Neil Brennan
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Neil Brennan is a software developer and the first audio creator that worked at Beam Software. He worked on the NES sound driver at Beam and dealt with arranging music from an arcade to a console or computer.
Brennan was born in 1964 in Africa, emigrating to Australia at the age of 4. He attended Carey Baptist Grammar School and the University of Melbourne, graduating in 1987 with a degree in Computer Science. He was an active contributor to the vibrant Melbourne music scene, playing in various bands including Macguffins, Stick Figures, Redfish Bluefish and Linoleum during the late 1980's, 1990's and early 2000's.
Upon leaving Beam Software in 1988, he moved to work in mainstream computing in libraries, telcos, utilities and financial institutions. After periods in Boston and London, he currently leads development teams at one of Australia's leading banks and resides in Melbourne with his wife and three children.
Audio Development
Commodore 64
Nigel Spencer told C64.COM that he wrote Brennan a synth editor and a sound effects manager.
On PAL C64s, the driver was always tuned at 423.9 Hz.
Brennan almost always used SID's built-in filter. Unfortunately, the filter varied with every machine, and it seems that Brennan arranged on multiple machines, so when recording one of his C64 soundtracks, another filter emulation setting has to be determined.
NES
Brennan started off using Gregg Barnett's version of the Beam sound driver NYNTH by writing in Music Macro Language. Because the engine was out of tune, he configured the sound engine (along with Gavan Anderson) and fixed the frequency registers. The reason for the frequencies being off was because they had originally created the music and sound on a PAL console, in which the music was played back differently on the NTSC NES in the USA.
Gameography
Picture Gallery
Interviews from 2012 and 2020.
DeepSID, August 28, 2018.
Links
- mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,137542/ - MobyGames.
- au.linkedin.com/in/nbrennan - LinkedIn.
- archive.org/details/Sinclair_ZX_Spectrum_and_Commodore_64_Book-2012/page/n133 - Interview from 2012.
- remix64.com/interviews/an-interview-with-neil-brennan.html - Interview from November 28, 2020.
