David Wise (composer)

David Wise (composer)

David Wise (often also credited as Dave Wise or D. Wise) is a British video game music composer. He was one of the in-house composers at Rare, and his music appears in many Rare-developed titles. He started his career there in 1985 and was the company's sole musician up until 1994. He is known for his atmospheric style of music, mixing natural environmental sounds with prominent melodic and percussive accompaniment.

His most famous work is that of the soundtracks for the Donkey Kong Country series of games, which are widely considered to be some of the best soundtracks to ever appear on the SNES. In addition to the percussive and ambient 'jungle' influences that serve as a thematic undercurrent for much of the series, the games feature a wide variety of different musical styles that are reflective of the various areas and environments they appear in. In the January 1996 issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly, Wise stated that his traveling experiences largely shaped the sound and mood of each Donkey Kong soundtrack, further saying that the music for Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest was composed during what he called his "experimental Paris phase". He has also done the soundtrack for the Game Boy Advance port of Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong's Double Trouble!.

Wise has said that he has had a wide range of musical influences, though the first instrument he learned to play was the piano, before later learning the trumpet, and then learning to play drums during adolescence. He played in a few bands during his youth, and was still active in a band as of 2004. His career working for Rare began when he happened to meet its two founders, as he explained in response to a question posted on its company website: "I was working in a music shop demonstrating a Yamaha CX5 Music Computer to a couple of people, Tim & Chris Stamper. I'd written and programmed the music for the demonstration material. They offered me a job."

In late October 2009, it was announced by the OverClocked ReMix community that Wise was remixing a track for Serious Monkey Business, an unofficial Donkey Kong Country 2 remix album. Grant Kirkhope and Robin Beanland also collaborated on this track, playing guitar and trumpet, respectively. On March 15, 2010, Serious Monkey Business was released and Dave Wise's track, 'Re-Skewed', is track #33 on the album.

Much like he contributed to Serious Monkey Business, Wise will be remixing his own composition, the GBA version of "Jungle Jitter", for an unofficial Donkey Kong Country 3 remix album titled Double the Trouble. The album is tackling both the SNES and GBA soundtracks of the game, the latter which Wise himself composed specifically for the GBA port.

On October 30, 2009, Wise announced his resignation from Rare. He will continue working as a freelance composer/sound designer.

As of December 2010, Wise has a new personal studio called 'David Wise Sound Studio' which was mentioned by him in a recent interview.