Jonathan Dunn
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Jonathan Dunn is an English former musician and programmer who was the main sound designer at Ocean Software.
As a kid, he, like many of his peers, was interested in computers. He originally owned a Dragon 32, but sold it after a year to buy a computer with superior games, ultimately a Commodore 64. He then learned programming, first in BASIC, then in 6502 assembler. His mother owned a restaurant with a piano and had a live jazz night a week. During closing times, Jonathan Dunn composed on the piano. He also owned a synthesizer and took music lessons for a few years.
Seeing fit to combine his skill sets, he started dabbling in music and sound design using two brandnew ways: Electrosound 64, and studying performance music and technology at college. In summer 1986, he entered the ZZAP! 64 music competition under the pseudonym "Choroid" and shared second place. As he uploaded his music demos and phone number to Compunet, he started receiving phone calls from hackers all over the continent.
In 1987, Dunn entered the game industry with artist Hugh Binns. The two had met through Compunet and produced the game Subterranea (C64) in which Dunn was responsible for the music and sound effects.
Just then, Dunn's college course finished. Not sure where to turn, he took a summer job at an Argos warehouse. While considering university, he sent his music demos directly to some companies. Most of them responded with interest, and Ocean Software called him in for an interview, as Ocean was looking for someone to replace Martin Galway who had just recently departed the company. While Dunn was only hoping for a freelance job, Ocean offered him a full-time in-house position instead. Still in 1987, he accepted the offer and resigned from Argos the next day.
At Ocean, Dunn not only composed music for their games, but also wrote sound drivers for every platform the company worked on including Amstrad CPC, Atari ST, Amiga, Commodore 64, Game Boy, Nintendo Entertainment System, and SNES.
Dunn stayed with Ocean after Infogrames acquired the company in 1998 and then left in 2000. He also worked at Electronic Arts after that before finally retiring from his video game music career. Dunn explained the reason for leaving the game industry was due to the changing technology and how he liked programming drivers and music for the older platforms, which was virtually nonexistent in the current industry. He later worked in the casino gaming industry for some time.
Since August 2021, Dunn works at Triternion as the Development Director.
Dunn liked to compose music on the Commodore 64 because he made the Ocean Software drivers and it is the computer he began making music on. In the '90s, Dunn liked creating his music on the SNES. The soundtrack that Dunn composed that he likes best is Total Recall (C64). He is known for his outstanding work in Platoon (C64), Rambo III (C64), Jurassic Park (NES) and RoboCop (CPC).
Contents
Audio Development
Amiga
The Simpsons: Bart vs. the Space Mutants (AMI) uses the Acoustic Bass (A. Bass) sample from a Korg M1. The other instruments sound like they were waveforms made from the Commodore 64. Dunn used OctaMED like the other composers at Ocean as well as other drivers.
Commodore 64
Dunn arranged audio by entering numbers and labels into an audio driver:
- On his first two games (of which Subterranea was delayed), the music driver is Ariston, and the sound effect driver is likely Dunn's own. It is unknown how Ariston was available to Dunn and other users.
- On his next four games, the music driver is Martin Galway's. The sound effect driver is the same as earlier.
- For the rest, the music driver was created by Paul Hughes and constantly updated by Dunn. Hughes said he was surprised how Dunn was able to get the sounds out of Hughes' driver.
Dunn has cited Rob Hubbard as a real inspiration. After Hubbard became "just a legend", Dunn's favorite became Tim Follin.
Game Boy
Dunn originally coded his driver, but later used Software Creations' sound driver by Paul Tonge.
Dunn's best known Game Boy soundtrack is RoboCop, in particular, the title theme. He wrote the theme on the piano in his mother's restaurant. He is glad that the song still lives on, over 30 years after its release.
NES
Dunn wrote his own audio driver in 6502 assembly for the NES and named it Music Driver V1.0. He had this to say about his NES music composition:
While a great deal of the NES games he composed did not have credits, his name can be found in the driver portion of the ROM data, however, this isn't a guarantee that he composed the music, as other Ocean employees used the driver as well. The text reads:
MUSIC DRIVER V1.0 (C)JONATHAN DUNN & OCEAN SOFTWARE
SNES
Dunn initially used his own version of Nintendo's Kankichi-kun sound driver. Later on, Dunn wrote his own music driver and a converter, composed the majority using MIDI, converted it to data statements, and tweaked those.
Game Boy Advance
For Tiny Toon Adventures: Wacky Stackers and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Dunn used MusyX sound tool by Factor 5.
For his later scores, Dunn used Engine Software's sound driver by Jan-Lieuwe Koopmans.
For All-Star Baseball 2004, Dunn used Software Creations' sound driver by Neil Millstone.
Gameography
Picture Gallery
ST Amiga Format issue 10, 1989-03-16.
ST Amiga Format issue 10, 1989-03-16.
The Games Machine 27, 1990-01-11.
ACE issue 45, 1991-05-08.
Facebook profile picture.
Found on Lemon64 on 2002-04-08.
Links
- mobygames.com/person/31702/jonathan-dunn/ - MobyGames.
- twitter.com/ukjondunn - Twitter.
- atarimania.com/mags/pdf/st-amiga-format-issue-10.pdf - Interview from 1989-03-16.
- archive.org/details/the-games-machine-27/page/n91 - Interview from 1990-01-11.
- archive.org/details/ACE_Issue_45_1991-06_Future_Publishing_GB/page/n61 - Interview from 1991-05-08.
- atlantis-prophecy.org/recollection/?load=interviews&id_interview=92 - Interview from 2010-10-03.
- archive.org/details/Sinclair_ZX_Spectrum_and_Commodore_64_Book-2012/page/n133 - Interview from 2012.
- nintendolife.com/news/2020/06/feature_how_robocops_epic_game_boy_theme_tune_lives_on_30_years_later - Interview from 2020-06-02.
