Rob Hubbard

Rob Hubbard (born 1956) is a British music composer; most notably for several microcomputers of the 1980s, and especially the C64. He is married with no children.

Early Life

Hubbard was born in Kingston upon Hull in 1956, although he has never publicly revealed his birth date. He started playing music at age seven. At school, he played in bands and later went to music college. His early employment saw him as a musician, playing in bands, working in clubs, as well as in music arrangement and music transcription.

The Golden Era, 1983-1988

Rob Hubbard, circa 1983

Being interested in the development of computers in music, Hubbard taught himself to programme 6510 Assembly Language in 1983. The SID has similarities to early analogue synths and this was something that Hubbard knew very well; the concepts of Pulse Width Modulation (PWM), ring modulation and Low Frequency Oscillation (LFO) were things that he understood. This allowed him to write some educational music software as his first commercial product. Following this he wrote a video game which was never published as the company went bankrupt. Initially, Hubbard sent a flyer to companies offering his services. After submitting work to Gremlin Graphics, he was hired to compose and program the music for Thing on a Spring. This was followed by the music for Mastertronic's Action Biker. At the start of the computer music revolution, Hubbard admitted that “Back then I thought that this computer stuff was a passing trend that would last a year or two. “ After he completed a couple of games he started getting lots of work. His relationships with other computer composers developed by sending demos and using Compunet. Hubbard continued to operate as a freelance artist, as companies could not afford to employ him in-house.

Inspiration

Sometimes specific direction for tunes came from the game programmer, other times it was up to Hubbard to decide. He admits to having 3 ways of working: write directly with the C64 by poking bytes using a machine code monitor; write using a pen and paper; sit at the keyboard and play until the ideas come out. Sources of inspiration also included existing music and CDs although some tunes were actually compositions that he had written many years earlier that he thought might just work. In this capacity he continued to write or convert music for games such as Monty on the Run, Crazy Comets, Master of Magic and Commando; which was his quickest composition:

“Steve Wilcox, he called me up and told me to get on a train straight away. I got the four o’clock train. It was the earliest train I could get down to Birmingham. And then we spent the day in the pub and then they went home and left me in the office at 10 o’clock at night or something. And there was an arcade machine there, which had the Commando, so I had a quick listen to that. I thought, ok. I used little bit of the motif from the arcade machine. I had my little Casio keyboard and my score paper. I always used to have this score paper like that. Big proper score paper to write stuff down. I used to work that fast that is was basically some musical notations, splattered with lots of hexadecimal numbers, which related to the actual pitches and sound patches and all this stuff. At about 5 o’clock in the morning I finished all the music. So I was working on the sound effects and by the time they came in at 8 o’clock I had it all done and got the train back.”

Interestingly, Hubbard once stated that “sometimes the pressure of having to get it done really makes you write good stuff.”

Style

Although using a standard program format for the routine, Hubbard changed his music driver code fairly often to either add or delete some features. He was conscious that the code had to be as quick as possible and would optimize it for either space or processor speed. One the strengths of his code enabled the compositions to sound as if there were more than three channels used. He confessed this was simply achieved by multiplexing the three channels, “If the lead line has two beats rest, put a fill or some effect in there.” This was evident in the tune for The Last V8. Other techniques were based on what could be done on every VBlank interrupt, such as creating warbling chord effects. Later on, his code was adapted to play samples.

Hubbard believed that his strength was always in arrangement, melody and harmony.

Notable Work

While writing the music for International Karate, he started exploring pentatonic arrangements in B flat minor over different bass notes: B flat, D flat, G flat and A flat. The middle section of the tune went into F at double tempo to liven things up. Hubbard’s favourite SID tunes are Kentilla, WAR and Sanxion. The loader music for Sanxion, inspired by Jean Michel Jarre’s Zoolook, was re-worked into a piece titled “Thalamusic” using authentic Fairlight samples, performed on a Yamaha CX5M, linked up to an Akai CS900 linked up to a Digital Reverb and Yamaha RX15 Drum Machine and recorded on a four-track. It is also one of the most popular among fans and was distributed free on a cover tape by ZZap!64. Sam Fox Strip Poker was admittedly his worst; resorting to the use of an alias, John York. Monty on the Run, based upon Devils’ Galop by Charles Williams, utilised the feature of pitch bending which was new to the driver code. Knucklebusters featured his longest piece of music, at 17 minutes. Hubbard confesses that Kentilla and Delta were his most complicated. Delta was based on a minimalist composition technique inspired by Koyaanisqatsi by Philip Glass. It required some custom code to the driver and was tedious to debug, taking 2 weeks in total to complete.

During 1987 he was approached by a major record producer who wanted him to record a single after the producer’s main mixing engineer had heard Hubbard’s tunes on the C64. Hubbard recalls “It was very scary meeting this guy and talking to him and thinking about the possibility of becoming a famous recording artist.” Ultimately the legal and copyright technicalities prevented it from happening.

Electronic Arts, 1988-2002

Rob Hubbard circa 2000

Hubbard started working for EA in 1987, and from his perspective he believed that EA was making by far the most interesting products and he was eager to learn. One of his most famous SID tunes is the music featured in the loading sequence of the game Skate or Die, which features samples of electric guitar. Playback of samples was facilitated by exploiting a flaw in the SID: altering the volume register produced an audible click. Thus altering this register thousands of times per second allowed for a crude form of sample playback. Hubbard remained convinced that samples could be played on a static screen but never on the game. By the end of his time with the SID, his driver code could play 2 samples plus a SID tune, but it was never used in a game.

In early 1988 he left Newcastle for good to work for EA in America as a composer. He claims that he always wanted to go to the US and was really attracted by the high technology of Silicon Valley. After the C64 period he wrote some soundtracks for PC games and Sega Mega Drive. He was the first person devoted to sound and music at EA, and did everything from low-level programming to composing. He became Audio Technical Director, a more administrative job, involving deciding which technologies to use in the games, and which to develop further. As Director of Audio he became responsible for managing and scheduling resources across various projects, managing people, fire-fighting, mentoring, looking for new technology, and evangelising.

Back to Newcastle, 2002-present day

Hubbard left EA in 2002 and returned to England, mainly for personal and family reasons. 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. He also aspires to get into playing again and get established in Europe.

Commodore 64 Credits

This is current known list of music written by Hubbard for the C64.

Title	Company	Date	Remarks
Up, Up and Away	Starcade	before November 1984	cover of "Up, Up and Away" by The 5th Dimension
Thing on a Spring	Gremlin Graphics	July 1985
Action Biker	Mastertronic	July 1985
Confuzion	Incentive Software	July 1985
Monty on the Run	Gremlin Graphics	September 1985	inspired by "Devil's Galop" by Charles Williams
Hunter Patrol	Mastertronic	October 1985
Crazy Comets	Martech	November 1985
The Last V8	Mastertronic	December 1985
Battle of Britain	PSS	December 1985
Harvey Smith Showjumping	Software Projects	Unknown 1985
Commando	Elite	January 1986	based on motif from "Commando" arcade game
One Man and His Droid	Mastertronic	February 1986
Master of Magic	Mastertronic	March 1986	inspired by "Shibolet and an End to History" from the album "Audion" by Synergy
Rasputin	Firebird	March 1986	features traditional Russian songs
Kentilla	Mastertronic	May 1986
Human Race	Mastertronic	Unknown 1986
Game Killer	Robtek	May 1986	remix of "Human Race"
Deep Strike	Durell	January 1986
Thrust	Firebird	March 1986
International Karate	System 3	May 1986	inspired by "Forbidden Colours" from "Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence" by Ryuichi Sakamoto
Formula 1 Simulator	Mastertronic	August 1986
Bump Set Spike	Entertainment USA	Unknown 1986
Ninja	Entertainment USA	Unknown 1986
Chimera	Firebird	Unknown 1986
Gerry the Germ	Firebird	Unknown 1986
Proteus	Firebird	Unknown 1986	based on two songs the album "Space Experience" by John Keating
Warhawk	Firebird	Unknown 1986	the same song as "Proteus" with an intro added
Lightforce	FTL	Unknown 1986
Geoff Capes Strongman Challenge	Martech	Unknown 1986
Samantha Fox Strip Poker	Martech	Unknown 1986	credited as John York and contains "The Entertainer" by Scott Joplin
Tarzan	Martech	Unknown 1986
W.A.R.	Martech	Unknown 1986
Zoids	Martech	Unknown 1986	based on "Ancestors" from the album "Audion" by Synergy
Flash Gordon	MAD	Unknown 1986
Spellbound	MAD	Unknown 1986
Hollywood or Bust	Mastertronic	Unknown 1986
Phantoms of the Asteroid	Mastertronic	Unknown 1986
Video Poker	Mastertronic	Unknown 1986	contains "Easy Winners" by Scott Joplin
Knucklebusters	Melbourne House	Unknown 1986
Sanxion	Thalamus	Unknown 1986	contains "Thalamusic" loader and features "Dance of the Knights" from the ballet "Romeo and Juliet" by Prokofiev
ACE 2	Cascade	September 1987
Saboteur II	Durell	Unknown 1987
Sigma 7	Durell	Unknown 1987	Amstrad original by Julian Breeze
Thanatos	Durell	Unknown 1987	Amstrad original by Julian Breeze
Thundercats	Elite	Unknown 1987
Train Robbers	Firebird	Unknown 1987
Arcade Classics	Firebird	Unknown 1987
I-Ball	Firebird	Unknown 1987
Hydrofool	FTL	Unknown 1987
Shockway Rider	FTL	Unknown 1987
Auf Wiedersehen Monty	Gremlin Graphics	Unknown 1987	with Ben Daglish
Chain Reaction	Kele-Line	Unknown 1987
Mega Apocalypse	Martech	Unknown 1987	Re-arrangement of "Crazy Comets"
Nemesis the Warlock	Martech	Unknown 1987
Wiz	Melbourne House	Unknown 1987	contains a melody from song "Impressioni Di Settembre" by Premiata Forneria Marconi
Bangkok Knights	System 3	Unknown 1987
IK plus	System 3	Unknown 1987
Dragons Lair Part II	Software Projects	Unknown 1987
Star Paws	Software Projects	Unknown 1987
Delta	Thalamus	Unknown 1987	based on the title track of "Koyaanisqatsi" soundtrack by Philip Glass
Trans Atlantic Balloon Challenge	Virgin	Unknown 1987
Goldrunner	Microdeal	Unknown 1987	same song as "Human Race"
BMX Kids	Firebird	February 1988	the sampled voice saying "Go!" is Hubbard
19 Part One: Boot Camp	Cascade	Unknown 1988	an interpretation of Paul Hardcastle's "19" song
Jordan vs. Bird: One on One	Electronic Arts	Unknown 1988
Shoot Out	Martech	Unknown 1988
Kings of the Beach	Electronic Arts	Unknown 1988
Power Play Hockey	Electronic Arts	Unknown 1988
Skate or Die!	Electronic Arts	Unknown 1988
Pandora	PSI Soft Design	Unknown 1988
Ricochet	Firebird	Unknown 1988

Links

Wikipedia: Rob_Hubbard

• C= Hacking Issue #5, 7 March 1993, accessed 11 December 2013
• The Master Of Micro Music, accessed 11 December 2013
• Interview with Rob Hubbard by remix64.com, accessed 8 December 2013
• Rob Hubbard by c64.com, accessed 8 December 2013
• Rob Hubbard by last.fm , last edit 24 August 2008, accessed 8 December 2013
• Interview with Rob Hubbard in Happy Computer issue 07/1986
• Interview with Rob Hubbard by 4Players
• Games industry profile at RAWG.io