Jamie Hughes is a sound designer at Rare Ltd. Born in England, he started to learn music from an early age by taking piano and trumpet lessons. As a teenager, he was given a Mega Drive and was exposed to gaming for the first time. He often found himself listening to the soundtrack rather than playing the game and used to learn to play the melodies on the keyboard. From there, he started to write his own tunes and dreamt of becoming a video game musician. He focused on music throughout school, performing in many bands and ensembles, and later did a degree in music and music technology.

Joining Rare in 2002, Hughes was exclusively a Game Boy Advance musician during his first years at the company. On his large first project Banjo-Kazooie: Grunty’s Revenge, he was responsible for almost all the composition and sound effects. Using Cubase and Soundforge, he ensured the score was technologically commanded while maintaining a similar flavour to its Nintendo 64 predecessors. On the console’s adaptation of Donkey Kong Country and Donkey Kong Country 2, Hughes enjoyed the challenge of adapting David Wise’s classic compositions. His compositions for 2005‘s Banjo Pilot were praised for how well they fitted each stage.

Following the discontinuation of the Game Boy Advance, Hughes has had several non-composition roles at Rare. He was responsible for sound effects design on the technologically accomplished projects Perfect Dark Zero and Viva Piñata. He also performed music on Conker: Live & Reloaded, Kameo: Elements of Power, and Star Fox Adventures. He is anticipated to have sound effects roles on several upcoming games, though fans of his Banjo work also hope he will have some further composition roles in the future.