Biography / Trivia

Despite being classically trained as a pianist and choral singer, Alexander Brandon's real training came by experimenting with the AdLib sound card and later becoming a member of the demoscene and tracker community, writing music for the classic MOD, S3M, and IT formats. His breakthrough into game music came when he composed and co-designed 1995's "Tyrian," which opened the doors to further work with Epic Games and related titles, including the "Unreal" and "Unreal Tournament" series. Several works were composed together with Dan Gardopée, his partner in the game audio company Straylight Productions. Brandon's biggest success came with multiple Game of the Year winner "Deus Ex" in 2000, which he co-wrote with longtime collaborator Michiel van den Bos. He remains an active composer, with frequent stints as an audio director and producer, and is currently employed by Obsidian.

Alexander is also quite involved in organizations that promote the development of game audio, such as G.A.N.G. and Project Bar-B-Q.

• Wrote a book on the game audio industry: "Audio for Games: Planning, Process, and Production" (2004).
• Influential artists include: Basil Poledouris, John McGlaughlin, composer for Strider by Capcom (original version), Michiru Yamane, John Williams, Jerry Goldsmith, James Horner, Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Orff, Shostakovich, Andrew Sega, Steve Vai, Orb, Michael Kamen, and many others...

"As always, make sure you can do anything. Write any style, do voice acting, direct voice acting, know your equipment and technology, become familiar with engineering, composing, sound design…I consider someone a musician if they can write or play one style, but I consider someone a true composer if they can write in more than one style."

Albums (6)

Albums - Non-VGM (6)

Reviews