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Biography
BLP sources|date=March 2010 Rob Hubbard (born 1955,ZZAP& #33; 64, October 1985Happy Computer 7/86 Kingston upon Hull , England ) is a music composer best known for his composition of computer game theme music, especially for microcomputers of the 1980s such as the Commodore 64 . His work showcased the potential of the Commodore 64's sound hardware and provided many examples of how appropriate music can improve the gaming experience.
Early career
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.
Gremlin Graphics
Writing a few demos and some educational software for learning music, he approached Gremlin Graphics in 1985 with samples of his work, in an attempt to market his software. Gremlin was more interested in the tunes than the software, and he was asked to create the soundtrack for Thing on a Spring , a platform game.
Hubbard went on to write or convert themes for games such as Monty on the Run , Crazy Comets , Master of Magic (Mastertronic)|Master of Magic and Commando (game)|Commando . Some of his most popular tunes include also Thrust (game)|Thrust , Spellbound (computer game)|Spellbound , Sanxion , Auf Wiedersehen Monty and International Karate . The game Knucklebusters includes Hubbard's longest tune: a 17 minute opus.
Move to Electronic Arts and the USA
After working for several different companies, he left Newcastle upon Tyne|Newcastle in 1989 to work for Electronic Arts in America as a composer. He was the first person devoted to sound and music at EA, and did everything from low-level programming to composing. One of his most famous compositions during his period at EA is the music featured in the loading sequence of the C64 version of Skate or Die , which features samples of electric guitar. Playback of samples was facilitated by exploiting a flaw in the MOS Technology SID|SID sound-synthesizer chip: altering the volume register produced an audible click, and altering the register thousands of times per second enabled a crude form of sample playback. cite web| url = http://www.pauliehughes.com/page22/page22.html | title = SID Music | author = Paulie's SID Music Page (A Fourth Channel section) |date=6 April 2008
He eventually became Audio Technical Director, 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 IBM PC and Sega Mega Drive .
Recent activities
Hubbard recently 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 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 Mark Knight (sound designer)|madfiddler .
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.
Hubbard left EA in 2002 and returned to England. He has recently resumed playing in a band, and has even revisited his past game music work in concert. Recent composition jobs have included music for mobile phone games.
His original SID music can be found from The High Voltage SID Collection though emulated SID files occasionally sound quite different compared to authentic SID sound. The SOASC= http://www.6581-8580.com collection offers the HVSC#49 files recorded on real C64 machines.
Compositions
Commando (video game)|Commando (based on theme from Commando arcade game) ( Elite Systems , 1985)
BMX Kids (The sampled voice saying "Go!" is actually Hubbard himself!) (Firebird, 1985)
Monty on the Run (Heavily inspired by the title theme for the 1940's American detective radio show "Dick Barton") ( Gremlin Interactive|Gremlin Graphics , 1985)
Samantha Fox Strip Poker (credited as John York , because as he says, "it was such a cheesy title and they wanted that cheesy lame music along with it - I didn't want to admit that I did it just for the money") (Martech, 1986)
Tarzan (computer game)|Tarzan (Martech, 1986)
W.A.R. (Martech, 1986)
Zoids (video game)|Zoids (based on the track "Ancestors" from the Synergy (music)|Synergy album Audion ) (Martech, 1986)
http://www.cvgm.net/demovibes/artist/1/ Rob Hubbard's Music at CVGM
http://www.last.fm/music/Rob+Hubbard Rob Hubbard at Last.fm
http://www.remix64.com/interview_rob_hubbard.html Remix64's Interview with Rob Hubbard
http://www.the-commodore-zone.com/articlelive/articles/19/1/Rob-Hubbard/Page1.html Legends of the C64 article on Rob Hubbard
http://www.myspace.com/c64orchestra C64 Orchestra A classical orchestra that performs C64 game music of Rob Hubbard
Use dmy dates|date=June 2011 Persondata | NAME = Hubbard, Rob | ALTERNATIVE NAMES = | SHORT DESCRIPTION = | DATE OF BIRTH = 1955 | PLACE OF BIRTH = | DATE OF DEATH = | PLACE OF DEATH = DEFAULTSORT:Hubbard, Rob Category:1955 births Category:Living people Category:Chiptunes musicians Category:Commodore 64 music Category:Musicians from Kingston upon Hull Category:Video game composers
