Nathan McCree

Nathan McCree

Nathan McCree in 2014
Background information
Born January 27, 1969
England
Genres Orchestral, electronic, electro-acoustic
Occupation(s) Music composer
Instruments Keyboard, piano
Years active 1993–present
Labels Eidos Interactive
Associated acts McCree Music Ltd

Nathan McCree is a music composer and sound effects editor for multimedia projects including computer games, television, live events, and radio. He worked with Core Design between 1996 and 1998, for the first three Tomb Raider games, among others. He worked also with profile names such as the Spice Girls and Orange.[1] In 2008 he became full-time Audio Director for Vatra Games where he worked until 2010.[2] After this he became Audio Director at City Interactive in Warsaw where he worked on Sniper 2: Ghost Warrior and Alien Rage.

He has been praised among critics and has received several informal awards. Tomb Raider III has long been regarded as the "best sounding computer game to date" and Nathan's work on the Sega Mega Drive game Asterix and the Power of the Gods earned the accolade "Best Mega Drive Music Ever!".[3] Recently, thanks to the vast flash site Newgrounds, he worked together with Adam Phillips and composed the music for his latest release in the Brackenwood series.

Early life

As a child, he spent time singing in a choir from the age of 6 where he learned about harmonies and progressions from choral music.[4]

Career

He started writing music when he was 11, on a Korg Delta synthesizer bought by his father, he used his 4 track reel to reel tape recorder to multi-track. He studied Computer Science at Kingston University and got his first job with Core Design as a programmer.[4]

His job there was to code a music sequencer for the Sega Mega Drive, he wrote some music on it to demonstrate how it worked. The boss liked the music and he asked him to write the music for Asterix and the Power of the Gods.[4]

Tomb Raider

Nathan is most well known for creating the original music for Tomb Raider I. While creating the Tomb Raider music he had in mind to create music that sound like English classical music. He notes that the influences might came from English classical music that his father used to play to me when he was small. He wrote the entire score for the first Tomb Raider in 4 weeks without insight on the game levels to help him draw the music accordingly. On the following two games he was still getting very limited descriptions for what musical elements we needed.[4]

He spent three months working for Tomb Raider II.[4]

After Tomb Raider II he left to go freelance and he was contracted in to do the music for Tomb Raider 3.

He was not contracted to work on Tomb Raider 4, being later replace by Peter Connelly who composed Tomb Raider music for another 3 Tomb Raider games. He interviewed Peter to replace him at Core Design.

Works

Audio Director

Composer

Sound effects

See also

References

  1. ↑ http://www.dna-music.com/nathan_mccree.html
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 http://platform-online.net/2013/11/interview-with-nathan-mccree/
  3. ↑ "Nathan McCree biography". IMDb profile page. IMDb. 2007-10-07. Retrieved 2008-06-27.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 "Nathan McCree biography". Interview with: Nathan McCree. Platform Online. 2013-03-27. Retrieved 2014-04-02.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 "DNA Music Limited". Dna-music.com. Retrieved 2013-10-21.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 "Nathan McCree" (PDF). Retrieved 2013-10-21.
  7. ↑ http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/may00/articles/tomb.htm
  8. ↑ http://www.musicoftombraider.com/2014/03/nathan-mccree-on-original-tomb-raider.html

External links

Preceded by
First		 Tomb Raider composer
1996–1998 		Succeeded by
Peter Connelly