Mark Knight (musician)
{{Use dmy dates|date=March 2019}}
{{for|the British DJ and Producer|Mark Knight (DJ)}}
{{for|the Australian Cartoonist|Mark Knight}}
{{BLP sources|date=November 2018}}
{{Infobox musical artist
| name = Mark Knight
| image =
| caption = Promo photo for 'TDK' taken in 2012.
| alt =
| landscape =
| birth_name =
| native_name =
| native_name_lang =
| alias = {{hlist|TDK|Madfiddler}}
| birth_date =
| birth_place = Brighton, East Sussex, England
| origin =
| death_date =
| death_place =
| genre = {{flat list|
}}
| occupation = {{flat list|
- Composer
- musician
- sound designer
}}
| instrument = {{flat list|
- Electric violin
- violin
}}
| years_active = 1989–present
| label =
| associated_acts = {{flat list|
- Bleeding Hearts
- Blue Horses
- K-Passa
- Tricks Upon Travellers
}}
| website = {{flat list|
- {{URL|flitkillsmoths.co.uk}}
- {{URL|sonicfuel.co.uk}}
- {{URL|madfiddler.co.uk}}
}}
}}
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,{{Cite web|url=http://amp.dascene.net/detail.php?detail=modules&view=7301|title=Amiga Music Preservation -|website=Amp.dascene.net|accessdate=2020-07-05}} 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.
Biography
Born in 1973, in Brighton,{{Cite web|url=https://www.madfiddler.co.uk/about/|title=About Me -|website=madfiddler.co.uk|accessdate=2022-09-19}} 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.
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.{{cite web|url=http://awards.bafta.org/award/2000/interactive/sound-award|title=Bafta Interactive Sound Winner in 2000|year=2000}}
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".{{cite web|url=http://www.tracktimeaudio.com/?p=484|title=An interview with Mark Knight|date=21 June 2012|last=Nichol|first=David|publisher=Track Time Audio|access-date=22 September 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160911164339/http://www.tracktimeaudio.com/?p=484|archive-date=11 September 2016|url-status=dead}} 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.{{cite web |title=Das Interview mit Mark Knight wurde am 26.04.2012 veröffentlicht. |url=https://www.kultboy.com/Mark-Knight-Interview/37/ |website=Kultboy |access-date=31 January 2023 |date=3 May 2012}}
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,{{Cite AV media notes |title=Beatitude |others=Pepe Deluxé |year=2003 |location=Catskills Records |asin=B0000AM6N8|url=http://www.discogs.com/Pepe-Delux%C3%A9-Beatitude/release/201024}} The Divine Comedy,{{Cite AV media notes |title=Casanova |others=The Divine Comedy |year=2001 |location=Setanta |asin=B00003ZACC|url=http://www.discogs.com/Divine-Comedy-Casanova/release/771265}} 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.{{cite web |last1=Greening |first1=Chris |title=Mark Knight Interview: Back in the Composer's Chair |url=http://www.vgmonline.net/markknightinterview/ |website=VGM Online |access-date=31 January 2023 |date=6 September 2016}} He was nominated for Best Western Game Composer (2015) at the Annual Game Music Awards.{{Cite web|url=http://www.vgmonline.net/awards2015nominations/|title=Annual Game Music Awards 2015 Nominations|date=3 January 2016|website=Vgmonline.net|accessdate=2020-07-05}}
Knight resigned from Codemasters in September 2017 and is now running his Audio Production company, SONiC FUEL.{{cn|date=March 2023}}
He contributed demo music and patches to the Commodore 64 SID-chip emulator, inSIDious, from Impact Soundworks in 2020 {{Cite web|url=https://www.musictech.net/news/insidious-brings-the-commodore-64-sid-chip-to-your-daw|title=inSIDious brings the Commodore 64 SID chip to your DAW|date=17 July 2020|website=MusicTech|accessdate=2020-07-21}} and in 2021 he returned to the demoscene by contributing the music for the Melon Design demo, Cortez.{{cn|date=March 2023}}
Personal life
Knight lives in Warwickshire, England.{{cn|date=March 2023}}
Discography
=Video games=
| class="wikitable"
!Year !Title !Notes | ||
| rowspan="3"|1992 | Guy Spy and the Crystals of Armageddon | |
| Wing Commander | Amiga version | |
| Outlander | rowspan="2"|SNES version | |
| rowspan="10"|1993 | |Mario's Time Machine | |
| Alfred Chicken | With David Whittaker | |
| Pierre le Chef is... Out to Lunch | rowspan="10"| | |
| Battleship | ||
| D/Generation | ||
| Evasive Action | ||
| Liberation: Captive 2 | ||
| Overkill/Lunar C | ||
| Out to Lunch | ||
| Sim Life | ||
| rowspan="3"|1994 | |DragonLore | |
| Sim City 2000 | ||
| Battletoads | Amiga version | |
| 1995 | Cyberspeed | rowspan="2"| |
| rowspan="3"|1996 | Supersonic Racers | |
| Warhammer: Shadow of the Horned Rat | With James Hannigan | |
| MegaRace 2 | Special thanks | |
| 1997 | Duke Nukem: Total Meltdown | rowspan="10"| |
| rowspan="3"|1998 | Populous: The Beginning | |
| Theme Park World | ||
| Warhammer: Dark Omen | ||
| 1999 | Dungeon Keeper 2 | |
| rowspan="3"|2000 | Formula One 2000 | |
| Formula One 2000 CE | ||
| Superbikes 2000 | ||
| rowspan="3"|2001 | Formula One 2001 | |
| Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone | ||
| Quake 3: Revolution | Audio Production | |
| rowspan="3"|2002 | Formula One 2002 | Sound design |
| Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets | Additional Sound Design and Dialogue Editing | |
| Shox | Technical Audio Lead | |
| rowspan="3"|2003 | Formula One 2003 | rowspan="2"| |
| Harry Potter: Quidditch World Cup | ||
| F1 Career Challenge | Audio lead | |
| 2004 | Sudeki | Sound design |
| rowspan="2"|2007 | Crysis | rowspan="4"| |
| The Witcher | ||
| rowspan="3"|2008 | Metal Gear Solid Mobile | |
| So Blonde | ||
| Race Driver: GRID | Audio lead | |
| rowspan="2"|2009 | Colin McRae: DiRT 2 | Lead Audio Designer |
| F1 2009 | ||
| rowspan="1"|2010 | F1 2010 | Lead Audio Sound Designer |
| rowspan="4"|2011 | |F1 2011 | Lead Audio Sound Designer |
| DiRT 3 | Lead Audio Designer | |
| Dizzy Prince of the Yolkfolk | ||
| FortressCraft | With Arjan Kroes | |
| rowspan="3"|2012 | DiRT Showdown | rowspan="2"|Audio Group Lead |
| F1 2012 | ||
| F1 Race Stars | Group Lead Audio Designer | |
| rowspan="3"|2013 | |GRID 2 | |
| Colin McRae Rally | Special thanks | |
| F1 2013 | Audio Group Lead | |
| rowspan="3"|2014 | |F1 2014 | |
| GRID Autosport | Group Lead Audio Designer | |
| Toybox Turbos | Additional Composer | |
| rowspan="4"|2015 | F1 2015 | Audio Group Lead and Composer |
| Dirt Rally | Group Lead Audio Designer | |
| Overlord: Fellowship of Evil | With Michiel van den Bos | |
| D/Generation HD | Composer | |
| rowspan="3"|2016 | F1 2016 | Principal Audio Designer and Composer |
| Shadow Warrior 2 | Instrumentalists & Vocals | |
| Micro Machines | Additional Composer | |
| rowspan="3"|2017 | F1 2017 | Composer |
| Flight Sim World | Composer | |
| Funfair.io | Composer/Sound Designer | |
| rowspan="1"|2018 | BeamNG.drive | Audio Designer |
| rowspan="1"|2019 | NASCAR Heat 4 | Audio Designer |
| rowspan="1"|2020 | NASCAR Heat 5 | Uncredited use of 2019 audio |
| rowspan="1"|2021 | Turbo Tomato | Composer |
| rowspan="1"|2022 | World of Outlaws | Audio Designer |
| rowspan="5"|Unreleased | Carmageddon TV | rowspan="5"| |
| .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
{{Reflist}}
External links
- {{IMDb name|id=1783683|name=Mark Knight}}
- {{Discogs artist|271895-Mark-Knight-2|Mark Knight}}
- [http://www.flitkillsmoths.co.uk TDK website]
- [http://www.sonicfuel.co.uk SONiC FUEL website]
- [http://www.madfiddler.co.uk madfiddler website]
- [http://www.gamesounds.co.uk Gamesounds website] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110122005950/http://www.gamesounds.co.uk/ |date=22 January 2011 }}
- [http://amp.dascene.net/detail.php?view=7301 AMP profile website]
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Knight, Mark}}
Category:British rock violinists
Category:British male violinists
Category:Chiptune and tracker musicians
Category:British sound designers
Category:British video game composers
Category:Musicians from Brighton