Michiel van den Bos

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Michiel van den Bos (born 23 May 1975), is a Dutch musician and electronic composer.[1][2] He has composed soundtracks for over 20 games including Unreal, Deus Ex, Sonic, and the Age of Wonders series.[2][3] He's also known as M.C.A. in the demoscene and tracker community.[4] As indie/alternative DJ he uses the alias Mike Boss.[5]

Early life

Michiel van den Bos was born in Rotterdam, Netherlands on 23 May 1975.[1] He attended the former Caland Lyceum in Rotterdam.[2] Ever since he was a young boy he wanted to become a composer and started with the Commodore 64 and the Amiga in the 1980s.[6][1] As a hobby he learned playing the piano and became a self-taught guitarist in bands.[6] At the age of 19 his father died and he moved homes 4 times.[6]

Career

1990s

Since the early 90s, Van den Bos wrote music under the alias MCA of the group Vicious.[4] He later transitioned from demoscene composer to writing music for video games.[4] He worked full time at a games store and a DVD/Laserdisc store while overcoming the limitations of Impulse Tracker to make soundtracks for Unreal, Unreal Tournament, and Age of Wonders based on textual map descriptions.[6] At the time, he had complete creative freedom to compose music for Epic Games' Unreal and Triumph Studios.[6] Van den Bos worked closely with Alex Brandon on the Unreal soundtrack and wrote an adaptive score.[6][7] However, for Unreal Tournament they received direction from Cliff Bleszinski and handed in songs.[7]

2000s

Van den Bos composed 4 CD tracks for the original Deus Ex of Ion Storm with the Impulse Tracker in 2000.[6] His mother passed away when he was 25 years old thus he declined making OSTs for Age of Wonders 2 and Age of Wonders: Shadow Magic.[6] At 27 he founded his own company and was hired by Triumph Studios to make music for the Overlord series.[6] Since 26 March 1999 Van den Bos has posted over 60 tracker music files on the Mod Archive.[8] The module files are mainly of Unreal, Unreal Tournament and Age of Wonders.[8]

2010s

In 2012, Van den Bos collaborated with other composers for One Big Album of which 80% of the proceeds were evenly donated to Starlight Children's Foundation and Save the Children.[9][10] Subsequently he scored music for various mobile games. Most notable are Hardlight's Sonic Jump, Sonic Dash, Sonic Jump Fever[11][12][2] Van den Bos returned to the Age of Wonders franchise with Planetfall in 2019.[13]

2020s

In 2020, Van den Bos collaborated with Alex Brandon to reimagine iconic songs of Deus Ex for the album Conspiravision: Deus Ex Remixed to celebrate the 20th anniversary.[14][15] Van den Bos made the full OST of Age of Wonders 4 which released in 2023.[16] It is composed predominantly of completely new material with a few nods to legacy songs.[16] In 2023, Van den Bos crafted the music for mobile game Sonic Dream Team.[4][17] On 15 May 2023, Van den Bos released a composed and mixed lo-fi soundtrack called Age of Wonders 4 LoFi Fantasy which includes a few AoW 1 and 3 songs.[18] Van den Bos made soundtracks for the AoW 4 expansions: Empires & Ashes (November 2023), and Eldritch Realms (June 2024).[19][20]

Musical style and influences

Van den Bos' musical style is primarily energetic electronica, natural orchestral and soundscapes.[2] His specialties are music sequencing.[2] His studio consists of multiple, custom built audio PCs with a myriad of high end sample packages.[2] He uses high end music samples such as EastWest Sounds, Vienna Instruments, Steinberg, Cinesamples. Spectrasonics and Native Instruments.[2]

Van den Bos' greatest musical influences are John Williams, Jerry Goldsmith, LTJ Bukem;[6] Commodore 64 composers Martin Galway, Rob Hubbard, Jeroen Tel, Ben Daglish;[6] metal bands Carcass, At the Gates, Insomnium;[6] and electronic artists PFM, Underworld and Artemis.[6]

Van den Bos is also an indie/alternative DJ with the alias Mike Boss.[1][5] His debut EP is Taking the Fifth (deep house) followed by Drifting Through Static (techno) in 2014.[5][21] The UNATCO remix of the album Conspiravision was on NTS Radio Node w/ Avant on 22 December 2016.[22]

Works

Composer

Video games
Title Year System Notes
Unreal (and the mission pack, Return to Na Pali) 1998 Microsoft Windows, Mac OS
Age of Wonders 1999 Microsoft Windows
Unreal Tournament 1999 Windows, Linux, Classic Mac OS, PlayStation 2, Dreamcast
Deus Ex 2000 Microsoft Windows, Mac OS, PlayStation 2
Overlord 2007 Xbox 360, Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, OS X, Linux
Overlord: Raising Hell 2008 Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, OS X, Linux
Overlord: Dark Legend 2009 Wii
Overlord II 2009 Linux, OS X, Microsoft Windows, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3
Jambo! Safari: Animal Rescue 2009 Wii, Nintendo DS
Age of Wonders III 2014 Microsoft Windows, OS X, Linux
Unreal Tournament (cancelled)[23] 2014 Microsoft Windows, Mac OS, Linux
Deus Ex: Revision 2015 Microsoft Windows
Voidrunner[24] 2017 Microsoft Windows
Age of Wonders: Planetfall[13] 2019 Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, MacOS
The Stranger VR[25] 2020 Microsoft Windows
Age of Wonders 4 2023 PlayStation 5, Windows, Xbox Series X/S
Mobile games
Title Year System Notes
Flick Golf! 2010 Mobile
Zombie Flick 2010 Mobile
Cup stack[26] 2011 Mobile
Sonic Jump[2] 2012 Mobile
Samurai Beatdown[27] 2012 Mobile
Sonic Dash[11] 2013 Mobile
Icebreaker: A Viking Voyage 2013 Mobile
Sonic Jump Fever[12] 2014 Mobile
ChuChu Rocket! Universe[3] 2019 Mobile
Sonic Dream Team[17] 2023 Mobile

Discography

Credits
Title Year Type Notes
Deus Ex: Game of the Year Edition Soundtrack[28] 2001 Appearance
A history of Unreal Music[28] 2006 Appearance
One Big Album[9] 2012 Collaboration
Epic Games 20th Anniversary Original Soundtrack[29] 2012 Appearance
Taking the Fifth[5] 2014 EP
Drifting Through Static[21] 2014 EP
Conspiravision: Deus Ex Remixed[14] 2020 Collaboration
Age of Wonders 4 | LoFi Fantasy[18] 2023 Remix
Tournament Rematch: Unreal Tournament Remixed[30] 2025 Collaboration

References

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External links

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