Martin Galway

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

Martin Galway was born in 1966 in Belfast and grew into one of the best-known composers of chiptune, the music of the early home computers. He later moved to Manchester and in the 1980s wrote music as a freelancer for games on the Commodore 64 and the ZX Spectrum, including for the publisher Ocean Software. His work for Comic Bakery, Rambo: First Blood Part II, Green Beret, Parallax and Wizball was heard by thousands of players every time they loaded a game.

Music and breakthrough

Galway got a great deal out of the SID sound chip of the Commodore 64, a three-voice chip that was really intended for simple synthesizer sounds. With it he made melodies that sounded like a small ensemble, with their own walking bass, fast arpeggios and rhythms. He was the first to publish samples on that computer: the music you heard while Arkanoid was loading contained drum sounds that he had improvised himself by playing with the volume register.

Influence

In 1990 he became audio director at Origin Systems, where he worked on games such as Wing Commander and Strike Commander. Later he worked as audio director for other studios, including Digital Anvil and Cloud Imperium Games. His music lives on in remixes, covers and concerts of the retro gaming community, and in 2024 he made his original C64 source files public. For pop history he is important because he showed that a computer game can have a musical language of its own.

Listening

Discography

Studio albums

• 2003Project Galway