Jochen Hippel


Jochen Hippel is a musician from Kirchheimbolanden in southwest Germany. He played one of the most prominent roles in computer music during the 16-bit microcomputer era, composing the music for tens of games. He was also an experienced Amiga programmer and ported many of Thalion Software's Atari ST titles. He no longer composes music for a living and in 2006 he was working in Logistics for Matheis+Koebig Baustoffe
Jochen's first computer music was a set of Christmas songs that he arranged in a rock style on his school's Commodore 64.
As a member of The Exceptions under the handle Mad Max, he wrote most of the music for their demos including the B.I.G. Demo. The demo was essentially a large collection of C64 tunes that The Exceptions ported across to the Atari ST's Yamaha YM2149 sound chip using Jochen's own driver to get the most out of it. Jochen then had to fix all the music in order to get it to sound correct on the ST, the YM2149 has no resonance filter, no ADSR enveloping and no ring modulation. Composers used a lot of special effects in their music which was difficult to replicate on the ST sound chip.
Another note of interest is that the B.I.G. demo contained an additional demo screen entitled "The Digital Department" containing 6 digital versions of C64 music. The sound routine however used each channel of the YM2149 as a 4-bit DAC and played samples for each instrument. This is the first time ADSR samples are heard on the Atari ST, unfortunately only one more piece of music is ever written using this routine, albeit the 16-minute-long Knuckle Busters tune by Rob Hubbard. This appears as a guest screen in the Cuddly Demos and was used to torment Richard Karsmakers of ST News who was promptly chained to a chair as the disk was formatted before his very eyes!
He worked as a freelance musician, doing music for many 16-bit games. He eventually joined Thalion Software as a programmer and musician. His musical track for the game Amberstar is considered among his best works, and the game and Hippel's music acquired a cult following. For in game music on the Amiga Jochen often stuck to chiptune-like sound – that became his trademark – instead of using more "realistic" instrument sounds that machine's support for digitized sound made possible. Title musics for Wings of Death and Lethal Xcess are exceptions.
He has released an album called Give it a Try and has composed music for other albums including tracks on Immortal 2 and Immortal 3 .
Hippel was also a programmer, he created all of his own music tools and also ported most of Thalion's early Atari ST titles to the Commodore Amiga. Hippel also created the Amiga 7 voice replay routine which was used in several Thalion and Eclipse titles and later used by Chris Hülsbeck in his TFMX replay routine for the title music of Turrican 2 and Turrican 3 for which he wrote the in game loading music.

Video game music

NOTE: Most of songs which are for Atari ST only are conversions while works for both machines are usually Hippel's own compositions.
GameYearSystemPublisherComment
5th Gear1988Atari ST, Commodore AmigaHewson
Amberstar1992Atari ST, Commodore AmigaThalion
Astaroth – The Angel of Death1989Atari ST, Commodore AmigaHewson
Atomino1990Atari STPsygnosis
Atomix1989Atari ST, Commodore AmigaThalion
Bad Cat1988Atari STRainbow Arts
B.C. Kid1992Commodore AmigaUbisoft
Battle Valley1989Commodore AmigaHewson
Chambers of Shaolin1989Atari ST, Commodore AmigaThalion
Circus Attractions1988Atari STRainbow Arts
Crime Time1990Atari STStarbyte
Curse of Ra1990Atari STRainbow Arts
Crush!1991Atari STBudgie UK
1989Atari STHewsonOriginal by Jeroen Tel
Dragonflight1990Atari ST, Commodore AmigaThalion
Dugger1988Atari STLinel
Enchanted Lands1990Atari ST, Commodore AmigaThalion
Ghost Battle1991Atari ST, Commodore AmigaThalion
Grand Monster Slam1989Atari STRainbow Arts
Great Courts II1990Atari STUbisoft
The Great Giana Sisters1987Atari STHewsonOriginal by Chris Hülsbeck
In 80 Days around the World1988Atari STRainbow Arts
Insects in Space1990Atari STHewson
Jinks1988Atari STRainbow Arts
The Last Ninja1988Atari STSystem 3
Leavin Teramis1989Atari ST, Commodore AmigaThalion
Lethal Xcess – Wings of Death II1991Atari ST, Commodore AmigaEclipse Software
Masterblazer1991Atari STRainbow Arts
Monster Business1991Commodore AmigaEclipse Software
MUDS – Mean Dirty Ugly Sports1990Atari STRainbow Arts
Ninja Remix1990Atari ST, Commodore AmigaSystem 3
A Prehistoric Tale1990Atari ST, Commodore AmigaThalion
Pro Tennis Tour II1990Atari STUbisoft
Rings of Medusa1989Atari STStarbyte
Rings of Medusa II – Return of Medusa1991Atari ST, Commodore AmigaStarbyte
Roll-Out1989Atari STProcovision
The Seven Gates of Jambala1989Atari ST, Commodore AmigaThalion
Spaceball1988Atari STRainbow Arts
Starball1988Atari STRainbow Arts
Stormlord1989Atari STHewson
Tangram1990Atari ST, Commodore AmigaThalion
To be on top1988Atari ST, Commodore AmigaRainbow ArtsOriginal by Chris Hülsbeck
Tom & Jerry: Hunting High And Low1989Atari STMagic Bytes
Tom & Jerry II1989Atari STMagic Bytes
Tower FRA1990Commodore AmigaThalion
Transworld1990Atari STStarbyte
Turrican1990Atari STRainbow ArtsOriginal by Chris Hülsbeck
Turrican II – The final Fight1991Atari STRainbow ArtsOriginal by Chris Hülsbeck
Turrican III – Payment Day1993Commodore AmigaRainbow ArtsCredited for "Seven Voice Technology"
Warp1989Atari ST, Commodore AmigaThalion
Wings of Death1990Atari ST, Commodore AmigaEclipse Software
Z-Out1990Atari STRainbow Arts

Data Provided by Hall of Light, Atari Legend, Atarimania and Lemon Amiga games databases.