Brian Schmidt
Brian L. Schmidt | ||||||||||
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Brian Schmidt is an American composer, sound designer, and sound programmer. He mostly composed for pinball and arcade games. He started in 1987 at Williams as a sound designer and programmer for arcade and pinball games. At the same time, he was also working at Midway. His first arcade game soundtrack was for NARC. In 1989, Schmidt left Williams to make his own company (Schmidt Entertainment Technologies). At the same time, he was working as a consultant for QSound Labs. As a programmer, Schmidt has developed at least one audio driver for games. Schmidt is also known for creating the BSMT2000 which was a very innovative audio device used in many pinball and arcade machines, allowing for the use of digitized speech and instruments. From 1999 to 2008, he worked at Microsoft and created most of the audio architecture to the Xbox and Xbox 360 game consoles. In 2008, he opened up his own studios. Ever since April 2009, he has been working at SoundCon as an executive director, also working at his studio. Schmidt is also a part of G.A.N.G. (Game Audio Network Guild).
Music Development
ARC/PBL
On his early works, Schmidt converted his music files to Yamaha YM2151 FM synth chip. Later, he developed BSMT2000 (Brian Schmidt's Mouse Trap 2000) audio DSP which was a very innovative audio device used in many pinball and arcade machines. First game that used BSMT2000 is Batman (PBL).
GEN
Schmidt developed his own custom sound driver and composed music in MIDI format.
GG
On Surf Ninjas, Schmidt uses NuFX's custom sound driver, which programmed by John Siegesmund.
SNES
Schmidt used Visual Concepts' sound driver by John Schappert and Jason Andersen.
For MechWarrior 3050, Schmidt used the SLICK/Audio sound driver from Bitmasters.
Desert Strike: Return to the Gulf uses Electronic Arts' branch of Kankichi-kun.
32X
Schmidt developed special 32X driver that fully utilized all of the add-on's capabilities, and used a MIDI conversion tool.
Gameography
- Note: Though Brian is credited in Zoop (GG) and Zoop (PS1), he was not involved with either of these titles. Therefore, they do not appear on his Gameography.
Links
- brianschmidtstudios.com/Pages/default.aspx - Official.
- facebook.com/brian.schmidt1 - Facebook.
- linkedin.com/pub/brian-schmidt/4/49/619 - LinkedIn.