Mark Knight

Mark Knight
Picture uploaded by TDK.
Handle(s)	TDK (The Dark Knight) / madfiddler
Homepage	http://www.flitkillsmoths.co.uk/
Comments	Since leaving Codemasters, he's now set up his own game audio development company, SONiC Fuel and has also been releasing, and performing, demoscene and chiptune music using the electric violin live.

Mark Alan Knight (born 8 January 1973), also known as TDK and Madfiddler, is a British musician, video game music composer and sound designer. He started out writing chiptune and module file music in the Amiga demoscene, and began his games industry career as a composer in 1992. He continued until 2000 when he moved to sound design, and since 2014 has had a split role as a sound designer and composer.

Biography

Born in Brighton, East Sussex in England on 8 January 1973, his grandfather started teaching him the violin when he was 6. At 10 years old he was given a Commodore 64 home computer and took an interest in electronic music. Whilst studying in college he began writing music on the Amiga, releasing music within the demoscene. Having been refused a university place to study Music Production in 1992, he was given the opportunity to arrange the Wing Commander soundtrack to the Commodore Amiga home computer which led him to full-time employment with the developer Mindscape.

Having left Mindscape in 1997, Knight wrote the soundtrack for Duke Nukem: Total Meltdown before accepting a position at Bullfrog Productions, a development company owned by Electronic Arts, working on games such as Dungeon Keeper 2, Populous: The Beginning and Theme Park World – which won a BAFTA for Best Sound.

In 2000, Mark changed career direction and lead the sound design team on the EA Sports F1 series, stating that "If truth be told however, it was a simple choice of either F1 or Harry Potter". He left EA in 2003, and after spending time at Visual Science he joined Codemasters in 2007 working on their DiRT, F1 and GRID franchises.

Knight has performed on the electric violin with 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 (2009–2011) and has worked as a session musician for bands such as Pepe Deluxé, The Divine Comedy, C64 Audio.com, and Frost*. He also administers the Fiddle and Alternative Strings Forum.

In 2012 Knight released his first TDK chiptune album, and continues to compose music in this style.

In 2015 Knight announced his return to video game composition with F1 2015. and in January 2016 was nominated for Best Western Game Composer, 2015, at the Annual Game Music Awards.

Knight resigned from Codemasters the day F1 2017 launched and is now running his Audio Production company, SONiC FUEL, full time.

He contributed demo-music and patches to the Commodore 64 SID chip emulator, inSIDious, from Impact Soundworks in 2020

Personal life

Knight lives in Warwickshire, England.

Discography

Video games

Year	Title	Notes
1992	Guy Spy and the Crystals of Armageddon
	Wing Commander	Amiga version
	Outlander	SNES version
1993	Mario's Time Machine
	Alfred Chicken	With David Whittaker
	Pierre le Chef is... Out to Lunch
	Battleship
	D/Generation
	Evasive Action
	Liberation: Captive 2
	Overkill/Lunar C
	Out to Lunch
	Sim Life
1994	DragonLore
	Sim City 2000
	Battletoads	Amiga version
1995	Cyberspeed
1996	Supersonic Racers
	Warhammer: Shadow of the Horned Rat	With James Hannigan
	MegaRace 2	Special thanks
1997	Duke Nukem: Total Meltdown
1998	Populous: The Beginning
	Theme Park World
	Warhammer: Dark Omen
1999	Dungeon Keeper 2
2000	Formula One 2000
	Formula One 2000 CE
	Superbikes 2000
2001	Formula One 2001
	Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
	Quake 3: Revolution	Audio Production
2002	Formula One 2002	Sound design
	Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets	Additional Sound Design and Dialogue Editing
	Shox	Technical Audio Lead
2003	Formula One 2003
	Harry Potter: Quidditch World Cup
	F1 Career Challenge	Audio lead
2004	Sudeki	Sound design
2007	Crysis
	The Witcher
2008	Metal Gear Solid Mobile
	So Blonde
	Race Driver: GRID	Audio lead
2009	Colin McRae: DiRT 2	Lead Audio Designer
	F1 2009
2010	F1 2010	Audio Lead
2011	F1 2011
	DiRT 3	Lead Audio Designer
	Dizzy Prince of the Yolkfolk
	FortressCraft	With Arjan Kroes
2012	DiRT Showdown	Audio Group Lead
	F1 2012
	F1 Race Stars	Group Lead Audio Designer
2013	GRID 2
	BeamNG.drive	Audio engineer
	Colin McRae Rally	Special thanks
	F1 2013	Audio Group Lead
2014	F1 2014
	GRID Autosport
	Toybox Turbos
2015	F1 2015	Audio Group Lead and Composer
	Dirt Rally	Group Lead Audio Designer
	Overlord: Fellowship of Evil	With Michiel van den Bos
	D/Generation HD
2016	F1 2016	Principal Audio Designer and Composer
	Shadow Warrior 2	Instrumentalists & Vocals
	Micro Machines
2017	F1 2017
	Flight Sim World
	Funfair.io
2019	NASCAR Heat 4
2020	NASCAR Heat 5	Uncredited use of 2019 audio
Unreleased	Carmageddon TV
	.ComBots
	Mario's Mission Earth
	Road Rash
	Velocity

Music releases

• Cyberspeed Unleashed (2011)
• FortressCraft Credits (2011)
• Reawakening (2012)
• D/Generation HD (2015)
• Project Hubbard: Escape to New Rob (2019)
• ME! (2019)
• Retrospect (2020)

Violin sessions

• 4-4-2 – Come on England
• Bjørn Lynne – The Gods Awaken
• C64Audio – Back in Time 3
• Frost* – The Dividing Line
• Frost* – Falling Satellites
• James J Turner – How Could We Be Wrong?
• Ian Livingstone – Big Fat Gypsy Weddings
• K-Passa – Born Again
• Michał Cielecki - Shadow Warrior 2
• Pepe Deluxe – Beatitude
• Press Play on Tape – Home Computer
• SilverDogs – SilverDogs
• The Divine Comedy – Casanova
• The Giallos Flame – House at the Edge of the Dark
• This Morning Call – Deserted
• Tomorrows Ancestor – Live at Stainsby
• Tricks Upon Travellers – The Last Fish Supper
• Tricks Upon Travellers – Where the Skeletons Dance
• Tricks Upon Travellers – Acoustic Live and Uncut

Music in the UnExoticA collection

Games

Game	Comments	Year	Team / Publisher
Alfred Chicken (AGA)		1993	Twilight / Mindscape
Alfred Chicken (CD³²)		1993	Twilight / Mindscape
D/Generation (AGA)		1993	Mindscape / Mindscape
Guy Spy and the Crystals of Armageddon	Ingame	1992	ReadySoft / ReadySoft
Liberation - Captive II		1993	Mindscape / Mindscape
Pierre Le Chef is Out to Lunch		1994	Mindscape / Mindscape
Overkill & Lunar-C (CD³²)	CD³² Boot Menu	1993	Digisoft Australia / Mindscape International
Wing Commander		1990	Origin Systems / Origin Systems

Demos

Demo	Comments	Year	Group / Party
No Mark Knight demo music in the archive