Mark Knight (musician)

Mark Knight (musician)

Mark Knight, also known as "TDK" (or The Dark Knight) is a well-known Amiga chiptune/demoscene musician, and video game composer/sound designer.

Born 8 January 1973, in Brighton, England, the oldest of two children, he received most of his musical education during his school years from Edward Hanka (Grandfather), Heather Cowl, and Andrew Sherwood.

It was on his 11th birthday that Mark was given a Commodore 64 computer and he quickly took a liking to the music which was being produced by the machine. Although he wrote music using the Electrosound software it wasn't until Mark bought a 2nd hand Commodore Amiga A500 in 1989, and was introduced to the Soundtracker music software that he started to compose music more seriously. Eventually he found that he enjoyed writing 'chiptunes' on the Amiga using a technique pioneered by 4-Mat.

As a member of Melon Dezign and Anthrox, his chip music sounds often appeared in Crystal and Anthrox cracktro's. As a game musician, he converted several existing game tunes to the Amiga, and also made a number of original compositions for many formats from the Nintendo Entertainment System through to the PlayStation and PC.

After leaving the Amiga demo scene in 1993, he has worked for the computer game developers - Mindscape Group, 3D Realms, Bullfrog Productions, Electronic Arts, Climax Group, Visual Science and is currently working for Codemasters. His notable music compositions are used in titles such as Dungeon Keeper 2, Populous: The Beginning, Warhammer: Dark Omen, Wing Commander amiga version, Duke Nukem 3D Total Meltdown, and he has since had sound design credits in games such as the Develop Magazine Audio Accomplishment nominated Race Driver: GRID, Develop Magazine Best art and sound nominated Sudeki, Shox, Formula One, and Theme Park World - which won a BAFTA Interactive Entertainment Awards award in 2000 for 'best sound in a video game'.

In 2011 TDK came out of retirement to release two new chiptunes under the name "Mark 'TDK' Knight. He is currently working on a Chiptune Album, and chip music for an un-announced game title.

As a semi professional electric violinist, Mark performs live under the pseudonym madfiddler. He has played, amongst others, the folk punk band Tricks Upon Travellers (1994-2000), K-Passa (2000-2001) - (2008-present), Blue Horses (2002-2003), 4-4-2 (2004), Laura Kenny (2006), Silver Dogs (2006-2007), Bleeding Hearts (2008-2010) and has worked as a session musician for bands such as Pepe Deluxé, The Divine Comedy, C64 Audio.com, and Massive Attack. He is currently playing with electric ceilidh band 'MoonDance', the DJ led improvising crew 'DiscQuartet', Bristol based 'K-Passa', and the Commodore 64 rock covers band 'SID80s'. Mark is also the demonstrator for the electric violin manufacturer 'Bridge Violins', and is also the owner/administrator of the 'Fiddle and Alternative Strings Forum'. In 2010 Mark performed with the electric violin on 'The Dividing Line' by neo-progressive rock supergroup Frost*.

Mark is currently based near Leamington Spa in England.