Wave Master

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Wave Master
Founded: 2000-08-01
Defunct: 2004-07-01 (only record label from then on)
Headquarters: Tokyo, Japan

Wave Master (ウェーブマスター) is the successor to Sega Digital Studio. They have also branched out into other endeavors, including game development and music for television. They employed nearly about 25 of Sega's sound designers and recording engineers from the Sega Sound Team at their Tokyo office.

Many of the most popular Sega soundtracks have come from Wave Master, like several titles of the Sonic the Hedgehog series. Wave Master's music has received critical acclaim, and has been recognized by the International Game Developers Association and the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences for excellence in the field.

At the heart of Wave Master's operations is their state-of-the-art recording studio. It is composed of three rooms: a control room with a high-end 56-channel mixing console, a 4.6 x 5 meter "live" room with acoustic reflectors, and a 4 x 6.2 meter "dead" room with sound dampening properties. Some of Wave Master's most powerful works feature technology that dynamically changes the music based on game situations. When flying your airship in Skies of Arcadia, the main musical theme subtly changed based on your location in the world. Jet Grind Radio's pumping hip-hop tracks blended together in a way that mirrored a DJ mixing records on turntables. The main theme of Space Channel 5 progressively decomposed the worse you did in the game.

There's more to Wave Master than just game music. When it was called Sega Digital Studio, Wave Master entered the world of game development with a quirky life simulation title called Roommania #203. They also handled the Japanese versions of Visual Concepts' Sega Sports 2K series. Other Wave Master projects include Radio DC (an Internet radio program featuring Sega game music), the Sonic Cafe, among others suites of mobile phone applications, and jingles for TV shows and commercials in Japan.

Since July of 2004, following a Sega wide studio restructure, Wave Master is only a record label, the various musicians and sound members are located within their respected game development teams, being credited as either the "Sega Sound Team" or "Sound Section".

Wave Master is known to have contributed to one non-Sega game, Enix's Super Galdelic Hour for the PlayStation 2.

Members

• Fumie Kumatani
• Fumitaka Shibata
• Hideaki Kobayashi
• Hideki Abe
• Hideki Naganuma
• Hirofumi Murasaki
• Junko Shiratsu
• Jun Senoue
• Keiichi Sugiyama
• Kenichi Tokoi
• Mariko Nanba
• Masaru Setsumaru
• Naofumi Hataya
• Shigeharu Isoda
• Tatsuyuki Maeda
• Tatsuya Kouzaki
• Teruhiko Nakagawa
• Tomoko Sasaki
• Tomonori Sawada
• Tomoya Ohtani
• Yoshitada Miya
• Yukifumi Makino (Head of Team)
• Yutaka Minobe

Softography (Music and sound design)

Dreamcast

• Daytona USA 2001 (2000)
• Guru Guru Onsen 2 (2001)
• Guru Guru Onsen 3 (2002)
• Hundred Swords (2001)
• De La Jet Set Radio (2000)
• Magic: The Gathering (2001)
• Napple Tale: Arsia in Daydream (2000)
• Phantasy Star Online Ver.2 (2001)
• Phantasy Star Online (2000)
• Pro Yakyuu Team o Tsukurou! & Asobou! (2001)
• Rez (2001)
• Sakura Taisen 2 (2001)
• Sakura Taisen 3 (2001)
• Sakura Taisen 4 (2002)
• Samba de Amigo Ver.2000 (2000)
• Skies of Arcadia (2000)
• Sonic Adventure 2 (2001)
• Space Channel 5: Part 2 (2002)

Game Boy Advance

• Baseball Advance (2002)
• J.League Pro Soccer Club o Tsukurou! Advance (2001)
• Puyo Pop (2001)
• Sonic Advance 2 (2002)
• Sonic Advance 3 (2004)
• Sonic Advance (2001)
• Sonic Battle (2003)

PlayStation 2

• Astro Boy (2004)
• Initial D: Special Stage (2001)
• New Roommania: Porori Seishun (2003)
• Nightshade (2003)
• Pro Yakyuu Team o Tsukurou! 2003 (2003)
• Pro Yakyuu Team o Tsukurou! 2 (2003)
• Puyo Pop Fever (2004)
• Rez (2001)
• Roommania #203 (2002)
• Shinobi (2002)
• Soccer Tsuku 2002: J.League Pro Soccer Club o Tsukurou! (2002)
• Sonic Heroes (2003)
• Space Channel 5: Part 2 (2002)
• Switch (2002)

Xbox

• Gunvalkyrie (2002)
• Jet Set Radio Future (2002)
• Panzer Dragoon Orta (2002)
• Phantasy Star Online Episode 1 & 2 Plus (2003)
• Phantasy Star Online Episode 1 & 2 (2002)
• Puyo Pop Fever (2004)
• Sonic Heroes (2003)

GameCube

• Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg (2003)
• Phantasy Star Online Episode 1 & 2 Plus (2003)
• Phantasy Star Online Episode 1 & 2 (2002)
• Phantasy Star Online Episode III: C.A.R.D. Revolution (2003)
• Puyo Pop Fever (2004)
• Sonic Adventure 2: Battle (2002)
• Sonic Adventure DX: Director's Cut (2002)
• Sonic Heroes (2003)
• Sonic Mega Collection (2002)

NAOMI

• Dragon Treasure (2003)
• Samba de Amigo Ver.2000 (2000)

NAOMI 2

• Initial D: Arcade Stage (2001)
• Initial D: Arcade Stage Ver. 2 (2002)
• Initial D: Version 3 (2003)

Softography

PlayStation 2

• Switch (2002)
• New Roommania: Porori Seishun (2003)

Non-Sega games with sound design by Wave Master

These games do not have pages on Sega Retro.

Game Boy Advance

• Rika-chan No Oshare Nikki (2004)

PlayStation 2

• Super Galdelic Hour (2001; Enix; PlayStation 2)
• Ghost Vibration (2002; Artoon/Eidos/Infogrames; PlayStation 2)
• Onimusha Blade Warriors (2003; Capcom; PlayStation 2)

Xbox

• Blinx: The Time Sweeper (2002; Artoon/Microsoft; Xbox)
• Blinx 2: Masters of Time and Space (2004; Artoon/Microsoft; Xbox)

Magazine articles

Main article: Wave Master/Magazine articles.

External links

• [1]
• Wave-Master.com (Record label)