to the chaotic nature of it, and it just felt like when it was written, someone was having a lot of fun doing it. I loved the energy, and thought that perhaps I could clean it up a bit, and put some lipstick on it and see if I could capture that raw energy it had. I took all the Encore tracks on a test listen while driving back from Detroit airport in the middle of a warm summer's night, and when listening to this track, I glanced down at my speedometer and realized I was doing over 100mph, so I think I managed to pull it off! It's a great little MOD file, and all credit goes to Goto80 for being a magnificent self indulgent bastard. ❤️

Wow, it's been nearly a year since I wrote my thoughts on my track choices, or choice as it was at the time, but I had always intended to cover the magnificent LED Storm title music. I started with a sound test, aware that this remix would live or die on the arpeggios alone, maybe the greatest arpeggios of all time. After a few weeks I had exactly what I needed and this track became a labor of love over the coming summer months. I had an idea to bring in the music from the second level as a sort of race complete song, the kind you often find on a racing game as your car drives a victory lap while the results display on screen. It took a lot of trial and error to find the right groove but when I did, part of the game start music fell out of my fingers as I messed around during a session. Also, the end is a little nod to the outrun highscore music with the waves and chilled vibes. I'm super happy with the end result.

Trex Warrior was one of those games where the presentation blew me away. It had a badass intro sequence with a badass soundtrack, and fun gameplay with fast 3D graphics. What's not to love! So I decided to show the music some love and create a faithful studio adaption with some added guitars. The prominent drum loop in the original is a Betty Boo sample, so for my remix I rebuilt it from scratch. No original samples were used.

Well, that did not pan out as I thought 🤣😅. What can I say 🙈. From one track to another and to infinity and beyond! I’m a guy who works with what I’m feeling. So without being too full of myself, because I’m not, I just felt that Rastaman was written in the stars. So many have said that they love the track. What pushed me was that I saw the movie about Bob Marley’s life. His music hasn’t been a big part of my life, but none the less, it was present.

There is a special person who I met at Revision, Ozan Corak. He especially mentioned Rastaman as his favourite track. I don't know how this version will be received. It’s not a 1 to 1 remake, it’s a visualisation of mine. I know it may not be received well by many, since it is a step away from the original. I just wanted to make what, in my opinion, is the best version and to push myself forward or back to the time I was working with vocalists writing and producing music. This is what I want to do more in the future.

Rastaman is about the life of Bob Marley and his struggles. It’s a modern take on Reggae and only some elements are used from the original song. This was a fun project. I play most of it - except the singing, because my Jamaican accent isn’t very good 🤣. (So I) hired a singer from Fiverr to sing. I wanted a singer with a Jamaican accent. Here’s where Shane from the States stepped in. A truly friendly guy who actually was born the same year I wrote Rastaman on the Amiga. He loved the demo I sent him and he agreed to sing on it. For me that was truly a blessing, since he provided the feel and glow to the track.

(And even though my singing is not good), my bass playing is even worse. So, I also had a bass player, Reinaldo from Argentina playing the bass. The bass was almost the same as the original. I wanted him to play what I sent him. but he insisted to give me his take on it and I’m grateful for that. I did combine his take and the bass he played as I wanted it so it's a win-win I think.

I used AI on the melody of the saxophone in the beginning and at the end, guided by a melody I played. Also the small sax ad-libs were placed tastefully and corrected with Melodyne to fit my needs.

It has been a big pleasure for me to revisit this old track and to enhance it, since I’m more mature now and have more experience in both life and music. My goals are always to challenge myself and to make something better than before. I really hope that this version will give others pleasure listening to it as I it does to me. This is my vision. I learned a lot from making this and made me grow. Hope you will enjoy it!

Picking songs to remix always takes forever. For me, it has to be games that really made an impact on me or had songs that I still catch myself whistling while doing the dishes.

The music from Marble Madness has exactly that kind of song. I remember playing it for the first time and it just lodged itself in my brain instantly. And now here I am, remixing it almost 40 years later. 🤓

The intro to Another World totally caught me off guard back then, with its amazing visuals and super atmospheric music. Listening to it again before starting this remix, I could really hear how Jean-François Freitas was inspired by John Carpenter’s score for Escape from New York.

And then you’ve got Tron: Legacy whose soundtrack was done by Daft Punk, also clearly inspired by John Carpenter.

So my remix takes inspiration from both John Carpenter and Daft Punk 🙏

For me the choice was just a question of time before it would have been done one way the other. Seeing is believing / Anarchy, has to be one of, if not the best Amiga demos ever made. The soundtrack has always been one of Nuke's finest, too. So when I was asked to join this journey, the track was already set in my mind! But I'd never do a 1:1 copy of the song. If I would remix this excellent Amiga MOD, it had to be done in the most personal way possible.

When I first heard the Turrican II Title tune, it immediately made it to my bucket list, so I was very excited to start (on it). Then I quickly realized how much pressure it means to do real justice to it, since I resonate with it so much that I genuinely think it is one of the best pieces ever made on Amiga. So, touching this piece literally felt both heaven and hell to me! 😄

Shocked and stunned. Pete's passing really left a massive hole in the group, I don't think anyone really realized how he was the glue holding us all together. He was all our friend, and we all miss him dearly. We all grieve for him in our own ways. Many of us talked at length about it, and many of us found it very difficult to continue on without him. It took a long time for many of us to even feel like putting mouse to desktop, some never even made it that far. What has stunned me, though, is that the spirit of the team is still there - this was Pete's vision of collaboration and teaching.

When I first joined I commented that I couldn't think of a more intimidating bunch of people to have to submit a tune to! You have over 200 years of compositional, arrangement and production expertise in one group! Pete wanted us all there to learn from each other, to be able to just ask each other hey how can I mix this better? or any chance you could lay down some guitar for my track?, but it's gone so much further than that, we've had several virtual and in person meet-ups all around the globe and true friendships have been made as a result of one man - and his desire to win all the awards. 🙂

Another thing that has stunned me has been the quality and continued improvements to each and every person on the team's work. I'm not going to single out individuals who have not just improved technically but actually raised the bar for the entire community.

I'm so happy that we managed to get the album done in the end. It has been quite a rollercoaster journey, especially after Pete's passing and the following couple of months.

I am so happy and proud we managed to get this album done! The support we have had along the road is something words can't tell. You just have to live the story to know what it is.

Also the support from everybody has meant the world to us! Just a simple thing as, you're never alone."

I just know we all did our greatest!

Thank you for the music!

Last year when Pete has passed, I kinda got a block that lasted for quite some time… I really, really wanted to do it for him but I just could not get myself to sit down and focus on this. I had a hard time keeping myself together even when we did the memorial show and still to this day I have difficulties with the grief. What he left behind is hard to describe with words - an incredible professional, yet, super humble and supportive group of friends who bonded around their passion and then, so much more…

Also, I perceived my track choice to be the most challenging ever, since it is one of the classic Amiga game tunes with pure genius melodies and flow by Chris Hülsbeck - so the song itself is sacred to me. When Jogeir & Rapture came out with their version, that was my final inspiration - this is why my track starts where theirs ends, sending a nod to them!

I knew what kind of treatment I wanted to give it, but I really hated when I could not get a part right the way I imagined and just kept struggling with the instrumentation. And because of this, I have had many failed evenings when I wanted to sit down to carry on with it, but I just felt like I couldn't.

Then somehow I started to push through and managed to add more and more parts that lined up with how I imagined it. Jogeir was extremely patient and nudged gently towards the end goal from time to time.

And when most of the song started to make sense to me during the final days before the deadline, I definitely got the last motivation boost to finish. Mattias Brian gave it the finishing treatment with mixing and mastering and I am very happy with the result!

The track of course is dedicated to Pete. He just smiled when I mentioned this plan, joking that I will most certainly take this soundscape to the highway with my high-energy obsession - so I did.

Thank you so much for everything! I feel incredibly lucky to be a part of this journey with all of you!

Almost a year went procrastinating. Nearly all the time had gone to make Unreal happen. It was so challenging to improve the song, to pay sufficient respect to the original song since I felt very nostalgic (towards it). I had great regret for my choice. I realized I won't make it in time, pulled myself together a week before the deadline and managed to complete Lotus from scratch!

However, the deadline was extended a couple of times, and I still couldn't meet those deadlines with Unreal. I felt completely lost, almost giving up and leaving it to be released much later. Until suddenly, I had the entire length covered. Just needed to touch all the parts up hundreds of times!

Luckily I got valuable, even harsh but honest feedback from the other artists to improve after my ears had become too numb. Since I left everything until the last minute I had no longer the guts to ask any other people to play any parts, not even Romeo Knight for the guitar. That made me feel super nervous about the guitar sounds but I was surprised to be mocked for my snare sound instead!

It was unusual on my behalf to release a remix with no Theremin on the key melodies at all, only a few lines here and there. In the end the remix was completely different than what I had in my mind. Lotus was the complete opposite, since I knew how it should sound like from a dream I had more than a decade ago. Just wasted a year to come up with the lyrics!

Of course I'm relieved the duty is done and that we got quite a lot of songs in total. I felt that I had improved a lot since the last album. And I had great help for mastering from a certain Swedish gentleman. But I feel we are still recovering from the loss. Not only the friend and father figure we lost, but we will never hear what Pete's remix would have been if he finished it himself. And he won't hear what we released, apart from the few that got their songs ready in advance. And I'm not sure if or when there will be another Encore in the future. Only time will tell.