David Wise

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David Wise
Dave Wise - 01.jpg
Born ca. 1967 (Age 46)
Birth Place Leicester, England
Nationality British   UK.svg
Aliases
  • D. Wise
  • Dave Wise
  • Rare Ltd
Website www.davidwise.co.uk/

David Wise's passion for music started around when he was 8 years old and his older brother was taking piano lessons. Due to fairness, he had to wait until he was his brother's age until he could get piano lessons, too. He then found out beforehand that he could learn music by ear, but he also ended up getting piano lessons as well. He also learned how to play the trumpet around then and eventually joined a brass band. When he was 14, he had a paper route and used his earnings to save up for a drumkit. After buying the drumkit, he joined a band. Later, Wise started working at a music shop, working in the drum department until a Yamaha CX5 arrived at the store. He learned how to create music on it. He demonstrated the computer to many customers which led to the sale of many of them. One day, Rare's founders Chris and Tim Stamper came into the music shop and asked Wise to demonstrate the computer for them. While David was doing so, he was playing his own compositions. Chris and Tim were mesmerized by his music so instead of buying the computer, they asked Wise if he would do music for their video games and Wise took the job. His first work of video game music was Slalom on the NES in 1987. Wise felt confined to writing game music on the NES because not only did he have to go from writing MIDI files on music computers to programming the music in hex code, but he also had only four channels to work with on the NES' soundchip. The fifth channel which used digitized audio, Wise couldn't use because the company didn't have the luxury of cartridge space. During Rare's NES development, they usually handled arcade conversions, so David Wise had to take the challenges of learning the original arcade's music by ear and replicate a good 8-bit conversion which he was always successful in doing. David composed the music for over 40 NES titles, which is probably more than any other NES composer. He worked on all of Rare's NES soundtracks until the SNES era when Rare got other composers and sound designers. Most of the music he composes consists of hard rock or jazz. David said he likes to be called David but doesn't mind being called Dave. In 2009, because of Rare being bought by Microsoft and the company going through some major changes, Wise left Rare and no longer works on video game music.

Some of David's most popular works include the Donkey Kong Country, Battletoads, and Wizards and Warriors series.

Wise continues to compose music to this day and likes to use Cubase and Pro Tools for his music.

Music Composition

ARC

For the Battletoads arcade game, David wrote the music in hex code and sampled his instruments from a Roland U-110 and Korg Wavestation, but composed the songs on an Roland MT-32.

NES

From David Wise's OCRemix interview:

There was no MIDI, instead, notes were entered data style into a PC. I typed in hex numbers for pitch and length and a few commands for looping subroutines. And this method of writing video game music continued right through to the end of the SNES development.

David also had this to say about how exactly he composed on the NES:

The way it worked, I would use HEX numbers (16 numbers, 0-F) writing in one number for the pitch of the note and one for the length. For example “81,08”– where 81 would be a low c on the keyboard, followed by a length of 8 units. We had certain codes and routines which enabled us to do pitch bends, etc. From memory I think there were two variable pulse waves, a triangle wave and a noise channel for creating the sound tracks/FX. There was also a way to play back very crude samples, but we never had the luxury of that much memory.

According to Wise, Chris Stamper programmed the first version of the sound driver, and a later version was programmed by Mark Betteridge. For the arcade conversions, he was sometimes given sheet music for the original arcade music, but other times wasn't.

SNES

Wise wrote in hex code until after the SNES era. His instruments for his SNES music and the Battletoads arcade were sampled from the Korg Wavestation and Roland U-110 sound modules.

Gameography


Released

Title

Sample

1987-08-?? Slalom (NES)
1987-12-?? Wizards and Warriors (NES) (伝説の既視エルロンド)
1988-??-?? California Games (NES)
1988-02-?? R.C. Pro-Am (NES)
1988-09-?? Jeopardy! (NES)
1988-09-?? Wheel of Fortune (NES)
1988-11-?? Anticipation (NES)
1989-??-?? Cabal (NES)
1989-??-?? John Elway's Quarterback (NES)
1989-??-?? WWF Wrestlemania (NES)
1989-01-?? Sesame Street 123 (NES)
1989-02-?? Taboo: The Sixth Sense (NES)
1989-03-?? Marble Madness (NES)
1989-03-?? World Games (NES)
1989-07-?? Cobra Triangle (NES)
1989-07-?? Sesame Street ABC (NES)
1989-08-?? Jordan vs. Bird: One on One (NES)
1989-09-?? Hollywood Squares (NES)
1989-09-?? Who Framed Roger Rabbit (NES)
1989-10-?? Jeopardy!: Junior Edition (NES)
1989-10-?? Wheel of Fortune: Junior Edition (NES)
1989-12-?? Ironsword: Wizards and Warriors II (NES)
1989-12-?? Silent Service (NES)
1990-??-?? The Amazing Spider-Man (GB)
1990-??-?? Arch Rivals: A Basket Brawl! (NES)
1990-01-?? Fortress of Fear: Wizards & Warriors X (GB)
1990-03-?? Wheel of Fortune: Family Edition (NES)
1990-04-?? Double Dare (NES)
1990-04-?? Ivan "Ironman" Stewart's Super Off-Road (NES)
1990-04-?? Pinbot (NES)
1990-06-?? Captain Skyhawk (NES)
1990-06-?? Jeopardy!: 25th Anniversary Edition (NES)
1990-07-?? Snake Rattle N Roll (NES)
1990-08-?? NARC (NES)
1990-08-?? Time Lord (NES)
1990-09-?? Solar Jetman: Hunt for the Golden Warship (NES)
1990-10-?? A Nightmare on Elm Street (NES)
1990-10-?? Super Glove Ball (NES)
1990-11-?? WWF Wrestlemania Challenge (NES) (WWFレッスルマニアチャレンジ:プロレスゲーム)
1990-12-?? Digger T. Rock: The Legend of the Lost City (NES)
1991-??-?? Battletoads (GEN) Composer
1991-??-?? WWF Superstars (GB) (WWFスーパースターズ)
1991-05-?? Marble Madness (GB)
1991-06-?? Battletoads (NES) (バトルトード)
1991-07-?? High Speed (NES)
1991-10-?? Pirates! (NES)
1991-10-?? Super R.C. Pro-Am (GB)
1991-11-?? Battletoads (GB)
1991-11-?? Sesame Street 123 ABC (NES)
1992-??-?? Battletoads (AMI)
1992-??-?? Championship Pro-Am (GEN)
1992-01-?? Beetlejuice (GB)
1992-01-?? Beetlejuice (NES)
1992-03-?? Wizards and Warriors III - Kuros: Visions of Power (NES)
1992-08-?? Danny Sullivan's Indy Heat (NES)
1992-12-?? R.C. Pro-Am II (NES)
1993-??-?? Battletoads (GG) Composer
1993-??-?? Battletoads in Ragnarok's World (GB)
1993-??-?? Snake Rattle n Roll (GEN)
1993-08-?? Battletoads and Double Dragon (NES)
1993-??-?? Battletoads In Battlemaniacs (SNES)
1993-02-19 Battletoads and Double Dragon (GEN)
1993-10-?? Battletoads and Double Dragon (SNES)
1993-12-?? Battletoads and Double Dragon (GB)
1994-??-?? Battletoads (ARC)
1994-??-?? Battletoads (CD32)
1994-11-25 Donkey Kong Country (SNES) (スーパードンキーコング)
1995-12-?? Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest (SNES)
1996-09-?? Donkey Kong Land 2 (GB)
1996-11-?? Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong's Double Trouble (SNES)
2004-11-15 Donkey Kong Country 2 (GBA)
2005-11-07 Donkey Kong 3 (GBA)
2008-09-05 Viva Piñata: Pocket Paradise (NDS)
2008-10-01 War World (X360)
2012-??-?? Tengami (IOS)
2012-03-31 AXRIA Retro World (W64)
2013-05-02 Sorcery! (IOS)

Picture Gallery


Links