Andrew Barnabas

Creative Director,
Bob & Barn Ltd.

Home: Cambridge, UK

Email: barn@bobandbarn.com

Web: www.bobandbarn.com

Ms. Pacman, Dig Dug, Warlords, Pacman All-Stars, Primal, Kung Fu Chaos

Amiga: SWIV, Double Dragon III, Global Gladiators, Cool Spot, Aladdin.

PC: Cool Spot, Aladdin, Pinball Dreams 2, Desert Strike, Defcon V, The Snowman, Father Christmas, Deadline, Creatures, Beastwars, Frogger.

SNES: Fifa '96

3DO: Defcon V, Father Christmas, The Snowman

PS1: Defcon V, The Snowman, Father Christmas, Silverload, Beastwars, Frogger, Medievil, This is Football 1, Gran Turismo 2, This is Football 2, Medievil 2, C-12: Final Resistance.

PS2: Extermination, Sky Odyssey, Gran Turismo 3, This is Football 2002. Saturn: Defcon V, The Snowman, Father Christmas.

Mac: The Snowman, Father Christmas.

Up until the age of 15, I'd had two major interests in my life (other than the standard things a 15 year old bloke likes!) - Music and Computers. I'd started piano lessons at the same time as my mother kindly enrolled me as a member of Croydon Computer Club, the impressionable age of 7. From then on, I managed to get myself into all sorts of trouble by doing things I really shouldn't in either the school's computer room/recording studio or in the local shops selling musical or computer related hardware.

She finally succumbed and bought my brother and I a Commodore 64 in 1986. I took to trying to figure out how the machine worked and became a machine code programmer within a couple of years (for the nostalgic out there, writing everything on an Action Replay cartridge machine code monitor!) I dabbled with writing music using MON's Future Composer but it wasn't until we upgraded to an Amiga in Xmas of '89 that things really started to fall into place.

During my tenure on the 64 I'd managed to stumble across the demo scene by pure accident, To those who are unaware, the demo scene consisted of fellow 64 users who were just as interested in working creatively on the machine as they were in achieving hi-scores on Skate or Die or Armalyte. These individuals normally form groups splitting the various disciplines amongst them - programming, graphics & sound - much like the games industry today. When the Amiga arrived, I was happy to continue my life as a programmer in the demo scene, but that all changed when I was shown a package called Soundtracker. Up until then, writing music on computers had generally been a tedious and painful task of typing the notes in by hand or using some Midi variant, neither of which achieved great results without significant time and programming skill. Soundtracker was different; the 'module' format was designed to get the best out of the Amiga's soundchip but in a very musical and visual way. It was, in essence, a 4-track 8-bit sample sequencer.

I was hooked.

I started writing music in January of 1990, and within the year had managed to get heavily involved in numerous groups in the Amiga scene, had won my first award (best amateur UK Amiga composer) and landed my first commission - SWIV for Sales Curve.

In 1991 things just got better and better, SWIV had hit the number 1 spot for 6 weeks in the music charts, I had landed my 2nd gig - Double Dragon III, won my 2nd award and through people I'd met in the demo scene managed to start a games music label called DENS Design with another guy from this country and muso's from Denmark & Norway (I'd grown up a bit now, and was a healthy 18 year old).

From '92 - '95, I spent my time studying for a degree in Music at Leeds University in the North of England. (Croydon, my hometown is in South London). I managed to split my time between studying and continuing to further my game music career, despite the general insults I received from my fellow peers at university when I told them what I did - "Blip Blop Mario Tetris" followed by a chuckle was a common occurrence. I managed to expand my horizons by working on more platforms than simply the Amiga.

Upon graduating in June '95, I literally went straight into my first full time post becoming the sole sound person for a company called Millennium Interactive in Cambridge. Not only had they invested £250,000 into building the best audio facility I'd ever seen, they had a great attitude towards audio. Sony bought Millennium in 1997 where the company became Sony Computer Entertainment Cambridge. I stayed at this post for 6 years, changing job roles over the years to encompass video editing & sound designing. It was a fantastic job, I increased my knowledge 10-fold and had I not had itchy feet, I would still be there now.

As of June 2001 I left along with my fellow Sony colleague Paul 'Bob' Arnold to start a Sound Production Company called 'Bob & Barn Ltd.' Within just 5 months of trading we've already completed 3 PC titles, 5 TV adverts for the Bloomberg Channel, a large extravagant presentation for the Swiss Bank Exchange, started working on an X-Box title, spent 5 days teaching Logic Audio in Ireland, work for a company which produces stands for the pharmaceutical industry and various bits of work for Sony. Our facility encompasses separate sound design and composition rooms, and we have formed a sister company relationship with 'The Vocal Suite', in the centre of Soho, London to facilitate all voice recording and localisation.

With our eyes firmly set upon the game industry, we've also had the opportunity to stretch our wings to see what it's like working in TV, corporate presentations, and (hopefully) film.

I started the Video Games Musician's mailing list in 1998 on a whim, and it has gone on to be enormously successful in bringing like minded audio professionals from the games industry together from all over the world together. To date it has 175 members, and whenever I go abroad I make an effort to put 'face-to-email!'.

I host 'The Gathering' in Hamar, Norway every Easter - a 5 day 'cyber' party. I'm the Crusaders' member they roped in to being the guy who stands up in front of 5000 (mostly) Scandinavians, and mighty fun it is too. www.gathering.org

On the back of both of the above, my phone started ringing. Various people wanted to hear me publicly wax lyrical (or alternatively slag off!) different facets of game audio production. This year alone I've had the pleasure of giving a 2 hour lecture at the University of Exeter and the University of Westminster as well as teaching sequencing in Ireland.

I had the honour of becoming a BAFTA judge last year - the PS1 game Medievil 2 taking 'best console game' and earning our first nomination for music.

I became a session piano player in '99 by recording a live 4 track demo along with a session drummer, guitarist and bass player on Elton John's piano at the Townhouse studio's to demonstrate Sony's £120k 24-bit DASH recording system.

Frogger has gone onto sell 5 million units, but alas you'll never know who worked on it unless you complete the game (which is a bitch to do).

Philosophy:

Sound does two things.

1. Sound provides emotion.
I'll give an example. Whilst watching a depiction of someone being shot in a film, we may shy away from the graphic nature of the violence, but the sound of bones crunching and flesh being ripped apart makes us cringe.

2. Sound provides atmosphere.
In a first person game, the player should be able to close his or her eyes and tell a great deal about the environment simply from the sound. Game designers generally aim to do one thing - create believable worlds and populate these worlds with characters we can relate to, can empathise with and feel connected to. The technology isn't there to make these worlds look like reality, but with sound we can bridge that gap as close as possible.