Jochen Hippel

Jochen Hippel (born October 14, 1971) is a musician from Kirchheimbolanden in southwest Germany. He played one of the most prominent roles in computer music during the 16-bit microcomputer era, composing the music for tens of games. He was also an experienced Amiga programmer and ported many of Thalion Software's Atari ST titles. He no longer composes music for a living and in 2006 he was working in Logistics for Matheis+Koebig Baustoffe

Jochen's first computer music was a set of Christmas songs that he arranged in a rock style on his school's Commodore 64.

As a member of The Exceptions under the handle Mad Max, he wrote most of the music for their demos including the B.I.G. Demo (Best in Galaxy).[1] The demo was essentially a large collection of C64 tunes that The Exceptions ported across to the Atari ST's Yamaha YM2149 sound chip using Jochen's own driver to get the most out of it. Jochen then had to fix all the music in order to get it to sound correct on the ST, the YM2149 has no resonance filter, no ADSR enveloping and no ring modulation. Composers (such as Rob Hubbard) used a lot of special effects in their music which was difficult to replicate on the ST sound chip.

Another note of interest is that the B.I.G. demo contained an additional demo screen entitled "The Digital Department" containing 6 digital versions of C64 music. The sound routine however used each channel of the YM2149 as a 4-bit DAC and played samples for each instrument. This is the first time ADSR samples are heard on the Atari ST, unfortunately only one more piece of music is ever written using this routine, albeit the 16-minute-long Knuckle Busters tune by Rob Hubbard. This appears as a guest screen in the Cuddly Demos (written by The Carebears) and was used to torment Richard Karsmakers of ST News who was promptly chained to a chair as the disk was formatted before his very eyes!

He worked as a freelance musician, doing music for many 16-bit games. He eventually joined Thalion Software as a programmer and musician.[2] His musical track for the game Amberstar is considered among his best works, and the game and Hippel's music acquired a cult following. For in game music on the Amiga Jochen often stuck to chiptune-like sound – that became his trademark – instead of using more "realistic" instrument sounds that machine's support for digitized sound made possible. Title musics for Wings of Death and Lethal Xcess are exceptions.

He has released an album called Give it a Try[3] and has composed music for other albums including tracks on Immortal 2 and Immortal 3 .

Hippel was also a programmer, he created all of his own music tools and also ported most of Thalion's early Atari ST titles to the Commodore Amiga. Hippel also created the Amiga 7 voice replay routine which was used in several Thalion and Eclipse titles and later used by Chris Hülsbeck in his TFMX replay routine for the title music of Turrican 2 and Turrican 3 for which he wrote the in game loading music.

Video game music

NOTE: Most of songs which are for Atari ST only are conversions while works for both machines are usually Hippel's own compositions.

Game Year System(s) Publisher Comment
5th Gear 1988 Atari ST, Commodore Amiga Hewson
Amberstar 1992 Atari ST, Commodore Amiga Thalion
Astaroth – The Angel of Death 1989 Atari ST, Commodore Amiga Hewson
Atomino 1990 Atari ST Psygnosis
Atomix 1989 Atari ST, Commodore Amiga Thalion
Bad Cat 1988 Atari ST Rainbow Arts
B.C. Kid 1992 Commodore Amiga Ubisoft
Battle Valley 1989 Commodore Amiga Hewson
Chambers of Shaolin 1989 Atari ST, Commodore Amiga Thalion
Circus Attractions 1988 Atari ST Rainbow Arts
Crime Time 1990 Atari ST Starbyte
Curse of Ra 1990 Atari ST Rainbow Arts
Crush! 1991 Atari ST Budgie UK
Cybernoid II – The Revenge 1989 Atari ST Hewson Original by Jeroen Tel
Dragonflight 1990 Atari ST, Commodore Amiga Thalion
Dugger 1988 Atari ST Linel
Enchanted Lands 1990 Atari ST, Commodore Amiga Thalion
Ghost Battle 1991 Atari ST, Commodore Amiga Thalion
Grand Monster Slam 1989 Atari ST Rainbow Arts
Great Courts II 1990 Atari ST Ubisoft
The Great Giana Sisters 1987 Atari ST Hewson Original by Chris Hülsbeck
In 80 Days around the World 1988 Atari ST Rainbow Arts
Insects in Space 1990 Atari ST Hewson
Jinks 1988 Atari ST Rainbow Arts
The Last Ninja 1988 Atari ST System 3
Leavin Teramis 1989 Atari ST, Commodore Amiga Thalion
Lethal Xcess – Wings of Death II 1991 Atari ST, Commodore Amiga Eclipse Software
Masterblazer 1991 Atari ST Rainbow Arts
Monster Business 1991 Commodore Amiga Eclipse Software
MUDS – Mean Dirty Ugly Sports 1990 Atari ST Rainbow Arts
Ninja Remix 1990 Atari ST, Commodore Amiga System 3
A Prehistoric Tale 1990 Atari ST, Commodore Amiga Thalion
Pro Tennis Tour II 1990 Atari ST Ubisoft
Rings of Medusa 1989 Atari ST Starbyte
Rings of Medusa II – Return of Medusa 1991 Atari ST, Commodore Amiga Starbyte
Roll-Out 1989 Atari ST Procovision
The Seven Gates of Jambala 1989 Atari ST, Commodore Amiga Thalion
Spaceball 1988 Atari ST Rainbow Arts
Starball 1988 Atari ST Rainbow Arts
Stormlord 1989 Atari ST Hewson
Tangram 1990 Atari ST, Commodore Amiga Thalion
To be on top 1988 Atari ST, Commodore Amiga Rainbow Arts Original by Chris Hülsbeck
Tom & Jerry: Hunting High And Low 1989 Atari ST Magic Bytes
Tom & Jerry II 1989 Atari ST Magic Bytes
Tower FRA 1990 Commodore Amiga Thalion
Transworld 1990 Atari ST Starbyte
Turrican 1990 Atari ST Rainbow Arts Original by Chris Hülsbeck
Turrican II – The final Fight 1991 Atari ST Rainbow Arts Original by Chris Hülsbeck
Turrican III – Payment Day 1993 Commodore Amiga Rainbow Arts Credited for "Seven Voice Technology"
Warp 1989 Atari ST, Commodore Amiga Thalion
Wings of Death 1990 Atari ST, Commodore Amiga Eclipse Software
Z-Out 1990 Atari ST Rainbow Arts

Data Provided by Hall of Light[4], Atari Legend[5], Atarimania[6] and Lemon Amiga games databases[7].

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References
  1. http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=11350
  2. http://thalion.exotica.org.uk/corporate/people/pics/hos2/cd2.html
  3. http://www.discogs.com/Jochen-Hippel-Give-It-A-Try/release/1808727
  4. Listing of Hippel's work on HOL.
  5. Listing of Hippel's work on Atari Legend.
  6. Listing of Hippel's work on Atarimania.
  7. http://www.lemonamiga.com/
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