Zoids on Back in Time 3 is a great version of Zoids. While it was being developed (and thanks to a chance comment from Jan Diablez Arnt Harries), the similarities between the now-orchestral Zoids and John Williams' Imperial March became ever more striking.

So there was a version of Zoids without the big Imperial March thing going on, which Kenz loved. But there were some problems technically with it, so it seemed like a good idea to put all the John Williams stuff in and finally ditch the synth-glue that was holding the previous version together.

Well, we met with mixed success. Some beta-testers loved it, but Kenz didn't! And as the Exec producer and expert Zoidal Fun Guy, we went back to the previous version and started again from there.

Now, this orchestral version is far less powerful than the one on BIT 3. Why? Well, what you're hearing is a recording from 2 MIDI boxes: A virtuoso (which can do 32 channels, 128 notes!) and a JV2080 (16 channels, 64 notes), all doing orchestral instruments. Although the instruments used are much better than most patches, they're still a bit anaemic. The orchestral tunes on BIT 3 were all re-recorded with an expensive sample set (Miroslav Vitous) painstakingly instrument by instrument, playing style by playing style). So if we had ever got to re-recording this version, it would have sounded even better than it does now. A film orchestra as opposed to a TV orchestra.

Quick mention here to Boz, who, as ever, was at the heart of this cover and right by my side as we paintakingly created orchestral hits from their component parts and joggled instruments to make sure we wouldn't need a 200 piece orchestra!

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