Blog — Rob Hubbard

We did a Q&A about the book with Dr. Kenny McAlpine, our main musicologist and first named author on the "Rob Hubbard - The Official Reference" book. Hope you enjoy it! 1. You’re the UK’s foremost academic expert on chipmusic: how did that come about? Is it still difficult getting other musical academics to recognise that’s even a thing?  Ha! That’s unduly flattering, I think, but thank you.  If it’s true, then it’s almost certainly by dint of the fact that there aren’t all that many other academics who are working in that space, so I've ended up being a leading...

Early Days The Story of 8-Bit Symphony starts with... nothing. Specifically, nothing on the TV in the 1970s. I lived through a period in the 1970s when sometimes the only thing on TV was a static graphic (called a "Testcard") and some light music. You can imagine a questing young mind listening to and processing that music. Filing it away. It was a great variety of music, from classical tracks done properly, to classical tracks done in a different style, to pop, and... to early synth music made purely on synthesizers of the time. It made quite an impression to hear...

There are a lot of stories in Project Hubbard. This one is about one of Rob's favourite pieces that never got out to play: Task Force. The story begins at the Opera. In 1982, Rob worked in the studio with a musician called Steve Daggett. (From the Lindesfarne Wikipedia page): "During the second half of the 1980s they played annual Christmas tours and released Dance Your Life Away (1986) and C'mon Everybody (1987) – the latter made up of covers of old rock and roll standards and reworkings of some of the band's most popular songs. Keyboardist Steve Daggett, formerly of new wave band Stiletto,...

Rob Hubbard was the king of music in EA games from 1988 until the mid-90s when they started licencing music... and covered Commodore 64, Amiga, NES, Tandy Jr, PC, 3DO and even MSX. "Rob Hubbard - the Official Reference" has a section devoted to his EA work including the console work, and some of his OSTs from the Genesis/Mega Drive/3DO will feature on the Archive CD This article covering Rob's Console work is sponsored by Rob's official Kickstarter (book, albums, SIDs, etc), Project Hubbard. Why not back it or pre-order now?   Skate or Die The original theme was composed in August 1987 and originally appeared...