Jake Kaufman

Biography

Kaufman dropped out of high school with what he describes as "a total lack of work ethic and no concept of timeliness or organization." He spent the next few years composing arrangements and remixes of video game music under the alias "virt". In 2000, Kaufman broke into the video game industry as a composer, with his first work being the Game Boy Color port of Qbert*. Over the next few years, he composed the music to several Game Boy Color and Game Boy Advance games. In 2002, Kaufman was one of the co-founders of the website VGMix, which hosted video game music remixes.

During 2002–2005, Kaufman's career as a video game music composer began to take off. By 2005, he was a full-time freelance video game composer. He continued to compose music to increasingly big-name projects, such as Contra 4 and TMNT in 2007 and Red Faction: Guerrilla in 2009; he described composing the soundtrack to a Contra game and a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game as his "lifelong dream". Kaufman contributed a track to the official arranged album of music from Ketsui: Kizuna Jigoku Tachi. He was a full-time employee of Volition while working on Red Faction, but in January 2010, he left the company to become the "lead audio guy" for WayForward, for which he had already composed several soundtracks such as those of Shantae and Contra 4. For WayForward he first composed the soundtrack to Shantae: Risky's Revenge, the sequel to the game he worked on ten years prior. Original Sound Version named Kaufman their Composer of the Year for 2011, based on his work on BloodRayne: Betrayal and Mighty Switch Force, as well as several other soundtracks and arranged albums. Kaufman lives with his puggle Nugget in northern Los Angeles.

While working at WayForward, Kaufman composed music for the Shantae series, the BloodRayne series, and nearly a dozen other games. During this time he also composed music for independent games such as Shovel Knight. On November 1, 2014, Kaufman announced that he was leaving WayForward on mutual terms to work as a freelance composer and sound designer from his own studio, in order to be able to set his own schedule and choose his own projects. The last games which he worked full-time for the company were Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Danger of the Ooze and Shantae: Half-Genie Hero, the latter being composed between 2013 and 2015 but only released in late 2016.

In February 2015, Kaufman collaborated with Jessie Seely, a video game vocalist and professional artist, to launch the Kickstarter campaign of [NUREN] The New Renaissance. [NUREN] was self-described as "the world's first virtual reality rock opera." The project was planned to be a full-length music album, accompanied by music videos that users would experience using a head-mounted display such as the Oculus Rift. The proposed music and videos were set in a post-war future society where androids cater to humanity's needs; two prototype androids named QGK and RIX were planned as the main subjects of the project. In March 2015, the project was successfully funded with $76,950 raised. The project was slated to arrive to Kickstarter backers in February 2016. In August 2016, Kaufman cited "contracting work" and a "ridiculous client workload" as obstacles to completing [NUREN], and it has yet to be released.

In March 2016, Kaufman and recording engineer Robert Altschuler founded their own music label called Mint Potion, based in Santa Clarita, California. It provides music and audio services for a variety of productions, most notably the background music and theme songs for the TV shows OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes and Mao Mao: Heroes of Pure Heart. Through Mint Potion, Kaufman briefly worked again with WayForward as a freelance composer on the games Cat Girl Without Salad: Amuse-Bouche and Vitamin Connection, as well as continued composing for the various Shovel Knight DLCs. Other composers such as Chiyoko Yamasato and Tommy Pedrini have since joined the label.

Works

Video games

Film

Television

Web

Pilots

References

References

1. Kaufman, Jake. "Big Lion Music – Stuff I've Done". Big Lion Music.
2. Kaufman, Jake. "Big Lion Music – Q*Bert (GBC)". Big Lion Music.
3. Mieszkowski, Katharine. (March 18, 2002). "Hot Salsa Tetris". [[Salon.com]].
4. Kaufman, Jake. "Big Lion Music – Game Soundtracks". Big Lion Music.
5. Kaufman, Jake. "Big Lion Music – About". Big Lion Music.
6. Carl, Larson. (October 6, 2009). "CAVE Music Interview With KETSUI Arrangers". Original Sound Version.
7. Kaufman, Jake. (November 20, 2009). "Big Lion Music – Wessiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiide". Big Lion Music.
8. Greening, Chris. (September 28, 2010). "Jake Kaufman Releases Shantae: Risky's Revenge Album". Square Enix Music Online.
9. Napolitano, Jayson. (February 23, 2012). "OSV Composer of the Year Award 2011: Jake Kaufman". Original Sound Version.
10. Greening, Chris. (November 1, 2014). "Jake Kaufman becomes freelance composer and game designer". Game Music Online.
11. "ABOUT US - mintpotion".
12. Kaufman, Jake. "Q*Bert (GBC)". Big Lion Music.
13. Kaufman, Jake. "Drymouth (GBC)". Big Lion Music.
14. Kaufman, Jake. "M&Ms Minis Madness (GBC)". Big Lion Music.
15. Kaufman, Jake. "David Beckham Soccer (GBA)". Big Lion Music.
16. Kaufman, Jake. "Atlantis – The Lost Empire (GBA)". Big Lion Music.
17. Kaufman, Jake. "X-Blade Inline Skater (GBA)". Big Lion Music.
18. Kaufman, Jake. "The Scorpion King – Sword of Osiris (GBA)". Big Lion Music.
19. Kaufman, Jake. "Karnaaj Rally (GBA)". Big Lion Music.
20. Kaufman, Jake. "Godzilla: Domination (GBA)". Big Lion Music.
21. Kaufman, Jake. "Shantae (GBC)". Big Lion Music.
22. Kaufman, Jake. "Micro Machines (GBA)". Big Lion Music.
23. Kaufman, Jake. "Soccer Table Track (GBA)". Big Lion Music.
24. Kaufman, Jake. "Rugrats: Gotta Go Party (GBA)". Big Lion Music.
25. Kaufman, Jake. (June 29, 2007). "d:\virt\work\contra\ds". Big Lion Music.
26. Kaufman, Jake. (June 21, 2009). "Happy Father's Day!". Big Lion Music.
27. Kaufman, Jake. (September 27, 2010). "Shantae: Risky's Revenge Original Soundtrack". [[Bandcamp]].
28. Kaufman, Jake. (September 15, 2010). "Batman: The Brave and the Bold: The Videogame: The Release!". Big Lion Music.
29. Kaufman, Jake. (December 22, 2011). "Mighty Switch Force OST". [[Bandcamp]].
30. (February 25, 2011). "Otomedius X's soundtrack features 28 artists, 120+ tracks – Destructoid".
31. "- YouTube".
32. "DoDonPachi Resurrection BLACK LABEL Arrange Mode Album on Steam".
33. "DO-DON-PACHI DAI-FUKKATSU BLACK LABEL Arrange Mode Album {{!}} CVAS-007 - VGMdb".
34. (March 23, 2013). "DuckTales Interview: How Do You Improve Perfection? – PAX East 2013".
35. Kaufman, Jake. (September 11, 2012). "Double Dragon Neon". [[Bandcamp]].
36. Kaufman, Jake. (June 14, 2013). "Mighty Switch Force 2 OST". [[Bandcamp]].
37. Rasa, Chris. (October 12, 2015). "Ultionus: A Tale of Petty Revenge".
38. Sarkar, Samit. (March 22, 2013). "DuckTales Remastered announced by Capcom, launching this summer on XBLA, PSN, Wii U eShop for $15". [[Polygon (website).
39. Kaufman, Jake. (April 11, 2014). "Boot Hill Heroes OST". [[Bandcamp]].
40. Kaufman, Jake. (October 24, 2014). "Shantae and the Pirate's Curse OST". [[Bandcamp]].
41. Kaufman, Jake. (June 11, 2015). "Adventures of Pip OST". [[Bandcamp]].
42. Kaufman, Jake. (March 16, 2016). "Supreme League of Patriots". [[Bandcamp]].
43. Moravetz, Justin. (October 8, 2014). "Jake Kaufman creates another musical track for Vanguard V".
44. Kaufman, Jake. (May 14, 2015). "PULSAR ARENA OST". [[Bandcamp]].
45. Kaufman, Jake. (June 5, 2016). "Cat Girl Without Salad: Amuse-Bouche – Extra Crispy or Original Soundtrack". [[Bandcamp]].
46. (September 23, 2024). "TMNT: Shredder's Revenge Radical Reptiles DLC Trailer".
47. Milligan, Mercedes. (January 23, 2026). "Trailer: Glitch Prod. Announces ‘Gameoverse’ Animated Series Project".