Charles Deenen

Co-founder of maniacs-of-noise with jeroen-tel, whom he met at computer meetings in Venlo (source: s-hugi38-interview-jeroen-tel). The facts below are all second-hand, from Tel's and rob-hubbard's interviews and Deenen's own short testimonial in Hugi.

Facts#

• He was the programmer of the pair: Tel could not yet write 6502 machine code when they met, and "me and Charles designed our first MoN routine" (sid-player-routine); at first Deenen "did the programming and sound effects, and I composed the music", later he composed as well (source: s-sidmusic-jeroen-tel-interviews; what that job actually involved is on sound-effects).
• Left the partnership when "he was asked to work in-house at Interplay"; in 1997 he was Audio Director at Interplay and also edited sound effects for films in a team of effects editors; he and Tel still e-mailed regularly (source: s-sidmusic-jeroen-tel-interviews).
• Hubbard named him, with Galway, Whittaker, Tel and Barry Leitch, among the C64-era people he was still in contact with in 1997 (source: s-sidmusic-hubbard-interviews).
• His description of Tel's method is the best account of composing straight into assembler: "He'd literally write out a music piece in assembly with melodies, chords, bass, without sometimes even hitting play once, and it would sound great" (source: s-hugi38-interview-jeroen-tel).

In his own words (1998, 2010) and the record#

• Born 1970-01-15 in Holthees; BASIC on a Commodore PET from 1982/83 ("a single-beep CBM-PET, and oh my, that didn't go so well"); quit school at 16 to do audio full time; "Around 1985 he wrote a C64 sound-driver" (VGMPF) — in 2010: "Soon after acquiring a C64, I started to make music/graphic demos, through which I met Jeroen Tel. We wanted to make our own music, and wrote a music-driver for the Commodore 64" (sources: s-vgmpf-maniacs-of-noise, s-charles-deenen-interviews).
• The driver is his: "Jeroen Tel used the Maniacs Of Noise driver that I wrote for several years. He only started to write his own after I left to the states. The editor for both of us was easy: Turbo Assembler" — the musicfile driver whose Cybernoid II source is headed "MUSICFILE V01-07-1988 / Programmed by Charles Deenen / The most advanced music player ever written for the commodore 64!"; he also wrote the SFX driver (sources: s-charles-deenen-interviews, s-realdmx-sid-players, s-vgmpf-maniacs-of-noise). Resolved 2026-08-30: every first-hand account agrees the driver was Deenen's — his own "the driver that I wrote" (1998/2010), C=Lehti 1989 (Deenen codes it, crediting Tel's ideas), Tel 2015 ("Charles … wrote a simple music routine and together we expanded it") and the joint "we … wrote a music driver" (2010). Tel had said the same in 1994 — "At a computer-meeting I met Charles Deenen (at that time called TMC/Scoop Designs) who was able to program a music-driver to suit my needs. Together we founded Maniacs of Noise. I composed the music; he created the sound effects that was the concept" (source: s-domination01-jeroen-tel-interview) — and in 1996 dated the founding to the year he joined scoop-designs, where Deenen was TMC: 1986, Tel at fourteen (source: s-imr-jeroen-tel-interview). VGMPF's person-page line that he "used Jeroen Tel's sound driver" stands alone against these and is kept only as an attributed outlier (sources: s-c-lehti-maniacs-of-noise, s-gamesart-jeroen-tel-interview, s-c64com-charles-deenen-interview, s-vgmpf-maniacs-of-noise).
• Composer by necessity: "Initially, I mainly provided the sound-effects … but soon had to delve into doing music. Well, I knew nothing about music. I knew that a C major sounded OK after a D minor, that's about it, LOL. However, funny enough the first music pieced I did wasn't bad"; in 1998: "I'll never say that my music is good, because it simply isn't" (source: s-charles-deenen-interviews).
• Numbers: about 2 days per SID, longest tune 7 minutes, £100–1000 per game; drivers written for C64, Amiga, Atari ST, NES (used only in M.C. Kids) and SNES, later PlayStation/PC driver design at Interplay; C64 credits include Hawkeye (music, "Mix-E-Load" and SFX), Battle Valley and Stormlord with Tel, Back to the Future Part III (1991) (sources: s-charles-deenen-interviews, s-vgmpf-maniacs-of-noise).
• After the C64: a freelance Dragon Wars piece for Interplay at 20 → moved to Irvine in mid-1991 as audio director (Virgin, then ten years at Interplay: Star Trek, Baldur's Gate, Descent); Shiny 2002; EA Black Box in Vancouver from 2003 (Need for Speed); film trailers since 2001. Favourite C64 musicians "Rob + Martin"; advice: study jazz, and dance music for feel; what he values in sound designers: will-power, real-world listening, "musical understanding, musical sensability, and rhythmic sense" (sources: s-charles-deenen-interviews, s-vgmpf-maniacs-of-noise).
• On the other side of the desk (1989): to a young composer abroad he was the gatekeeper of the English market. JCH sent him a disk of C64 tunes and was turned down — the reason, as JCH remembers it, was "the English market not wanting the 'hit, snare' kind of music and that I should listen to what tim-follin had done" — then won him over with the Push-It intro tune on a second sending; what came of it was one maniacs-of-noise overflow job, Chase HQ II / Special Criminal Investigation, Link composing while JCH multiplexed two voices of sound effects against two of music (source: s-chordian-my-computer-chronicles). JCH's handwritten drafts of both replies survive in his 2017 scans (source: s-chordian-player-editor-notes).
• Forum shorthand for the division of labour: "Deenen did all the maths, Jeroen played the notes" (source: s-cybernoid-behind-the-notes).

As TMC in the scene#

• Scene handle TMC (also "TMC/Scoop"); "one of the founders of the demo scene, who made some of the first real demos … TMC has maybe the fastest brain of all... in 1987, from having never done any music at all, he makes his first little player, and release a demo called 'Give a Try!', it's a demo with protected music" — a ripping challenge; shortly after "he codes the first MON (Maniacs of Noise) player. It's a clone of Rob Hubbard's players" (source: s-recollection-brief-history-of-sid).
• SIDId credits him with the MoN/Deenen family and the player under future-composer (source: s-sidid-player-list).

More of his code (2026-08-30)#

• Two test tunes of his own are in the realdmx collection: an undated MUSICFILE build (probably earlier than the Cybernoid II file — a voice mask, a per-song note-cut table, the full 95-note table, a ";]aha! a samplerouty]" banner with no sample code, and a commented-out Turbo Assembler harness that flashes the border around the play call), and a second player — "Maniacs of Noise music player / (C) Scoop designs ltd. / m.o.n." — with a statement language in the source (dur+n, snd+n, trs+n, pause, glide), 1-based notes, a per-instrument gate length and a sine vibrato (source: s-realdmx-deenen-test-tunes).
• Armada (1989) is "Player by Charles Deenen" for Reyn Ouwehand — "Scoop Designs L.T.D. in 1989 / Special version for :Reyn Ouwehand"; whether he also wrote the 1990 Dutch Breeze player is not stated (source: s-realdmx-ouwehand-mon-tunes). The two (unverified) readings of his driver are now settled from the code on musicfile.

His own Q&A (c64.com, 2010) and the 1989 profile#

• The c64.com questionnaire is his fullest first-hand credit list, and it is mostly sound effects: on the famous Tel titles (Battle Valley, cybernoid, cybernoid-ii, Eliminator, Myth, Rubicon, Savage, Turbo Outrun …) he lists "Sound effects" only, with music of his own on later titles (After the War, Astro Marine Corps, B.A.T., Satan, Zamzara, F1 Simulator, Lord of the Rings, Mantalos, Mr. Heli, Back to the Future 3) and conversions (Double Dragon, Soldier of Light). F1 Simulator: the client "wanted me to rip off a certain song, and I did, but it caused quite a bit of concern" (source: s-c64com-charles-deenen-interview).
• New numbers there: $200–1000 per game for two to six days of work; "Some companies only gave us six to eight kilobyte of memory for music and sound effects"; the schoolboy day — homework at 6 AM, school to 4 PM, "5-11 PM: Worked on the music and sound effects. 1-3 AM: Was on party lines in the US. After I left school in 1988, I pretty much worked 18 hours a day." He introduces himself as "co-founder of Maniacs of Noise and Scoop" (scoop-designs); influence then Jean Michel Jarre; the end: "The C64 was dying and no contracts were coming in. The Amiga was taking over." (source: s-c64com-charles-deenen-interview)
• C=Lehti's 1989 profile (he is 19): the inspiration for the music routine came from "his good friend Johannes Bjerregaard"; the stated design goal — speed as the starting point, "as fast as possible without compromising quality at all"; planning a London office and a record with Virgin; and a credit to Tel — without Jeroen's ideas "the routine would have sounded much flatter" (source: s-c-lehti-maniacs-of-noise).

Related#

jeroen-tel · maniacs-of-noise · rob-hubbard · sid-player-routine · musicfile · chordian · tim-follin

Sources#

s-sidmusic-jeroen-tel-interviews · s-hugi38-interview-jeroen-tel · s-sidmusic-hubbard-interviews · s-charles-deenen-interviews · s-vgmpf-maniacs-of-noise · s-realdmx-sid-players · s-cybernoid-behind-the-notes · s-recollection-brief-history-of-sid · s-sidid-player-list · s-realdmx-deenen-test-tunes · s-realdmx-ouwehand-mon-tunes · s-c64com-charles-deenen-interview · s-c-lehti-maniacs-of-noise · s-gamesart-jeroen-tel-interview · s-chordian-my-computer-chronicles · s-chordian-player-editor-notes · s-domination01-jeroen-tel-interview · s-imr-jeroen-tel-interview