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Rob Hubbard (born 1955,^[1][2] 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 [link]

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 [link]

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 and Commando. Some of his most popular tunes include also Thrust, 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 [link]

After working for several different companies, he left 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 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.^[3] 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 [link]

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 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=[1] collection offers the HVSC#49 files recorded on real C64 machines.

Compositions [link]

References [link]

External links [link]

• C64Audio.com, Rob's publisher and record label
• Interview with Rob Hubbard at C64.COM
• Rob Hubbard's profile at MobyGames
• Artist profile at OverClocked ReMix
• Rob Hubbard discography at MusicBrainz
• Rob Hubbard's Music at CVGM
• Rob Hubbard at Last.fm
• Remix64's Interview with Rob Hubbard
• Legends of the C64 article on Rob Hubbard
• C64 Orchestra A classical orchestra that performs C64 game music of Rob Hubbard