Alberto Jose González
| Alberto Jose González | |
|---|---|
| Also known as | Joe McAlby |
| Born | July 29, 1972 |
| Origin | Barcelona, Spain |
| Genres | Video game music, chiptune |
| Occupation(s) | Composer, Programmer, Game designer |
| Years active | 1988–present |
Alberto José González Pedraza (born July 29, 1972) is a Spanish video game graphic artist, music composer, designer, producer, and co-founder of Bit Managers and Abylight, who has worked on a variety of titles, most notably games released by French video game publisher Infogrames. He has composed music for or worked on over 60 games, ranging from music composition to graphic programming, and eventually became one of the lead designers at the Spanish developer AbyLight. Despite having composed dozens of full soundtracks for video games, González has never had any formal music training.
He cites Tim Follin, Ben Daglish, Chris Hülsbeck, Jonathan Dunn, and David Whittaker as his main musical influences.
González first began his interest in programming video games at the age of eleven, when he received his Casio PB-700, and began to write small programs and games in BASIC. His first program was a pixel graphic program.
As a teenager, González was introduced to a music software application on the ZX Spectrum titled Wham! The Music Box, which was lent to him by a friend. Despite having no formal musical training, González had a good ear for melody, and began to compose video game music. His interest in programming also led him to begin program his own sound drivers with the Z80 assembler. Through this work, González had his music featured in MSX ports of a few Spectrum titles released exclusively in the Spanish market by MCM Software, including Altered Beast, Snoopy, Power Drift and Ghostbusters 2.
González began his official career in the video game industry at the age of sixteen in 1988, as a graphic designer at the small Spanish developer New Frontier, after knocking on their office door and showing his ZX Spectrum designs. The company officials liked what they saw, and hired the young designer the very next day. González's first published game was Hostages, released in 1990, in which he did the sprites design and the soundtrack.
González would continue his work as sprite designer and musician for New Frontier's future titles with games such as North & South, which garnered great reviews. He was credited as "McAlby" during his time at New Frontier.
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