Nobuyoshi Sano (佐野 信義,Sano Nobuyoshi; born January 19, 1969), better known assanodg, is a Japanesevideo game composer, musician and record producer. He is best known for scoring tracks for theRidge Racer andTekken series, as well asDrakengard.

In elementary school, Sano listened toYellow Magic Orchestra and playedSpace Invaders, gaining interest in both video games and music. Prior to joiningNamco, he had no inclination towards composing video game music,^[1] although he did write music with various synths as a hobby.^[2] The first synth he bought was aKorg MS-10, while he borrowed other synths from friends as he could not afford those.^[3] During his time at university, he studied telecommunication engineering.^[4]

After graduating from university in 1992, Sano found two jobs forKorg and Namco. As he felt that the atmosphere of Korg's workplace was stoic and unwelcoming, he settled with a position as a sound designer at Namco.^[3] Sano's first project wasZombie Castle, which he created the sound effects for. The following year, he composed the score ofNuman Athletics, taking inspiration fromtechno. Sano also scored "Rare Hero" forRidge Racer, a series he has composed additional music for since. During his early years at the company, he worked closely with senior composerShinji Hosoe on several game projects, along with Ayako Saso, Takayuki Aihara and junior composer Hiroto Sasaki. He contributed several tracks to albums on Hosoe's Troubadour Record label and was also a member of his groups, Oriental Magnetic Yellow (OMY) and Manikyua-Dan.^[3] OMY was a group parodying Yellow Magic Orchestra, where he was named Ryuichi Sanomoto, parodyingRyuichi Sakamoto.^[5]

Following the departure of Hosoe along with co-workers Saso and Aihara who all joinedArika, Sano composed forTekken 3 in 1996 withKeiichi Okabe. Serving as the sound director, he took abig beat approach to the music with a slower tempo than the music found in previous games,^[1] as this genre had not previously been utilized in games.^[4] Game directorKatsuhiro Harada initially did not understand the big beat direction, but Sano was able to convince him that it would work well in the series.^[6] During development, a tester criticized the music and wanted the music to sound closer toVirtua Fighter; this angered Sano, although the report was dismissed.^[7] Both Sano and Okabe later worked on the PS1 version along with other colleagues, as well as both the arcade and PS2 versions ofTekken Tag Tournament. In 2000, Sano composed two tracks forRidge Racer V, whose soundtrack was directed by Kohta Takahashi, who selected "cutting edge" artists and composers to contribute to the soundtrack, including colleagueYuu Miyake and German trance musicianMijk van Dijk.^[8] At the time it had been 5 years since he last worked on a game in the series, and he did not expect to have ever become involved again.^[9] His final in-house work at Namco was sound design for the unreleased gameStarblade: Operation Blue Planet.

In 2001, Sano left Namco citing unhappiness with its recent developments, and subsequently joinedCavia as a sound director.^[1] With Takayuki Aihara, Sano composedDrakengard, which released in 2003. Their goal was to create an experimental soundtrack that reflected the hack-and-slash gameplay and dark atmosphere, as well as the narrative theme of "madness." The music was composed through sampling various shortened pieces ofclassical music, and was then performed by a full orchestra.^[10][11] Sano and Aihara also sought to emulate the music ofNorthern Europe.^[12] The soundtrack received a mixed reception from users, many of whom harshly criticized it for being repetitive and grating.^[13] He detailed experiences of reading large volumes of negative comments surrounding the music on2ch on a daily basis, which was much more than he had initially anticipated.^[1] However, it has also been praised for its unconventional approach, especially years after the game was released. As a result of the initial reception, his role inDrakengard 2 was limited to sound direction.^[14]

In addition toDrakengard, Sano composed the soundtrack ofResident Evil: Dead Aim, using a synth-heavy score inspired byGoblin. For 2004'sGhost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, Sano took inspiration fromdrum and bass to match the game’s sense of speed.^[1] In 2006, Sano released a compilation album titledsanodg works, featuring a selection of tracks he considers to be his best. While the album was originally planned to include his work on theRidge Racer andTekken series, legal issues prevented their inclusion.^[14][15] The same year, he produced a collaborative album with the company Melody Clip, titledFM Sound Module Maniax, featuring tracks from various video game composers written withFM synthesis, such as fellow ex-Namco composers Hosoe and Okabe, and famed composersYoko Shimomura andYuzo Koshiro. Ringtone versions were also distributed on Melody Clip free of charge.^[16] Some composers chose not to exclusively utilize FM synths for their compositions, feeling that it was difficult to compose entirely with them.^[17] He also served as the music supervisor forBullet Witch; he requested then-SuperSweep composer Masashi Yano to participate due to his expertise with Hollywood-inspired orchestral scores. Yano and Sano were originally going to collaborate on the score, with Yano composing orchestral parts and Sano handling breakbeat and bass. After Sano combined their parts together, it resulted in a hybrid of orchestral and techno; he was dissatisfied with the results and left Yano to compose the entire score alone.^[18]

Sano designed and producedKORG DS-10 for Nintendo DS.^[19] He formed a trio of the same name consisting of himself,Yasunori Mitsuda andMichio Okamiya in order to promote the program.^[20] The three had spoken about their interest in creating a synthesizer for the DS;Korg approved of this idea.^[13] He intended it to be used for any genre the user desired to create music in, rather than a particular genre like chiptune or techno.^[21] He also chose to model the synth on the Korg MS-10 as he bought this synth during his teenage years, and also felt that the DS vaguely resembled the synth.^[22][23]

Following Cavia's disbandment, Sano established Detune, a music software production company in May 6, 2010.^[24] Detune developed a follow-up toKORG DS-10 titledKORG M01, intended as a DS version of theKorg M1 synth.^[25] In 2012, Detune released iYM2151, a music program for the iPad based on theYamaha YM2151 sound chip.^[26] In the same year, Sano composed "Algorithm" for the gameOrgarythm using iYM2151.^[27] The following year, aNintendo 3DSeShop version ofKORG M01 was released worldwide, titledKORG M01D.^[25] In 2014, he released a compilation album titledsanodg's arcade game music works, which features the soundtracks of four arcade games he worked on during his time at Namco.^[28] During 2016 to 2017 he created a series ofEDM-styled albums with Hiroyoshi Kato, the first of which was titledEDM IS GAME.^[29]

He will score the upcoming mobile FMV gameClive is a Good Guy, developed by British game studio Indolent Games. Upon seeing images of the game he described it as having a "very artistic feeling" compared to Japanese mobile games, and is particularly pleased to work on the game.^[30]

• 1969 births
• Japanese composers
• Japanese male composers
• Japanese record producers
• Japanese techno musicians
• Living people
• Musicians from Shizuoka Prefecture
• Japanese video game composers
• Namco

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