Rob Hubbard
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Rob Hubbard is a English composer and sound designer who is known to be one of the most (if not the most) renowned video game musicians of all time. He could be considered the Koji Kondo of the Commodore 64.
Hubbard has been playing the piano since age 7 and has also played flute, saxophone and guitar. His favorite subjects were math, physics and music, whereas he hated history, economics and metalwork. With O- and A-Levels, he studied engineering at University of Southampton, but quickly dropped out. Wanting to learn jazz, he slowed a Jack McDuff recording down, learning transcription along the way. At age 21, he moved to Newcastle upon Tyne, Tyne and Wear, to attend music college for three years.
In 1983, Hubbard read in Electronic & Music Maker about the Commodore 64 and American educational software for platforms like the Apple II. He also considered the Memotech MTX500, but bought the C64 in November when its price dropped to £230. Dreaming of writing the first British educational software, he showed a sight-reading game to companies, to no avail. In 1984, he ported and scored two games for local Ubik Software, who went bankrupt before release. The few who saw the games liked the music most, so he decided to specialize on game music and spammed for about eight months by mail and phone.
His fourth released job, Monty on the Run (C64), made him famous in the industry. Still, he found it a little strange to explain this new career to family and friends.
In early 1987, Hubbard's Sanxion (C64) won the first Golden Joystick Award for Best Soundtrack. At the ceremony in Cadogan Hall, London, he was photographed with presenter Jools Holland, and Mark Lewis of Electronic Arts asked Hubbard if he wanted to work in the USA for a couple of months. After Skate or Die Title Theme Music, EA offered him a permanent job in California as their first audio guy. So in January 1988, Hubbard sold his ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, Ataris, his PAL C64, gave away the Amiga and moved to the USA with his wife, fulfilling a childhood dream and changing his life.
Hubbard felt unsatisfied when EA merely licensed music for FIFA 2000: Major League Soccer. By 2001-06-13, he was considering returning to Britain altogether and looking for options. In September, after the 11th, they moved back to East Yorkshire with an NTSC C64 and two disk drives.
On 2016-11-25, Hubbard received a honorary degree from Abertay University, Dundee, Scotland. His popular games include Monty on the Run (C64), Commando (C64), Skate or Die (C64), and The Immortal (NES).
Contents
Audio Development
Hubbard would always ask the programmers what kind of music they wanted in the game, but they usually didn't care. Hubbard explained that for his earlier games, the programmers would tell Hubbard to write anything he saw fit, and that most of the time, they accepted the work he sent them. Other times he would see or play the game to get inspiration.
Hubbard would write the music on paper in normal musical notation and alongside the notes, he would write hexadecimal numbers which he would then type into his respective sound engine. He would sometimes write music on his Casiotone MT-40.
Atari 8-bit
By 2005-04-19, Hubbard told ASMA:
Hubbard gave his Atari 8-bit driver to David Whittaker.
Atari ST
Hubbard was disappointed that the otherwise superior Atari ST had a YM2149F sound chip. Still, around April or May 1987, Steve Bak made him buy one.
Hubbard used his own version of David Whittaker's driver.
Hubbard further gave Steve Bak "some of my source code, so he can put pieces of it here and there in memory." This may be how the driver ended up in Steve Bak's games Yolanda (AST) (scored by Philip Bak) and Battleships (AST) (Hubbard: "defo not mine… the tune doesn’t go anywhere.").
Commodore 64
In 1984, Hubbard used his own version of The Companion to the Commodore 64. Later that year, or early 1985, he started developing his own driver. In an interview featuring him and Jeroen Tel, he stated:
He also elaborated on the tedious process of writing the music in code:
In mid-1986, Hubbard started using SID's built-in filter. Unfortunately, the filter varies with every machine and several of Hubbard's melodies sounded muffled to many gamers. In VICE 3.4, they sound best with 6581 (ReSID) and a bias of at least 540, although how close it is to what Hubbard arranged on is unconfirmed.
For samples, Hubbard recorded on an Amiga with a newly-bought FutureSound sampler, used a dynamic range compressor to avoid volume fluctuations, transferred them to the C64, and used an electronic tuner to see if they are in pitch (eventually 1455 to 8315 Hz). Samples include chords from a Yamaha DX7, an oft-ripped electric guitar, and voices, including his own.
Hubbard's favorite musicians are Martin Galway, Ben Daglish and David Whittaker. His own favorite is Thalamusik.
Commando
Hubbard was paid by Elite Systems to come in and write the music to their conversion of Capcom's Coin-Op arcade Commando. Hubbard came in the office late at night and worked throughout the evening to compose the music. According to Hubbard, Elite Systems had the arcade cabinet of the game in the office, and he drew inspiration from the arcade game's music, but didn't actually arrange the arcade soundtrack to the Commodore 64 version. Hubbard finished the music by morning. According to Hubbard, he put the music on all the work computers before he left the office so the Elite staff could hear his composition.
Genesis
For Battle Squadron, Hubbard used Steve Hayes' sound driver.
For Desert Strike: Return of the Gulf, Hubbard sent his music files to Brian Schmidt.
For the rest of his works, Hubbard wrote the music in assembly, using his custom sound driver.
For his final works, including NHL 95, he used Don Veca's sound driver.
NES
Hubbard only scored three games for the NES; The Immortal, Skate or Die 2, and the unreleased Chuck Yeager's Air Combat. Hubbard wrote the music driver and audio in pure 6502 assembly machine code. While some NES games used the DPCM channel for drum samples, Hubbard was one of the very few who used it for instrumentation, as a triangle wave is used in his music for The Immortal, and he programmed it in himself. Hubbard also used digitized drums on some songs, and on Skate or Die 2, also digitized voices and electric guitar, but it is unknown who or what they were sampled from.
SNES
Hubbard used a custom version of Nintendo's Kankichi-kun sound driver. He did not like the SNES.
Aliases
Throughout his career, Hubbard didn't really use aliases in the games that credited him. However, in the game Samantha Fox Strip Poker, he is credited as John York. This was probably because the game was a pornographic title, and he wanted to remain anonymous as a result. Because his middle initial is J, John may be his middle name. It is unknown exactly how he came up with the name. York could refer to his hometown, Yorkshire.
Gameography
Picture Gallery
Electronic & Music Maker, April 1986.
Early 1986. AbertayUni's Twitter.
Computer + Video Games, June 1986, Commodore User, December 1986, and The Games Machine 001, October 1987.
With Jools Holland at Golden Joystick Awards. Same session as Computer + Video Games, April 1987. AbertayUni's Twitter.
Sinclair User No 73, April 1988 and ST Action Volume 1 Issue 1, May 1988.
Back In Time Event - Birmingham, England - 2001-05-16.
Back In Time Event - Birmingham, England - 2001-05-16.
Without his trademark mustache, unknown source.
Left to Jochen Hippel. Taken by Richard Karsmakers at STNICCC on 2015-12-19.
AbertayUni's Twitter.
Links
- mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,6/ - MobyGames.
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rob_Hubbard - Wikipedia.
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facebook.com/rob.hubbard.31 - Facebook(Hubbard closed the account ("too many opinionated people") and the username has been given to another Rob Hubbard) - uk.linkedin.com/pub/rob-hubbard/47/83a/853 - LinkedIn.
- soundcloud.com/user-533729915 - SoundCloud.
- w.atwiki.jp/gamemusicbest100/pages/3977.html - AtWiki (in Japanese).
- archive.org/details/CommodoreHorizonsIssue261986Feb300dpi/page/n31 - Interview from Commodore Horizons, February 1986.
- muzines.co.uk/articles/techtalk-living-off-video/9284 - Interview from Electronic & Music Maker, April 1986.
- archive.org/details/computer-and-videogames-056/page/n71 - Interview from 1986-05-16.
- www.zzap64.co.uk/cgi-bin/displaypage.pl?issue=016&page=040&magazine=zzap - Group interview with Ben Daglish, Antony Crowther and David Whittaker from 1986-07-10.
- archive.org/details/CommodoreUserIssue391986Dec/page/n119 - Profile from Commodore User, December 1986.
- www.zzap64.co.uk/cgi-bin/displaypage.pl?issue=021&page=047&magazine=zzap - Profile from 1986-12-10.
- www.zzap64.co.uk/cgi-bin/displaypage.pl?issue=026&page=052&magazine=zzap - News from 1987-05-14.
- st-news.com/issues/st-news-volume-2-issue-5/features/interview-with-rob-hubbard/ - Interview from 1987-07-25.
- archive.org/details/the-games-machine-01/page/n110 - Interview from The Games Machine 001, October 1987.
- zakalwe.fi/~shd/texts/imr/c09hubba.htm - Interview from 1996-03-15.
- web.archive.org/web/20010714072715/http://mono211.com/gamegeekpeeks/robh.html - Interview from circa 1997.
- atlantis-prophecy.org/recollection/?load=interviews&id_interview=143 - Interview from March 1997.
- sidmusic.org/sid/rhubbard.html - Interviews from Commodore Zone in spring 1997 and Happy-Computer 7/86 (translated from German).
- karsmakers.nl/metal-e-zine/robb.htm - Interview from September 1998.
- web.archive.org/web/20020211210207/http://www.freenetpages.co.uk:80/hp/tcworh/int_6581.htm - Audio interview and transcript from 1999-09-28.
- web.archive.org/web/20060929094802/http://www.freenetpages.co.uk/hp/tcworh/int_game.htm - Interview from circa 1999.
- web.archive.org/web/20010723113418/http://www.freenetpages.co.uk:80/hp/tcworh/intviews.htm - Interview from 2000-10-17.
- remix64.com/interviews/interview-rob-hubbard.html - Interview from March 30, 2001.
- web.archive.org/web/20021017140546/http://www.freenetpages.co.uk:80/hp/tcworh/profile.htm - Profile from 2001-06-12.
- web.archive.org/web/20101228205440/http://www.c64.com/audio/Rob%20Hubbard%20%5BBack%20in%20Time%20Live%202001%20interview%5D.mp3 - Audio interview from 2001.
- c64.com/interviews/hubbard.html - Interview from circa late 2001.
- youtube.com/watch?v=e1gFc1sWp30 - Speech from early August 2002.
- youtube.com/watch?v=Qiv4o-fgJ4E - Interview from early August 2002 (part 1/2).
- youtube.com/watch?v=ORMMeHsozqM - Interview from early August 2002 (part 2/2).
- web.archive.org/web/20021223070805/http://c64audio.valuehost.co.uk/edge/ca_hubbard.htm - Interview from November 2002.
- archive.org/details/Sinclair_ZX_Spectrum_and_Commodore_64_Book-2012/page/n133 - Interview from 2012.
- youtube.com/watch?v=AlCZd07cBV4 - Group interview with Daglish from 2013-10-12.
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youtube.com/watch?v=kJ_xk_sfNRE - On composing Commando (C64). - youtube.com/watch?v=Mf09oRuF3Eg - On creating music and sound effects on the Commodore 64.
- youtube.com/watch?v=rSDz7x5UVIc - Speech from 2016-11-29.
- youtube.com/watch?v=ao92PVEHG3c&t=21m40s - Audio interview from 2017-06-08.
- arcadeattack.co.uk/rob-hubbard-chris-abbott/ - Interview from 2017-10-26.
- retrogamesmaster.co.uk/rob-hubbard/ - Interview from 2017-12-23.
- youtube.com/watch?v=EDhCQKOQLpo&t=3m54s - Interview from 2018-01-03.
- abertayuniversityadmin2.azurewebsites.net/life/alumni-and-supporters/articles-videos/rob-hubbard/ - Interview from 2018-08-22.
- youtube.com/watch?v=0OxRyOSTHDM - Audio interview from 2019-11-11.
