Mark Knight, 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 culminating by going self employed in 2017.
Biography Born in 1973, in Brighton, East Sussex in England, 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 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 and in 2015 Knight announced his return to video-game composition with F1 2015. He was nominated for Best Western Game Composer (2015) at the Annual Game Music Awards.
Knight resigned from Codemasters in September 2017 and is now running his Audio Production company, SONiC FUEL.
He contributed demo music and patches to the Commodore 64 SID-chip emulator, inSIDious, from Impact Soundworks in 2020 and in 2021 he returned to the demoscene by contributing the music for the Melon Design demo, Cortez.
Personal life Knight lives in Warwickshire, England.
Discography Video games YearTitleNotes1992Guy Spy and the Crystals of ArmageddonWing Commander Amiga versionOutlanderSNES version1993Mario's Time MachineAlfred ChickenWith David WhittakerPierre le Chef is... Out to LunchBattleshipD/GenerationEvasive ActionLiberation: Captive 2Overkill/Lunar COut to LunchSim Life1994DragonLoreSim City 2000BattletoadsAmiga version1995Cyberspeed1996Supersonic RacersWarhammer: Shadow of the Horned RatWith James HanniganMegaRace 2Special thanks1997Duke Nukem: Total Meltdown1998Populous: The BeginningTheme Park WorldWarhammer: Dark Omen1999Dungeon Keeper 22000Formula One 2000Formula One 2000 CESuperbikes 20002001Formula One 2001Harry Potter and the Philosopher's StoneQuake 3: RevolutionAudio Production2002Formula One 2002Sound designHarry Potter and the Chamber of SecretsAdditional Sound Design and Dialogue EditingShoxTechnical Audio Lead2003Formula One 2003Harry Potter: Quidditch World CupF1 Career ChallengeAudio lead2004SudekiSound design2007CrysisThe Witcher2008Metal Gear Solid MobileSo BlondeRace Driver: GRIDAudio lead2009Colin McRae: DiRT 2Lead Audio DesignerF1 20092010F1 2010Lead Audio Sound Designer2011F1 2011Lead Audio Sound DesignerDiRT 3Lead Audio DesignerDizzy Prince of the YolkfolkFortressCraftWith Arjan Kroes2012DiRT ShowdownAudio Group LeadF1 2012F1 Race StarsGroup Lead Audio Designer2013GRID 2Colin McRae RallySpecial thanksF1 2013Audio Group Lead2014F1 2014GRID AutosportGroup Lead Audio DesignerToybox TurbosAdditional Composer2015F1 2015Audio Group Lead and ComposerDirt RallyGroup Lead Audio DesignerOverlord: Fellowship of EvilWith Michiel van den BosD/Generation HD Composer2016F1 2016Principal Audio Designer and ComposerShadow Warrior 2Instrumentalists & VocalsMicro MachinesAdditional Composer2017F1 2017ComposerFlight Sim WorldComposerFunfair.ioComposer/Sound Designer2018–presentBeamNG.driveAudio Designer2019NASCAR Heat 4Audio Designer2020NASCAR Heat 5Uncredited use of 2019 audio2021Turbo TomatoComposer2022World of OutlawsAudio Designer2025Assetto Corsa RallyAudio DirectorUnreleasedCarmageddon TV.ComBotsMario's Mission EarthRoad RashVelocity
Music releases Cyberspeed Unleashed (2011) FortressCraft Credits (2011) Reawakening (2012) D/Generation HD (2015) The General (2019) 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
References
External links
TDK website SONiC FUEL website madfiddler website Gamesounds website AMP profile website