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Martin Galway

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Martin Galway is one of the most revered Commodore 64 composers of the 80s.

During the eighties, Martin made music for many of the popular Commodore 64 games, and became one of the most famous SID artists. Galway is best known for his soaring, anthemic compositions, for making heavy use of the SID chip’s ring modulation feature, and for compositions which made unconventional changes to SID register settings while notes were playing (producing his trademark echoey sound). Perhaps his most famous song is the title-piece for Comic Bakery, a sweeping 3-voice masterpiece. This piece has featured in a number of demos and music discs.

Martin also made music for one of Origin Systems’ first adventure/roleplaying games, Times of Lore, with several tunes that were intended to suit the medieval setting. As he was also a programmer, he wrote an algorithm that randomized the chords that the guitar voice plays, making for a very long and varying piece.

He was also the first musician to get published with sampled sounds on the Commodore, with the theme for the Arkanoid conversion. When asked about how he did it, he answered: “I figured out how samples were played by hacking into someone else’s code … OK, I admit it … It was a drum synthesizer package called Digidrums, actually, so you could still say I was the first to include samples in a piece of music. […] Never would I claim to have invented that technique, I just got it published first. In fact, I couldn’t really figure out where they got the sample data, just that they were wiggling the volume register, so I tried to make up my own drum sample sounds in realtime - which is the flatulence stuff that shipped in Arkanoid.

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c64, sid, chiptune, video game music, game music
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Top Tracks

1	Comic Bakery full track	21
2	Arkanoid full track	17
3	Hyper Sports full track	8
4	Helikopter Jagd full track	6
4	Terra Cresta full track	6
6	Wizball Title full track	5
6	ocean loader v2 full track	5
8	Green Beret Loader full track	4
9	Parallax Stroll (by Chris Abbott & Boz)	3
9	Rambo Title full track	3
9	Neverending Story full track	3
12	Rambo In-Game full track	2
12	Wizball	2
12	Mikie full track	2
12	Green Beret Title full track	2

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malajen wrote:
September 2009

Rambo!

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BF-Medic wrote:
September 2009

Galway is God!

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101sonic wrote:
March 2009

Wow after years, I've found the composer of incredible composition OceanLoaderV2!!. I know that I'm not the only one who is fun of this song but I'd like to repeat that this music with musical themes and sound and of course its unique harmony and style, a REAL hit of the music world! For me it worth more than a category "game song". It is a anthem... it's a symphony! I'd like to make an remix from this song (as I'm a musician) but I respect all the notes and melodies used, and also I'm afraid to create a version which is far from main feeling of the song. Finally.. With my all respect for you and for your musical works.

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MoogleFan wrote:
January 2009

Brilliance!

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patodeborracha wrote:
October 2008

green beret is one of my favs songs ever!

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SoulSkorpion wrote:
September 2008

He's credited with some of the Wing Commander 2 soundtrack, which is great stuff. Childhood memories :)

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SIDhartaC64 wrote:
August 2008

Uplifting... inspirational! The SID sound is truly the culmination of western music. I'm not saying Beethoven's 9th isn't a decent tune, but it's no Parallax! http://www.last.fm/music/N%C3%BCrnberg+Trial

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swooshiain wrote:
July 2008

The Ocean Loader is still an awesome piece of music.

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wendell3 wrote:
June 2008

Ahh shit. :-)

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RosaMannen wrote:
March 2008

You're great man. You will always be my hero. C64 liebe.

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HiffySpamster wrote:
August 2007

ocean loader fuck yeah

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vaguerant wrote:
August 2007

Wizball for the win. I just wish I could submit multi-track SIDs.

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BrainFailure wrote:
June 2007

well, i know that - he made music for jurassic park/NES. (comic bakery)

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Don_Diego wrote:
April 2007

Green Beret!

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RoGrr wrote:
March 2007

Comic Bakery is a virtual masterpiece!

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Straybow wrote:
March 2007

I love you, sir.

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Recent Activity

A deleted user tagged Martin Galway with video game music, chiptune, game music and one other tag. Sunday afternoon
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AdamPellinDeeve connected Martin Galway to the group Lab Partner. 8 days ago
c4s996 added Martin Galway to c4s996’s library. 9 days ago
sz42 tagged Martin Galway with chip, c64audio, martin galway and one other tag. 15 days ago
CustardSandS, Denymetanol, Pero-Fotar and 9 other people added Martin Galway to their libraries. 15 days ago
la-farfalla- tagged Martin Galway with ‘chiptune’. October 2009
wiredfm and verily001 added Martin Galway to their libraries. October 2009
nixdorf and enjoymymusic tagged Martin Galway with sid. October 2009
enjoymymusic and batatshi added Martin Galway to their libraries. October 2009