Favorite Video Game Music Composers

[TmEE]

(I'm popping in Red Zone every once in a while to listen some great stuff on it)

[Zebbe]

AoB&R sounds amazing. Jesper Kyd is a creative genius.

[Elusive]

Takenobu Mitsuyoshi.

doot doo-doot doot doot doot doo-doot doo doooooo ~DAYTONAAA~

GAME OVER, YEEAAH~

If we're talking 16-bit composers, Howard Drossin somehow got the Comix Zone soundtrack out of the AGES program. It's great

Bonus mentions: Hiroshi Kawaguchi (or HIRO - because he did everything: including After Burner, OutRun, and Space Harrier), Tokuhiko Uwabo (or BO - likewise: including Phantasy Star, and Space Harrier II)

[stalepie]

Whoever did the first levels of Jewel Master and Midnight Resistance.

[GameUser-16-32-128]

There are so many great Genesis musicians out there that I can't name them at the moment, but can only name the most memorable games they represent:

M.U.S.H.A.
El Viento
Arcus Odyssey
Target Earth
Super Hang On
Elemental Master
Valis III
Y's III
Streets Of Rage
Gunstar Heroes
Castlevania Bloodlines
Revenge Of Shinobi
Shinobi III
Out-Run
Phantasy Star IV
Thunder Force III, IV

[M4R14NO94]

Bump!

Oh man, this one's gonna be a bit long

Masato Nakamura (Sonic 1 and 2)

Howard Drossin (S&K, The Ooze, both Vigilante 8 games, Spinball, Comix Zone, Dynamite Deka)

Charles Deenen (The Lost Vikings [SNES])

Hiroshi Kawaguchi/Hiroshi Miyauchi (basically everything by AM2 'til the early 90's)

Patrick Phelan (Lotus 3, Zool 2, Top Gear 2)

Barry Leitch (Lotus 2)

Richard Joseph and Jon Hare (Cannon Fodder, Sensible World of Soccer)

Jeroen Tel (Turbo OutRun [C64])

Hideki Naganuma (JET SET RADIOOOOO!)

Don Veca (Urban Strike, Road Rash 2 and 3)

Kevin Bruce (Striker, Power Drive)

Martin Iveson (Jaguar XJ220, Thunderstrike, Chuck Rock)

Takenobu Mitsuyoshi (Sega Rally, Daytona and some more AM2 games)

Matt Furniss (Puggsy, The Lost Vikings [Genesis], G-LOC, F-15 Strike Eagle 2, 007 The Duel, Chuck Rock and more awesomeness)

Neil Biggin (Top Gear 2, Jungle Strike [SNES])

Richard Jacques (Sonic R, Sonic 3D Blast, Jet Set Radio's Everybody Jump Around, OutRun 2's Euro remixes)

Geoff Follin and/or Tim Follin (Rock 'n Roll Racing, Blaster Master 2)

Rob Hubbard (Road Rash 1 and 2, NHL Hockey and NHL '94, Commando [C64], International Karate)

Stéphane Picq (MegaRace)

Tommy Tallarico (both Earthworm Jim games)

Yuzo Koshiro (Streets of Rage series, Sonic 1 [GG/Master System])

Jeff Dyck (Skitchin', FIFA '95)

John Baker (both ToeJam & Earl games)

Jun Senoue (Sonic 3D Blast, part of Sonic 3)

Tokuhiko Uwabo (Super Monaco GP)

Manfred Linzner (F-14 Tomcat, Super Hornet F/A-18F, Jet Set Radio GBA)

The guys at Wave Master (the Sonic Advance games)

Jonathan Dunn (both GB Jurassic Park games from Ocean)

Kazunaka Yamane (Double Dragon)

Joan Sanmarti (Smashing Drive, Radikal Bikers*)

Spencer Nilsen (Sonic CD US)

Naofumi Hataya (Sonic 2 [GG/Master System], Sonic Chaos, Sonic CD JP/EU)

Brian Schmidt (Mutant League Football, Crüe Ball, World Heroes [Genesis], Madden NFL '97 [SNES])

Simon Robertson (Re-Volt**)

*Yes, I know that in one of my first posts I said that Radikal Bikers' music sucked, but I actually like it now for some reason
**BEST RC GAME EVAR

[Why-Disciple]

Daisuke Ishiwatari, one of my favorite people in the world.

[zetastrike]

Wrong. What gives that bad rep is the GEMS engine and all American games.

Comix Zone? Vectorman 1 & 2?

[Pulstar]

Frank Klepacki - Frank Klepacki (born May 25, 1974) is an American musician, video game music composer and sound director best known for his work on the Command & Conquer series. Having learned to play drums as a child, he joined Westwood Studios as a composer when he was only 17 years old. He scored several games there, including the Lands of Lore series, Westwood Studios' Dune games, the The Legend of Kyrandia series, Blade Runner, and the Command & Conquer series. His work in Command & Conquer: Red Alert won two awards.

Favourite score: Red Alert 2.
Interview



KONAMI KuKeiHa CLUB - Konami Kukeiha Club (コナミ矩形波倶楽部, konami kukeiha kurabu?, lit. "Konami Square Wave Club", referring to square waves used in chiptunes in the 1980s) is Konami's sound team. It is often confused with 矩形波倶楽部 (KuKeiHa CLUB), Konami's in-house band that has released albums consisting of their studio performances. They are primarily responsible for the sound and music in the majority of Konami video games. One of their best known works is the soundtrack to Genso Suikoden — the majority of the material being composed by member Miki Higashino (MIKI-CHAN). Motoaki Furukawa (main arranger and guitarist) has been known to perform live with members not part of the in-house band, credited under "KONAMI KuKeiHa CLUB". For example, disc 1 of the KONAMI ALL STARS ~THE SENRYO-BAKO HEISEI 4 NEN BAN~ album (KICA-1053~55) is titled "KONAMI KuKeiHa CLUB Live in Tōkyō."

Favourite score: Snatcher



Yuzo Koshiro - Yūzō Koshiro (古代 祐三, Koshiro Yūzō?, born December 12, 1967 in Hino, Tokyo) is a Japanese video game music composer. Koshiro's first composing job was with Nihon Falcom in 1986, where he contributed to the soundtracks of Xanadu Scenario II and Romancia. However, his most well-known Falcom works are his contributions to Sorcerian, Ys I, and Ys II. After Ys II, Koshiro left Falcom.

Following his separation with Falcom, Koshiro became a freelancer, composing music for many other companies. Most notable among these were Sega, where he composed music for The Revenge of Shinobi and the Streets of Rage series, as well as Quintet, where he composed the soundtracks to ActRaiser and ActRaiser 2.

Favourite score: Streets of Rage 3
Interview



Junichi Nakatsuru - Junichi Nakatsuru (中鶴純一, Nakatsuru Jun'ichi?) is a Japanese video game composer and sound director employed at Namco Bandai Games. He is best known for his work on the Soul series.

Favourite score: Soul Calibur
Interview



Richard Jacques - Richard Jacques (born April 2, 1973 in Warwick, England) is a British music composer. He is best known for his video game music, most notably for the award-winning Headhunter. He also writes pieces for commercials and Video Games Live.

Favourite score: Sonic R
Interview



Jeff van Dyck - Jeff van Dyck is an award-winning Australian video game music composer. Born in 1969 and raised in Vancouver, Canada, van Dyck is the Audio Director of The Creative Assembly's offices in Fortitude Valley, Brisbane, Australia.

Favourite score: Rome Total War



Takenobu Mitsuyoshi - Takenobu Mitsuyoshi (光吉猛修, Mitsuyoshi Takenobu?, born December 12, 1967) is a Japanese composer of video game music. He has composed music for various games produced by Sega, including Virtua Fighter 2 and Shenmue. He was also the voice actor of Bill in Sega-AM2's 1993 fighting arcade game, Burning Rival.

Favourite score: Daytona USA
Interview



Peter McConnell - Peter McConnell (also known as Peter Mc) is a video game music composer who worked for LucasArts for nearly ten years. He studied music as an undergraduate at Harvard University.

During his time at LucasArts, McConnell composed many soundtracks for games such as those in the Star Wars series. He also co-invented iMUSE, LucasArts's patented interactive music system.

Favourite score: Grim Fandango
Interview



Alexander Brandon - Alexander Brandon (also known as Siren in the demoscene and tracker community, b. 1974) is a US musician, former member of Straylight Productions, who composed music mostly for games produced by Epic Games, or games based on Epic technology, including Unreal, Unreal Tournament, Deus Ex, Tyrian, Jazz Jackrabbit 2 and the cancelled game Jazz Jackrabbit 3D.

He worked in several MOD music groups over his composing years in the late 90's, including the Kosmic Free Music Foundation. During that time he also composed for several musicdisks such as Return to Stage 9.

Favourite score: Unreal
Interview



Chris Hülsbeck - Chris Hülsbeck (born March 2nd 1968, last name sometimes spelled Huelsbeck) is a game music composer from Germany.

He has written soundtracks for more than 70 titles, the latest being Star Wars: Rebel Strike for Nintendo GameCube. Many of his scores for the Commodore 64 are regarded as classics among enthusiasts today, most notably The Great Giana Sisters. He is best known for the soundtracks to the Turrican series of games. Chris's initial recognition arrived at age 17 when his composition "Shades" won first place in a music competition for the German 64'er magazine.

Favourite score: Turrican
Interview



Richard Joseph - Richard Joseph (23 April 1953 - 4 March 2007) was a British computer game composer, musician and sound specialist. He had a career spanning some 20 years starting in the early days of gaming on the C64 and the Amiga and onto succeeding formats through to the present day.

After being diagnosed with lung cancer, he died on 4 March 2007 aged 53 years.

Favourite score: Speedball 2
Interview



Tommy Tallarico - Tommy Tallarico (born on February 18, 1968) is an American video game music composer and musician. He is best-known as the co-creator of the concert series Video Games Live. He is also well known for being the co-host of Reviews on the Run (formerly known as Judgment Day in the US).

Favourite score: MDK
Interview

A few favourite composers.. There's plenty more but I couldn't be arsed to copy-paste from wikipedia anymore

[GohanX]

My car's mp3 player is set to random and the name of Frank Klepacki came up and I went "wtf?" Then awesome Red Alert music started blaring.

There have been many good composers in this thread, but the only ones that I've got in the mp3 player are Klepacki, Kyoshiro (SOR 2 soundtrack), and Uematsu (a little FF6 arranged.)

[OldSchool]

Nintendo

[Waterfaller]

Yasunori Mitsuda - Chrono Trigger, Chrono Cross
Koji Kondo - The Legend of Zelda series
Yoko Shimomura - Parasite Eve

[Iron Lizard]

Who was the guy who did Sword of Vermilion?

[Pulstar]

Frank Klepacki is awesome. And he's even more so thanks to his dislike of record labels. He publishes his own music afaik.. and his music is pretty good if you like his style.

I'm surprised nobody mentioned Chris Hülsbeck.. No Amiga people here? Every forum must have them!