Charles Deenen (born 15 January 1970 in

Holthees Holthees is a village in the former municipality of Boxmeer on the border of the Dutch provinces North Brabant and Limburg. Since 2022 it has been part of the new municipality of Land van Cuijk. History The name Holthees was mentioned for the f ...

), is a

Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...

computer/video game audio director, music composer, sound designer, and mixer. He is also known for his music and sound efforts for games of the C64 and

Amiga Amiga is a family of personal computers introduced by Commodore in 1985. The original model is one of a number of mid-1980s computers with 16- or 32-bit processors, 256 KB or more of RAM, mouse-based GUIs, and significantly improved graphi ...

era. He was one of the first

demoscene The demoscene is an international computer art subculture focused on producing demos: self-contained, sometimes extremely small, computer programs that produce audiovisual presentations. The purpose of a demo is to show off programming, visual ...

rs.

Early career

His first sound achievement was the self-written

sound In physics, sound is a vibration that propagates as an acoustic wave, through a transmission medium such as a gas, liquid or solid. In human physiology and psychology, sound is the ''reception'' of such waves and their ''perception'' by the ...

driver for

Commodore PET The Commodore PET is a line of personal computers produced starting in 1977 by Commodore International. A single all-in-one case combines a MOS Technology 6502 microprocessor, Commodore BASIC in read-only memory, keyboard, monochrome monitor, an ...

, which he wrote at the age of 13. In the early 1980s he bought a C64. He often wrote graphical and musical demos on it and showed demos at game exhibitions, and through his hobby he met fellow composer

Jeroen Tel Jeroen Godfried Tel (born 19 May 1972), also known as WAVE, is a Dutch composer. He is best known for numerous computer game tunes he wrote in the 1980s and early 1990s for the Commodore 64. His most popular compositions appear in the following ...

. In

1987 File:1987 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The MS Herald of Free Enterprise capsizes after leaving the Port of Zeebrugge in Belgium, killing 193; Northwest Airlines Flight 255 crashes after takeoff from Detroit Metropolitan Airport, k ...

he, with Tel and some others, started the sound and music group Maniacs of Noise and composed game music for platforms such as the

Commodore 64 The Commodore 64, also known as the C64, is an 8-bit home computer introduced in January 1982 by Commodore International (first shown at the Consumer Electronics Show, January 7–10, 1982, in Las Vegas). It has been listed in the Guinness ...

Commodore Amiga Amiga is a family of personal computers introduced by Commodore in 1985. The original model is one of a number of mid-1980s computers with 16- or 32-bit processors, 256 KB or more of RAM, mouse-based GUIs, and significantly improved graphi ...

and

Atari ST The Atari ST is a line of personal computers from Atari Corporation and the successor to the Atari 8-bit family. The initial model, the Atari 520ST, had limited release in April–June 1985 and was widely available in July. It was the first pers ...

, being hired by such companies as

Sega is a Japanese multinational corporation, multinational video game and entertainment company headquartered in Shinagawa, Tokyo. Its international branches, Sega of America and Sega Europe, are headquartered in Irvine, California and London, r ...

U.S. Gold U.S. Gold Limited was a British video game publisher based in Witton, Birmingham, England. The company was founded in 1984 by Anne and Geoff Brown in parallel to their distributor firm, CentreSoft, both of which became part of Woodward Brown Ho ...

and

Probe Software Acclaim Entertainment was an American video game publisher from Long Island, active from 1987 until filing for Chapter 7 bankruptcy on September 1, 2004. Through a series of acquisitions between 1990 and 2002, Acclaim built itself a large portfol ...

. Initially he was strictly a programmer for the group, working on audio drivers and sound effects while leaving all the actual composing to Tel, but after their first few games he began working on music as well. With Maniacs of Noise he composed ''

Double Dragon is a beat 'em up video game series initially developed by Technōs Japan and released as an arcade game in 1987. The series features twin martial artists, Billy and Jimmy Lee, as they fight against various adversaries and rivals. The original ...

'', home computer versions of '' Soldier of Light'', and Jukka Tapanimäki's game '' Zamzara''. In all, Maniacs of Noise composed the music for over 300 Commodore 64 and Amiga games.

Virgin, Interplay, Shiny and EA

In 1990 he moved to the US and worked for

Virgin Games Virgin Interactive Entertainment (later renamed Avalon Interactive) was the video game publishing division of British conglomerate the Virgin Group. It developed and published games for major platforms and employed developers, including Westwoo ...

for 6 months. In 1991 his talent was noted by Interplay (with which he worked on ''

Dragon Wars ''Dragon Wars'' is a fantasy role-playing video game developed by Rebecca Heineman and published by Interplay Productions in 1989 and distributed by Activision. Gameplay The player starts the game with a party of four characters, who can be eith ...

'') and they recruited him as a composer/sound designer. The most famous projects he worked on with Interplay were ''

Fallout 1 ''Fallout: A Post Nuclear Role Playing Game'' is a 1997 role-playing video game developed and published by Interplay Productions. In a mid-22nd century post-apocalyptic and Retrofuturism, retro-futuristic world, decades after a global nuclea ...

'' and '' 2'', '' Another World'', '' Planescape: Torment'', ''

The Lost Vikings ''The Lost Vikings'' is a puzzle-platform game developed by Silicon & Synapse (now Blizzard Entertainment) and published by Interplay. It was originally released for the Super NES in 1993, then subsequently released for the Amiga, Amiga CD32, M ...

'' and '' Descent 2''. In

2002 File:2002 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 2002 Winter Olympics are held in Salt Lake City; Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother and her daughter Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon die; East Timor gains East Timor independence, indepe ...

he left Interplay and briefly worked for Shiny on ''

Enter the Matrix ''Enter the Matrix'' is a 2003 action-adventure video game Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or ...

''. In

2003 File:2003 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The crew of STS-107 perished when the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated during reentry into Earth's atmosphere; SARS became an epidemic in China, and was a precursor to SARS-CoV-2; A des ...

, Deenen moved to

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

and joined EA as senior audio director, working primarily on the ''Need for Speed'' series. In 2013 he left EA and started working as a freelancer for the industry.

Other work

Aside from video games, Deenen also works on sound for films.Deenen's IMDB profile.
/ref> He provides world-wide

lecture A lecture (from Latin ''lēctūra'' “reading” ) is an oral presentation intended to present information or teach people about a particular subject, for example by a university or college teacher. Lectures are used to convey critical infor ...

s about sound in video games, films and trailers as of 2006. He is also a professional

photographer A photographer (the Greek language, Greek φῶς (''phos''), meaning "light", and γραφή (''graphê''), meaning "drawing, writing", together meaning "drawing with light") is a person who makes photographs. Duties and types of photographe ...

, having many collections of works on his own site.

Personal life

Deenen lives in Tarzana with his wife Ana and dog Speely.

References

External links

Designing Sound interviewMobyGames information pageComposer profile
at

OverClocked ReMix OverClocked ReMix, also known as OC ReMix and OCR, is a non-commercial organization dedicated to preserving and paying tribute to video game music through arranging and re-interpreting the songs, both with new technology and software and by vari ...

Charles Deenen at Commodore 64 Scene DatabaseCar sounds recording: Guide by Charles Deenen
February 25, 2010. {{DEFAULTSORT:Deenen, Charles 1970 births Living people Commodore 64 music Dutch composers Video game composers People from Boxmeer