Commodore 64 Music
Commodore 64 SID and DAT files for Mark Cooksey tunes. If anyone has screen shots
of the games below please get in touch and email them to me so I can include them.
Any suggestions as what to include on this site? Then email me using the info on
the contacts page. Note spelling mistakes on some tune names and artists are
deliberate and are for copyright reasons.
1942 (Elite 1986)
This Elite game involved flying a plane around and bombing stuff. I think it was based on an
overhead view. Version 1 of the music has the 63 squadron theme for tune 1 but for copy-
right reasons I had to redo the music using an original tune. This tune was not as good as
the 63three tune but I probably had the minimum time to come up with something.
Airwolf (Elite 1985)
When I was interviewed by Brian Wilcox at Elite for a job they sent me home with a little task to
prove that I had some computer and progamming skills. The task was to make the Oric Atmos
computer I had at home play the theme tune to Airwolf. Over the weekend I managed to get the
tune playing using a very simple assembler that I had written in basic. As a result I got the job
at Elite and the first thing they had me doing was programming the Airwolf tune on the C64 as
they were doing a game based on the TV show. After this I found myself doing music all the
time and that is how I got started.
Airwolf II (Elite Hitpack 1987)
This is a rather peculiar tune, I can't remember anything about this game really, must be
based on a helicopter (but not necessarily so knowing elite). The tune sounds vaguely
Egyptian or Arabic. If anyone has screen shots or knows anything about this game
let me know.
Battle Island (Novagen Software 1988)
I never saw this game, I received a phone call and was asked to do the music. I had a
feeling though that the game might be a bit like Commando so I did a tune that was kind
of inspired by Rob Hubbard's music for that game. Of course it's nowhere near as good
as maestro Rob's tune but it's certainly not the worst tune I ever did.
Battleships (Elite 1987)
This game was based on the well known board game. Tune 2 is a weird victory ditty that
was composed by my brother. Tune 3 I think is the highscore music and tune 4 is the ingame
music, just a 2 channel ambient track which left 1 channel for sfx. Tune 5 seems to be corrupt
and out of sync for some reason but was meant to be used for action parts of the game.
Bombjack 1 and 2 (Elite 1986)
Bombjack 1 was based on the old coin op machine. The title tune is a Jeen Michel Jarr cover.
We used to copy tunes like this all the time in the early days, I think the legislation at the time
didn't cover computer based music, that situation didn't last very l ong though and we then
needed to do original compositions (supposedly). Only tune 2 is from the original arcade
machine. I seem to remember that in the original version of the music I used Ladie Madonaa
by the Beetles. Bombjack 2 may have started out life as Thundar-cats, certainly the 1st tune
is copied from the original tune of the cartoon series. It's such a long time ago now it's hard
to remember.
Cataball (Elite 1988)
I can't remember much about this game at all, though judging by the music it must have been
fairly comical. Maybe if I get a screen shot of the game it might stimulate the old grey matter.
Commando 86 (Elite 1986)
Only 1 tune in this file, this makes me think that it was not used in the final version of the game.
Again I can't remember anything about this game really, the tune however is a hotch potch of
covered tunes including tubuler bels.
Dead or Alive (Alternative Software 1987)
I never saw this game so I have no idea what it is like. The title tune is Scarborough Fair and
the high score tune sounds like some kind of Carlas Santana rip off possibly.
Felix (Elite/Hitpack 1987)
The title tune (tune 1) is totally weird in a strange jarreish sort of a way. For some reason tune
four doesn't play at all and crashes the player program. The game doesn't stick in my memory
so maybe if I see a screen shot then the memories will come flooding back to me.
Ghosts 'n' Goblins (Elite 1986)
Without doubt the game which is most closely associated with me. The highscore tune (1) is a
copy from the original arcade machine. However, having listened to the in game tune which
was a complicated harpsichord tune using lots of channels, I decided to compose my own
ghostly tune. Again the tune is not completely original using elements from several sources
including Chopin and other bizarre sources (my moms old organ vinyl records from the 70's).
I'm still mystified about why I went for that strange percussion but it seems to work somehow.
Great Gurianos (Hitpack/Elite 1987)
I dont think this game was released under the elite label because it wasn't very good so it was
probably packaged into a multipack release under the hitpack label. Again I can't recall much
about this game, my mind has blocked out the not so good games. Tune 2 on this file again
seems to go out of sync, maybe it was released in the game like this!
Gremlins II - The New Batch (Elite 1990)
I remember this project very well because most of Elite went down to the 20th Cent Fox HQ in
London. We had a private pre-release screening of Gremlins II in their mini cinema, kitted out
with surround sound. The computer press were invited and Steve Wilcox gave a talk before
the film was screened. Afterwards we went to a Thai restaurant but being a potatoes & gravy
man I passed on the food and hot footed it home.
Worryingly, listening to the music I'm not 100% sure if I did it or not. I think I did cause certain
elements sound like my music but the highscore tune (No 6) sounds far too good. Perhaps by
1990 I had improved the music player routine and decided to do a good job for this game. If
anyone knows, please let me know.
Jackal (Konami 1987)
This music was, for once an actual conversion from the arcade machine. I liked the original
tunes and decided I could do a reasonable conversion of them. I can't remember what the
name of the development company was who were programming this game. I don't think it
was elite. I seem to remember I didn't get paid for this because the dev company went bust
and all the products were bought by somebody else.
Live and Let Die (Elite 1988)
I am sure that this game was released under the title Aquablast or something like that because
the licencing for the name live and let die was too expensive. As a result though tune two
sounds very "bondish" because the name wasn't changed until after the music was completed.
The game was certainly released as aquablast on the Atari ST and Amiga but maybe the name
live and let die was used on the C64 and Speccy versions of the game. Hmmm!?
Overlander (Elite 1988)
I was asked to do a rock tune for this game and the result was tune 1. Unfortunately in this
version the tune goes out of sync and ends up all wrong. I'm sure the original version in the
game was alright because we used to leave the games running for ages during the testing
process with the music playing. If anyone has a correct version of this file please email it to me.
Lots of filter use in these tunes so they probably didn't sound correctly on some C64s due to
the different chip versions used in different C64s.
Paperboy (Elite 1986)
We had this coin op in the office at elite and we spent many an hour "researching" it. The music
however used many channels and didn't have a particularly catchy theme so I did an original
composition. The tune is a bit on the weird side but I thought that It went quite well with the
fairly slow pace of the cycling round the streets bit of the game. On the coin op there were a
number of speech samples and some of these were put into the Amiga version of the game
which did have the original music.
Pirates In Hyperspace (Alternative Software 1987)
This was a game that was done on a shoestring. I think the developers only got about £500 as a
result I was paid about £50. From what I can remember the game was a sideways spritey shoot-
em-up. I did have a disk of this game but it has long since bitten the dust.
Ramparts (Go! 1987)
The 1st tune in this file has a ghost n goblin type of start then goes into a tubular bells type bit,
then finally goes into a sort of pop meets the 16th century type theme. Tune 2, the win ditty
sounds much like one of the bombjack ditties! I must have felt a bit lazy on that day. Tune 5 is
the highscore tune and I have done a full version of this on keyboard etc. Right click on this
link to download the tune. The people who developed this game had a pokey little room on the
upper storey of a computer store in Walsall before they moved into more spacious offices.
I can't remember much about them, but the head bloke's first name may have been Sean,
wonder where he is now?
Scare Bear (Alternative Software 1987)
Haven't got a clue what this game is about, I can barely (no pun intended) remember doing the tune
and the file is included just as a curio.
Scooby Doo (Elite 1986)
I don't think I can take the credit for doing this music, I'm sure that Elite got someone in to do it or
maybe the programmer did it himself. The file size seems big for just one tune and a few sound
effects (9140 bytes), the programmers always used to say you could have 10k and towards the
end of the project they'd halve it.
Space Academy (Elite 1989)
I remember doing this tune but the file size seems a little small for one of my music sets. I think by
1989 I had improved and reduced the size of the routine and could miss out sections of the player
that weren't required. Again if anybody can shed any light on this matter, let me know.
Space Harrier (Elite 1987)
I used to love playing this arcade machine when we had got it at the offices at Elite, t hose Easter
Island type stone heads that flew towards you were especially effective. The original in game
tune had got a memorable melody so I decided to stick to it. The middle section of my version
may be original though, the tune plays a little faster than on the arcade machine. This was due
to the fact that my routine didn't contain a fractional timer at that point. Speeds were determined
by the shortest note length which could be 1,2,3 or 4 etc. The speed differences were thus 100%,
50,33% etc. with no in between values. The rest of the tunes in the set are original compositions
I think, maybe tune 2 was close to the arcade version.
Storm Warrior (Elite 1988)
This is one of my favourite sets of compositions with low pass filter use, which depending on
what version of the C64 you had sounded correct or otherwise the filtered channel sounded
very woolly. Tune 1 has a kind of John Carpenter feel, tune 2 is a Bach influenced piece, tune
3 is a very echoey menacing tune. Tune 4 is an action type tune, tune 5 is a durge, tune 6 is
game over, tune 7 is a dancey highscore tune and tune 8 is another ingame tune.
Wanderer (Elite 1989)
I haven't got a clue what this game was like. I think tunes 1 and 2 were from the original game
because I remember taking ages were to work out tune 2 which is quite jazzy. The other two
ditties are original compositions. What was the original game? arcade or computer game on
another system. I'll have to download some game roms and an emulator and take a look at
these old games to refresh my ailing memory.
WWF European Rampage Tour (Ocean/Arc Developments 1992)
The developer of this game was a company called Arc Developments. I think this may have
been there only C64 project but I did do other work for them on other games systems. The
plan was to do rock music for this game but it ended up sounding a little weak and slow.
This was probably the last C64 music I did before I moved on to other platforms such as
the original gameboy and SNES etc. The person who used to pay the cheques out at Arc
used to make me jump through hoops to get my money, he was just taking the p*ss and
sometimes I couldn't help but laugh.
Anyway that's enough of my ramblings and trips down memory lane. I think I've asked more
questions than I've answered but then that's life isn't it. They were crazy days of lunacy and
tiny wages, but it was all good fun mostly and I wouldn't swap the experiences for anything.