Mark Knight (musician)

Mark Knight, also known as TDK and Madfiddler, is a British musician, video game music composer and sound designer. He started out writing chiptune and module file music in the Amiga demoscene,[1] and began his games industry career as a composer in 1992. He continued until 2000 when he moved to sound design, and since 2014 has had a split role as a sound designer and composer culminating by going self employed in 2017.

Mark Knight
Also known as
  • TDK
  • Madfiddler
BornBrighton, East Sussex, England
Genres
Occupation(s)
Instrument(s)
Years active1989–present
Website

Biography

Born in 1973, in Brighton,[2] East Sussex in England, his grandfather started teaching him the violin when he was 6. At 10 years old he was given a Commodore 64 home computer and took an interest in electronic music. Whilst studying in college he began writing music on the Amiga, releasing music within the demoscene. Having been refused a university place to study Music Production in 1992, he was given the opportunity to arrange the Wing Commander soundtrack to the Amiga home computer which led him to full-time employment with the developer Mindscape.[3]

Having left Mindscape in 1997, Knight wrote the soundtrack for Duke Nukem: Total Meltdown before accepting a position at Bullfrog Productions, a development company owned by Electronic Arts, working on games such as Dungeon Keeper 2, Populous: The Beginning and Theme Park World – which won a BAFTA for Best Sound.[4]

In 2000, Mark changed career direction and lead the sound design team on the EA Sports F1 series, stating that "If truth be told however, it was a simple choice of either F1 or Harry Potter".[5] He left EA in 2003, and after spending time at Visual Science he joined Codemasters in 2007 working on their DiRT, F1 and GRID franchises.[3]

Knight has performed on the electric violin with the folk punk band Tricks Upon Travellers (1994–2000), K-Passa (2000–2001, 2008–present), Blue Horses (2002–2003), 4-4-2 (2004), Laura Kenny (2006), Silver Dogs (2006–2007), Bleeding Hearts (2009–2011) and has worked as a session musician for bands such as Pepe Deluxé,[6] The Divine Comedy,[7] C64 Audio.com, and Frost*. He also administers the Fiddle and Alternative Strings Forum.

In 2012 Knight released his first TDK chiptune album, and continues to compose music in this style and in 2015 Knight announced his return to video game composition with F1 2015.[8] He was nominated for Best Western Game Composer (2015) at the Annual Game Music Awards.[9]

Knight resigned from Codemasters in September 2017 and is now running his Audio Production company, SONiC FUEL.

He contributed demo-music and patches to the Commodore 64 SID chip emulator, inSIDious, from Impact Soundworks in 2020 [10] and in 2021 he returned to the demoscene by contributing the music for the Melon Design demo, Cortez.

Personal life

Knight lives in Warwickshire, England.

Discography

Video games

Year Title Notes
1992Guy Spy and the Crystals of Armageddon
Wing Commander Amiga version
OutlanderSNES version
1993Mario's Time Machine
Alfred ChickenWith David Whittaker
Pierre le Chef is... Out to Lunch
Battleship
D/Generation
Evasive Action
Liberation: Captive 2
Overkill/Lunar C
Out to Lunch
Sim Life
1994DragonLore
Sim City 2000
BattletoadsAmiga version
1995Cyberspeed
1996Supersonic Racers
Warhammer: Shadow of the Horned RatWith James Hannigan
MegaRace 2Special thanks
1997Duke Nukem: Total Meltdown
1998Populous: The Beginning
Theme Park World
Warhammer: Dark Omen
1999Dungeon Keeper 2
2000Formula One 2000
Formula One 2000 CE
Superbikes 2000
2001Formula One 2001
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
Quake 3: RevolutionAudio Production
2002Formula One 2002Sound design
Harry Potter and the Chamber of SecretsAdditional Sound Design and Dialogue Editing
ShoxTechnical Audio Lead
2003Formula One 2003
Harry Potter: Quidditch World Cup
F1 Career ChallengeAudio lead
2004SudekiSound design
2007Crysis
The Witcher
2008Metal Gear Solid Mobile
So Blonde
Race Driver: GRIDAudio lead
2009Colin McRae: DiRT 2Lead Audio Designer
F1 2009
2010F1 2010Lead Audio Sound Designer
2011F1 2011Lead Audio Sound Designer
DiRT 3Lead Audio Designer
Dizzy Prince of the Yolkfolk
FortressCraftWith Arjan Kroes
2012DiRT ShowdownAudio Group Lead
F1 2012
F1 Race StarsGroup Lead Audio Designer
2013GRID 2
Colin McRae RallySpecial thanks
F1 2013Audio Group Lead
2014F1 2014
GRID AutosportGroup Lead Audio Designer
Toybox TurbosAdditional Composer
2015F1 2015Audio Group Lead and Composer
Dirt RallyGroup Lead Audio Designer
Overlord: Fellowship of EvilWith Michiel van den Bos
D/Generation HDComposer
2016F1 2016Principal Audio Designer and Composer
Shadow Warrior 2Instrumentalists & Vocals
Micro MachinesAdditional Composer
2017F1 2017Composer
Flight Sim WorldComposer
Funfair.ioComposer/Sound Designer
2018BeamNG.driveAudio Designer
2019NASCAR Heat 4Audio Designer
2020NASCAR Heat 5Uncredited use of 2019 audio
2021Turbo TomatoComposer
2022World of OutlawsAudio Designer
UnreleasedCarmageddon TV
.ComBots
Mario's Mission Earth
Road Rash
Velocity

Music releases

  • Cyberspeed Unleashed (2011)
  • FortressCraft Credits (2011)
  • Reawakening (2012)
  • D/Generation HD (2015)
  • The General (2019)
  • Project Hubbard: Escape to New Rob (2019)
  • ME! (2019)
  • Retrospect (2020)

Violin sessions

  • 4-4-2 – Come on England
  • Bjørn Lynne – The Gods Awaken
  • C64Audio – Back in Time 3
  • Frost* – The Dividing Line
  • Frost* – Falling Satellites
  • James J Turner – How Could We Be Wrong?
  • Ian Livingstone – Big Fat Gypsy Weddings
  • K-Passa – Born Again
  • Michał Cielecki - Shadow Warrior 2
  • Pepe Deluxe – Beatitude
  • Press Play on Tape – Home Computer
  • SilverDogs – SilverDogs
  • The Divine Comedy – Casanova
  • The Giallos Flame – House at the Edge of the Dark
  • This Morning Call – Deserted
  • Tomorrows Ancestor – Live at Stainsby
  • Tricks Upon Travellers – The Last Fish Supper
  • Tricks Upon Travellers – Where the Skeletons Dance
  • Tricks Upon Travellers – Acoustic Live and Uncut

References

  1. "Amiga Music Preservation -". Amp.dascene.net. Retrieved 5 July 2020.
  2. "About Me -". madfiddler.co.uk. Retrieved 19 September 2022.
  3. "Das Interview mit Mark Knight wurde am 26.04.2012 veröffentlicht". Kultboy. 3 May 2012. Retrieved 31 January 2023.
  4. "Bafta Interactive Sound Winner in 2000". 2000.
  5. Nichol, David (21 June 2012). "An interview with Mark Knight". Track Time Audio. Archived from the original on 11 September 2016. Retrieved 22 September 2014.
  6. Beatitude (Media notes). Pepe Deluxé. Catskills Records. 2003. ASIN B0000AM6N8.{{cite AV media notes}}: CS1 maint: others in cite AV media (notes) (link)
  7. Casanova (Media notes). The Divine Comedy. Setanta. 2001. ASIN B00003ZACC.{{cite AV media notes}}: CS1 maint: others in cite AV media (notes) (link)
  8. Greening, Chris (6 September 2016). "Mark Knight Interview: Back in the Composer's Chair". VGM Online. Retrieved 31 January 2023.
  9. "Annual Game Music Awards 2015 Nominations". Vgmonline.net. 3 January 2016. Retrieved 5 July 2020.
  10. "inSIDious brings the Commodore 64 SID chip to your DAW". MusicTech. 17 July 2020. Retrieved 21 July 2020.
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