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Rob Hubbard | |
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 Hubbard in 2023 | |
| Background information | |
| Born | 1955 (age 68–69) Kingston upon Hull, England |
| Genres | Video game music, Chiptune |
| Occupation(s) | Composer, programmer |
| Years active | 1985–1996, 2004–present |
Rob Hubbard (born 1955 [1] [2] in Kingston upon Hull, [3] England) is a British composer best known for his musical and programming work for microcomputers of the 1980s, such as the Commodore 64.
Hubbard first started playing music at age seven. Whilst at school he played in bands. After leaving school, he went to music college. [4]
In the late seventies, before scoring games, he was a professional studio musician. He decided to teach himself BASIC and machine code for the Commodore 64. [5]
Hubbard subsequently wrote or converted music for a variety of publishers on over 75 games between 1985 and 1989 such as Monty on the Run , Crazy Comets , Master of Magic and Commando . Some of his most popular tunes include also Warhawk , Delta , Thrust , Lightforce , Spellbound , Sanxion , Auf Wiedersehen Monty and International Karate . The game Knucklebusters includes Hubbard's longest tune: a 17-minute opus. Hubbard has mentioned his personal favourites are Kentilla , W.A.R. and Sanxion . His least favourite was Samantha Fox Strip Poker, which he admitted to having done purely for money; he was listed in the game credits with the alias John York. [3] He has stated that he had many musical influences including Jean Michel Jarre, Larry Fast and other synth bands. [6]
Hubbard mainly composed for the Commodore 64's SID sound chip. He worked freelance and turned down offers from companies to work in-house. [4]
After working for several different companies, he left Newcastle in 1988 and had the choice to work for Electronic Arts or Microsoft. Hubbard chose EA due to their prominence in the gaming industry as Microsoft had (as yet) no gaming platform. His work with EA Electronic Arts in America was as a composer. [4] He was the first person devoted to sound and music at EA and did everything from low-level programming to composing. [7] One of his most famous compositions during his period at EA, is the music featured in the loading sequence of the Commodore 64 version of Skate or Die , which features multiple sampled chords of electric guitar and organ. Playback of samples was facilitated by exploiting a feature in the SID sound-synthesizer chip: altering the volume register produces an audible click, and altering the register thousands of times per second enables a relatively crude (but surprisingly clear and sophisticated for eight-bit computers) form of sample playback. [8] He eventually became Audio Technical Director, [9] a more administrative job, deciding which technologies to use in games, and which to develop further.
After the Commodore 64 period, he wrote some soundtracks for games which appeared on the Amiga, Atari ST, IBM PC and Sega Mega Drive.
Hubbard recently[ when? ] contributed a few re-arrangements of his themes to Chris Abbott's C64 tribute Back in Time Live. Hubbard has performed several times with the Danish C64 cover band PRESS PLAY ON TAPE [10] who have covered many of his early tunes using a full rock-band arrangement. Hubbard has also performed his old music on piano with the support of violinist and fellow chiptune composer Mark Knight.
Hubbard left EA in 2002 and returned to England. [11] He has recently resumed playing in a band, and he has revisited his past game-music work in concert. His recent compositions have included music for mobile-phone games.
In 2005, music from International Karate was performed live by a full orchestra at the third Symphonic Game Music Concert. The event took place in Leipzig, Germany. Hubbard arranged and orchestrated the piece. [12]
In 2014, Hubbard appeared in and composed music for the documentary feature film From Bedrooms to Billions , a film that tells the story of the British video games industry.
In November 2016, Hubbard received an honorary degree from Abertay University for his contributions to video-game music in the 1980s. [13]
The Commodore 64, also known as the C64, is an 8-bit home computer introduced in January 1982 by Commodore International. It has been listed in the Guinness World Records as the highest-selling single computer model of all time, with independent estimates placing the number sold between 12.5 and 17 million units. Volume production started in early 1982, marketing in August for US$595. Preceded by the VIC-20 and Commodore PET, the C64 took its name from its 64 kilobytes(65,536 bytes) of RAM. With support for multicolor sprites and a custom chip for waveform generation, the C64 could create superior visuals and audio compared to systems without such custom hardware.
Jeff Minter is an English video game designer and programmer who often goes by the name Yak. He is the founder of software house Llamasoft and has created dozens of games during his career, which began in 1981 with games for the ZX80. Minter's games are shoot 'em ups which contain titular or in-game references demonstrating his fondness of ruminants. Many of his programs also feature something of a psychedelic element, as in some of the earliest "light synthesizer" programs including Trip-a-Tron.
Skate or Die! is a skateboarding game released by Electronic Arts (EA) in 1987 for the Commodore 64. It is EA's first internally developed game. Ports for the Apple IIGS, MS-DOS, Amstrad CPC, and ZX Spectrum were released the following years. It was ported to the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) by Konami, published under the company's Ultra Games branding.
Martin Galway is one of the best known composers of chiptune video game music for the Commodore 64 and the ZX Spectrum. His works include Rambo: First Blood Part II, Comic Bakery and Wizball's scores, as well as the music used in the loader for the C64 version of Arkanoid.
Paradroid is a Commodore 64 computer game written by Andrew Braybrook and published by Hewson Consultants in 1985. It is a shoot 'em up with puzzle elements and was critically praised at release. The objective is to clear a fleet of spaceships of hostile robots by destroying them or taking them over via a mini-game. It was later remade as Paradroid 90 for the Commodore Amiga and Atari ST home computers and as Paradroid 2000 for the Acorn Archimedes. There exist several fan-made remakes for modern PCs. In 2004 the Commodore 64 version was re-released as a built-in game on the C64 Direct-to-TV, and in 2008 for the Wii Virtual Console in Europe.
Wizball is a horizontally scrolling shooter written by Jon Hare and Chris Yates and released in 1987 for the Commodore 64 and later in the year for the ZX Spectrum and Amstrad CPC. Versions for the Amiga and Atari ST were released in the following year. Wizball was also ported to IBM PC compatibles and the Thomson MO5.
Thalamus Ltd was a British computer game developer that published titles for a number of 8-bit and 16-bit platforms during the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Zzap!64 was a computer games magazine covering games on the Commodore International series of computers, especially the Commodore 64 (C64). It was published in the UK by Newsfield Publications Ltd and later by Europress Impact.
Turbo OutRun (ターボアウトラン) is a 1989 arcade racing game released by Sega. A follow-up to 1986's Out Run, it was released as a dedicated game, as well as an upgrade kit for the original Out Run board.
Jeroen Godfried Tel, also known as WAVE, is a Dutch composer. He is best known for numerous computer game tunes he wrote in the 1980s and early 1990s for the Commodore 64. His most popular compositions appear in the following Commodore 64 games: Combat Crazy, Cybernoid, Cybernoid II, Dan Dare 3, Eliminator, Hawkeye, Myth: History in the Making, Nighthunter, Robocop 3, Rubicon, and Supremacy.
I, Ball is a vertically scrolling shooter published for the Amstrad CPC, Atari ST, Commodore 64 and ZX Spectrum in 1987 by Firebird. It was programmed by Timothy Closs. The C64 version features music written by Rob Hubbard, based on two tunes by Cabaret Voltaire called "Whip Blow" and "I Want You". Hubbard was commissioned to write music based on the style of the band. The audio also includes synthesised speech.
Ben Daglish was an English composer and musician. Born in London, his parents moved to Sheffield when he was one year old. He was known for creating many soundtracks for home computer games during the 1980s, including such as The Last Ninja, Trap, Krakout, and Deflektor. Daglish teamed up with fellow C64 musician and prolific programmer Tony Crowther, forming W.E.M.U.S.I.C., which stood for "We Make Use of Sound in Computers". Daglish had attended the same school as Crowther. Daglish mostly worked freelance but was employed by Gremlin Graphics for a couple of years.
Sanxion is a horizontally scrolling shooter developed by Stavros Fasoulas for the Commodore 64 and published in 1986 by Thalamus Ltd. It was the first game released by Thalamus. A ZX Spectrum port followed in 1989. Fasoulas also wrote Delta and Quedex.
Action Biker is a 1985 game for the Atari 8-bit family, Commodore 64, and ZX Spectrum released by Mastertronic. The game was a tie-in with snack food KP Skips, whose mascot was "Clumsy Colin" who featured in television adverts for Skips at around the time the game was published.
Personal Computer Games was a multi-format UK computer games magazine of the early/mid-1980s published by VNU.
Alligata Software Ltd. was a computer games developer and publisher based in Sheffield in the UK in the 1980s.
Doctor Who and the Mines of Terror is a game for the Amstrad CPC, BBC Micro and Commodore 64. It was first released by Micro Power on the BBC Micro in 1985, and on the Amstrad CPC & C64 in 1986.
Rock'n Wrestle is a professional wrestling video game released in 1985 for the ZX Spectrum, Amstrad and Commodore 64 8-bit home computers, and as Bop'N Wrestle in 1986 for DOS by Mindscape.
Mark Knight, also known as TDK and Madfiddler, is a British musician, video game music composer and sound designer. He started out writing chiptune and module file music in the Amiga demoscene, and began his games industry career as a composer in 1992. He continued until 2000 when he moved to sound design, and since 2014 has had a split role as a sound designer and composer culminating by going self employed in 2017.
Scene World Magazine is a disk magazine for the Commodore 64 home computer. The magazine has been released regularly since February 2001.
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