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...