Bio

 

Duane Decker is an in-house Composer - Sound Designer at IGT in Reno, NV. Throughout his career, he has composed and produced over 676 published music tracks totaling more than 13.5 hours of original music. His music and sound design has contributed to worldwide console, PC and pinball game sales totaling over 7 million units. His production music cues have been heard in over 141 domestic and international network and cable television episodes and specials. This web site receives hits from 94 countries annually.

 

Duane was born in the steel belt of upstate New York and caught the music bug at a very young age. He started playing drums when he turned 8 years old and by the time he was 13, his rock bands were playing professionally at parties and dances. His family moved to San Diego, CA just before high school and he continued to play professionally throughout his high school and college years. While still in college, Duane designed and co-built his first synthesizer and began playing keyboards. While still playing in bands, he also put together his first solo act, playing piano, synthesizer, flute and drums with a fully interactive light show.

 

After college, Duane moved to Hollywood and spent the next 13 years touring the U.S. and Canada with all original rock bands and a high tech solo act, eventually calling Chicago his home town. His bands and solo act opened shows for acts like Humble Pie, Fleetwood Mac, KISS, The Romantics, Van Morrison, and many more. He also received critical acclaim for his work on vinyl records "Chicago Rocks Volume 1" and "Duane Decker -- Hard Disk Drive" during that time.

 

Because of his knowledge and passion for music technology, Duane went on to become a Product Specialist for Kurzweil Music Systems (working with Dr. Robert Moog) and E-mu Systems. He was involved with the creation of some of the most influential new music products of the day and also toured extensively throughout the U.S., Canada and Europe performing at clinics and trade shows.

 

Duane then recognized that games held tremendous potential as a viable entertainment medium. He joined Premier Technology and scored the soundtracks for over 13 Gottlieb pinball games. He then joined FASA Interactive and took over all of the music and sound design chores for the extremely popular BattleTech series of products including MechWarrior and MechCommander as well as working on location based entertainment projects for Virtual World Entertainment and Walt Disney Imagineering.

 

In the late '90s, Microsoft acquired FASA Interactive and Duane found himself in Redmond, WA as an Audio Lead for Microsoft Game Studios. While there, he continued to create music and audio for some of the world's most popular games including Rise Of Nations, MechAssault, MechWarrior 4 and MechCommander 2. His music score from MechWarrior 4 was released on Varese Sarabande Records, which was the first game soundtrack Microsoft ever released. In June 2003 the soundtrack from Rise Of Nations was released through legendary producer and artist Nile Rodgers' Sumthing Else Musicworks record label. It was the first game soundtrack to ever be released in the 5.1 surround sound format on DVD.

 

Duane then formed his own independent music and audio production company, DDMusic LLC, in 2003. Projects have included the expansion pack for Rise Of Nations - "Rise Of Nations: Thrones And Patriots"; production music tracks for Warner/Chappell Music Limited - London, Pump Audio/Getty Images - New York, Music Supervisors - Los Angeles, Soundrangers - Seattle, Music Dealers - Chicago; TV advertising projects; the 95 minute, fully orchestrated music score for "Rise Of Legends"; music, sound design and voiceovers for two new game platform prototypes; 108 in-game music cues and Opening Movie score for "Sid Meier's Civilization Revolution"; several small projects for upcoming developers and music, sound design, VO processing and audio implementation for "Defense Grid: The Awakening". His production music cues continue to receive airplay through network and cable television broadcasters worldwide.

 

In late 2010, Duane became an in-house Composer - Sound Designer for Ignite Studios at the largest maker of slot machines and casino games in the world - IGT (International Game Technology) in Reno, Nevada. IGT is the industry leader with extremely talented, visionary, motivated people who create amazing games that entertain players world-wide. The projects are constant, fun, challenging, and it's not often that you don't see him smiling.

 

More to come...