Mark Cooksey
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Mark Cooksey is an English musician who has been working on video game music ever since the 1980s and is one of the better known game musicians.
Cooksey played the piano around age 5 and used computers at school around 1982. In 1984, he bought himself an Oric Atmos with 32k and left Shelfield Sports & Community College with A-Levels in Chemistry, Physics (his favorite subject) and General Studies. He then unsuccessfully looked for a job in electronics or physics.
In February 1985, Elite Systems were looking for programmers at the local job centre. Finding it close enough, Cooksey applied as a trainee games programmer and landed an interview with the boss, Brian Wilcox, the next day. At the end, Cooksey got the homework of programming a music driver in assembly for his Oric and arranging Airwolf Main Theme on it. Over the weekend, he did it using a very simple assembler he had programmed in the computer's built-in BASIC. On this basis, he got employed "more or less on the spot", tasked with arranging the same song on someone else's Commodore 64 music driver, and next, and unexpectedly, with scoring most of Elite's games.
Cooksey's employment changed several times:
- Between 1986 and 1987, Elite made him freelance. Ever since, he also composes for competitors, several of whose programmers previously worked for Elite as well.
- Between late 1987 and March 1989, Elite employed Cooksey again and got him much better equipment. Cooksey still moonlighted (by own admission) for competitors and could not be credited then. Cooksey created some sound engines at Arc Developments.
- Between early 1990 and late 1991, Elite made Cooksey freelance for good, this time including their division Motivetime, which paid their employees bonuses for based on Elite's profits. However, the bonuses gradually got lower and eventually disappeared.
- In spring 1994, Cooksey was employed at NMS Software, again founded by former Elite staff members.
Cooksey continues to compose game soundtracks to this day and even plays in a band. Cooksey says that writing music for video games inspired him to compose and play music.
As of 2001, Cooksey donated his Amstrad CPC and Sanyo 286 PC to a cancer charity, but still has his Oric and a C64. As of 2012, he no longer has any C64 paperwork or disks. He likes every genre unless taken to extremes. His brother Paul Cooksey plays multiple instruments and (unless he has another brother) composed one song in Battle Ships (C64).
Contents
Audio Development
During his second employment, Elite got Cooksey an Akai S950 sampler, a Korg M1, and Notator for the Atari ST. Programmer Richard Underhill remembered on 2003-12-24:
Amiga
Four variants of Cooksey's second driver are known:
- MCS (most samples came from The Ultimate Soundtracker (AMI), and two games credit "Audio programming" to P.M.S Systems)
- FW (unique to Forgotten Worlds (AMI) by Arc Developments)
- MC (closest to his second C64 driver; Paperboy (AMI) credits "Audio design" to Cooksey and "Audio coding" to "R.Frankish")
- one unique to Crack Down (AMI) (also by Arc and closest (but not compatible) to FW)
Amstrad CPC
Cooksey's two CPC drivers basically match his own C64 drivers.
Atari ST
Cooksey's ST music is in two drivers:
- The two games that credit "Audio programming" to P.M.S Systems sound just like on the Amiga.
- A line-by-line port of his second Spectrum 128K driver, coincidentally tuned at 440 Hz again. It was also used by Andi McGinty.
Commodore 64
Over time, Cooksey used four systems:
- For 1985, he was given the music driver from Neil Bate's games and arranged existing songs at its usual 434 Hz. In 2001, he called Frank Bruno's Boxing (C64) his worst music ever.
- Novaload, a tape loader licensed to Elite. At least one programmer (including Chris Harvey) asked Cooksey to arrange their favorite songs.
- With Bomb Jack (C64), Cooksey started composing original songs on his first own driver. On its first three games, it is tuned at 424 Hz. Features include muting voices (allowing sound effects over 3-track music) and wavetables (months before Rob Hubbard popularized them).
- Inmidst of scoring Overlander (C64), he created a completely new driver. On two games, he used samples:
- a bass drum and
- a snare drum, both from Christoph Bergmann, either Ultimate Sound Wizard, I Hope We Have a Nice Day, or Flying Shark 2, and
- a hi-hat, either from Music by Cavi 2 by Geert Vandevenne or more likely Nemesis by Marco Swagerman.
Cooksey's most popular C64 soundtracks are Ghosts 'n Goblins (C64), Paperboy (C64), and Bomb Jack (C64). His personal C64 favorites are Title - Felix (C64) and Storm Warrior (C64).
DOS
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Game Boy
Cooksey composed his music on Notator on an Atari ST and wrote a tool that converted the MIDI files to his sound driver.
Game Boy Advance
Cooksey reprogrammed his Game Boy sound driver to support the GBA's DirectSound channels. He presumably wrote MIDI files in a sequencer (possibly Notator) and wrote a tool that would convert the files to his driver.
For the rest of his works, Cooksey used Nintendo's MP2K sound driver.
Game Gear/Sega Master System
Cooksey wrote the music in Logic and Notator on an Atari ST. He would then convert his MIDI files to the Game Gear and Master System using his own conversion tool and sound engine.
Genesis / Mega Drive
Cooksey composed MIDI files which were converted to his 68000 sound driver. Cooksey said he had a very difficult time programming instruments on it. During the development of Paperboy (GEN), Cooksey had Sega send him instruments.
NES
All of Cooksey's NES music was composed in Notator on an Atari ST. He then converted the MIDI files in Notator to the NES. According to Cooksey, he was primarily trying to get "flutey" sounds out of the NES. His music was played back from a memory box from Spidersoft.
Cooksey's NES music is in two drivers:
- The first one, used in Hoppin' Mad (NES) (music credited to him) and Cybernoid: The Fighting Machine (NES) (which he doesn't think is his), is a mod of his second C64 driver and even has a leftover output to the C64's master volume. Both drivers use the respective hardware envelopes.
- His second one looks like a simplified port of his second Amstrad CPC and ZX Spectrum 128K driver. All three use software envelopes. Joe & Mac (NES) uses digitized drum samples, which Cooksey says may have been supplied by Richard Frankish.
Nintendo DS
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PlayStation
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SNES
Cooksey programmed his own driver for the SNES and used a tool that would convert MIDI files (possibly from Notator) to his driver. For Dragon's Lair (SNES), Cooksey used Motivetime's sound driver by Richard Frankish.
ZX Spectrum
Games were separately released for the 48K and 128K.
Cooksey's two 128K drivers match his Amstrad CPC drivers except for being tuned at 390 Hz (two semitones lower), most likely as a porting simplification.
The 48K driver uses fast pulse width modulation.
Gameography
Aliases
He was sometimes called "Tony Deaf", in order to avoid prohibiting game credits from most developers.
Picture Gallery
Remix64 interview (smaller) and Bandcamp.
Taken by Imre Olajos, Jr. at Back in Time Live, 2001-05-16.
Taken by composers.c64.org, uploaded on 2001-05-18.
Links
- sites.google.com/site/mtwmusicsite/ - Official.
- web.archive.org/web/20031212055827/http://mtwmusic.mysite.freeserve.com/workhist.htm - More work history.
- mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,52182/ - MobyGames.
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Cooksey - Wikipedia.
- markcooksey.bandcamp.com - Bandcamp.
- facebook.com/mark.cooksey.14 - Facebook.
- linkedin.com/profile/view?id=8168084 - LinkedIn.
- soundclick.com/markcooksey - SoundClick.
- youtube.com/@markcooksey1796 - YouTube.
- web.archive.org/web/20010604232121fw_/http://hem.passagen.se/tralala/Mark_Cooksey/Mark_Cooksey.mp3 - Audio greeting from 2000-12-11.
- amp.dascene.net/detail.php?view=4597&detail=interview - Interview from 2001 (before April 11).
- facebook.com/BackInTimeLive/videos/mark-cooksey-interviewed-at-bit-live-2001/867989369911227/ - Video interview from 2001-05-16.
- remix64.com/interviews/interview-mark-cooksey.html - Interview from 2001-05-17.
