Hirokazu Tanaka

Hirokazu Tanaka
田中 宏和
Born (1957-12-13) December 13, 1957 (age 66)
Kyoto, Japan
Other names
  • Hip Tanaka
  • Chip Tanaka
Occupations
  • Composer
  • sound designer
  • producer
  • executive
Years active1980–present
Employers
Musical career
Genres
InstrumentKeyboards
Websitehirokazutanaka.com
Signature

Hirokazu "Hip" Tanaka (田中 宏和, Tanaka Hirokazu, born December 13, 1957),[1] also known as Chip Tanaka, is a Japanese musician, composer, sound designer, and executive who pioneered chiptune music.[2] He is best known as one of Nintendo's in-house composers during the 8- and 16-bit era of video games.[2] Tanaka also had a role in designing and programming the Famicom and Game Boy audio hardware, along with the NES Zapper, Game Boy Camera, and Game Boy Printer.[3][4]

Tanaka's soundtrack credits include Metroid (1986), Kid Icarus (1986), Super Mario Land (1989), Tetris (1989), Mother (1989), Dr. Mario (1990), and EarthBound (1994).[2] He was the president and executive director of Creatures from 2001 to 2023, before resigning and becoming creative fellow in the company.

  1. ^ Tanaka, Hirokazu. "Biography". HirokazuTanaka.com. Archived from the original on 14 September 2010. Retrieved 5 September 2014.
  2. ^ a b c Hadfield, James (14 November 2017). "The music you didn't realize you grew up with: Chip Tanaka's 8-bit revolution". The Japan Times. Tokyo. Retrieved 15 November 2017.
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference Interview was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ Cite error: The named reference GMOBio was invoked but never defined (see the help page).