Maniacs of Noise - Video Game Music Preservation Foundation Wiki (2024)

Maniacs of Noise is an influential video game music and sound effects group, founded in 1987 by Dutch teenagers Charles Deenen, Jeroen Tel and Marcel Donné, and still run by Tel.

Deenen and Donné met in 1987 at the monthly Venlo Meetings, and Deenen attended school in Tel's residential town. All three had already arranged music on their Commodore 64 computers using Soundmonitor. When Deenen saw Tel arrange a song in about 10 minutes, he created a music driver for Donné and Tel. In September, Deenen and Tel traveled to Earl's Court, London, to attend the annual PCW show. In their hotel room, they made up a lot of catchy names together and settled on Maniacs of Noise. At the actual show, Hewson Consultants gave them their first task, Battle Valley (C64).

Deenen managed the business from home and did sound design, preferring to leave composing and arranging music to everyone else. He hinted in 1995 and 2010 that MoN was founded just for fun, but as many people recall, he got so many orders that he started composing himself and constantly searched for help.

Over time, every founder left MoN, with Deenen leaving Øistein Eide in charge in late 1990 or January 1991. Tel returned in 1992 or 1993, meanwhile a programmer himself.

It is unclear when MoN became a formal company. 18-year-old Deenen stated in December 1988 that Maniacs of Noise is a registered trademark. According to Tel's archived website, MoN got a registry number in 1991.

Audio Development

Amiga

Deenen used the JT and MON (Frederic Hahn) formats, Christensen used JT.

Atari ST

Commodore 64

Deenen programmed a music driver ("Musicfile") and a sound effects driver in Turbo Ass. Deenen, Donné, Tel and Ouwehand arranged by typing hexadecimal numbers and labels into the driver's source code. After splitting from Deenen, Tel programmed himself.

Deenen sent Bjerregaard a disk with Turbo Ass, his music driver, and some 4-bit samples, but Bjerregaard preferred his own driver. Petersen also used his own.

Per game, MoN took two to six days and got £100 to £1000.

Game Boy Color

Mogensen's music is in Petersen's driver.

ZX Spectrum

Deenen's C64 music driver was officially converted to the 128K.

Gameography

MoN used to give the demoscene a part of their gameography (including unreleased games and rejected audio) and program colorful menus on C64, many of which show song titles.

Audio Personnel

• Amok Sound Department (freelance late 1989?–1990)
  • Hans-Jürgen Ehrentraut
  • Jesper Olsen
• Charles Deenen (September 1987–late 1990 or 1991)
• Frederic Hahn (c. 1989)
• Jeroen Tel (September 1987–1990, 1992 or 1993–present)
• Johannes Bjerregaard (October 1988–?)
• Jussi Pietila (late 1990 or 1991–?)
• Kim Christensen (c. late 1989)
• Øistein Eide (late 1990 or January 1991–?)
• Marcel Donné (September 1987–1988 or 1989)
• Martin Wall (April–autumn 1991)
• Reyn Ouwehand (late 1989?–1990)
• Robert Österbergh (June–autumn 1991)
• Thomas Mogensen (1996–present)
• Thomas Petersen (December 1989 or early 1990–present)
• Tor Gausen (January–early 1991)
• Vibrants (freelance late 1989?–June 1990?)
  • Jens-Christian Huus
  • Klaus Grøngaard

In summer 1988, Deenen was corresponding with Bjerregaard (who had been scoring games for one and a half years). In October, Bjerregaard became the first non-founding member. It is unknown whether he officially left or merely became inactive in 1990.

According to C=Lehti 4/89, Deenen fired co-founder Donné for being uninspired. Donné himself mentioned that he had to go to the army in 1989.

Later, Dave Hogendorf connected Deenen with Ouwehand, and Deenen phoned Petersen (who formerly ran The Flexible Arts with Christensen and "[sought] a music company which to join"). Ouwehand and Petersen joined by March 15, 1990, and Ouwehand left by May 12 to join System 3.

Deenen further searched for composers to outsource to, rather than employ. In that way, Vibrants and Amok worked for MoN. Markus Schneider recalled that Deenen defined the best composers as being capable of jazz, and that Mario van Zeist suggested Schneider to Deenen, but Deenen still resented Schneider for using his music driver without permission in 1988.

Between March 28 and June 23, 1990, co-founder Tel left. Three demoscene magazines (with varying credibility) quoted them as resenting each other, specifically for Deenen inviting people without telling Tel, Deenen allegedly taking credit for Tel's music, and Tel allegedly being too late. 64'er 3/91 reported that Tel wanted to be independent and creative. He did go on to work full-time in England.

By October 1990, Deenen was offered a job in the USA. During the following winter, he hired Eide, Pietila, and left Eide in charge of MoN before leaving Europe forever. Eide hired Gausen, Wall and Österbergh, with everyone ending up put off throughout 1991. Similarly to Bjerregaard, the VGMPF does not know when and how Eide and Pietila left.

In 1992 or 1993, Tel returned to both his childhood home and MoN. In 1996, he invited Thomas Mogensen.

Picture Gallery

• First seen in MoN's demo of Savage (C64), 1988, drawn by Ashley Routledge and Deenen.

• MoN's demo of End of Game Tune - Dragon Wars (AMI), 1990.

• Petersen, Tel, Mogensen. Found on Huus's site, 2017.

Links

• maniacsofnoise.nl - Official. (Tel lost the domain in 2015.)
• maniacsofnoise.com - Official.
• mobygames.com/company/maniacs-of-noise - MobyGames.
• csdb.dk/release/?id=6301 - News from April 16, 1988.
• csdb.dk/release/?id=79994 - Statement between December 3 and 17, 1988 (pages 9–10).
• archive.org/details/C-Lehti-1989-4/page/n3 - Interview with Deenen and Tel from C=Lehti 4/89.
• csdb.dk/release/?id=176509 - Statement between July 25 and August 4, 1989 (pages 24–25).
• janeway.exotica.org.uk/release.php?id=7612 - Amiga disk statement from September 1991.