Naoki Maeda

Naoki Maeda or 前田 尚紀 (born April 28, 1961 in Toyonaka, Osaka) is a musician for the Bemani series of music games. He is best known for his numerous contributions to the Dance Dance Revolution series of games. He has worked with many artists outside of Bemani including SMiLE.dk and SHANADOO, and recently composed the opening theme for the Japanese anime "07-GHOST".
==Video Game Career==
Naoki has composed music for some of Konami's video games namely, Twinbee and Life Force (known as Salamander in the Arcade and Japanese Famicom version). He has recently composed songs for the DLC music packs of Otomedius Gorgeous, an Xbox 360 port of the arcade horizontal shooter game. His latest venture is Dance Masters/Dance Evolution (which he claims is not part of Bemani, despite the inclusion of songs typically found in Bemani games), a Kinect game that is played by following the dannce moves as performed by an on-screen dancer.
==Bemani Career==
Naoki is the current Senior Sound Producer for Konami's Music Game division known as Bemani (a play on the word Beatmania, the first Music Game released by Konami). Naoki contributes songs to most of the Bemani games.
He has also held the position of Sound Producer in Bemani's Dance Simulation game known as Dance Dance Revolution, where he contributed most of the new songs for the arcade versions until 7th Mix.
Naoki was the mind behind the Bemani J-Pop group BeForU, who first premiered in DanceDanceRevolution 5thMIX, and composed many of the songs they later became popular for. Naoki no longer composes songs for the latest incarnation of the group, but was part of the committee that selected the new members.
Naoki is a member of the Bemani group TERRA with jun, who have worked with artists such as Daisuke Asakura and Uchusentai NOIZ. Naoki himself has also collaborated with fellow Bemani musicians like DJ Taka and Tatsh.
==Pseudonyms/Alter-Egos==
Naoki credits most of his songs with a pseudonym. The way he thinks of pseudonyms vary based on the song, the instrumentations used, its genre or anything that happens to pop up in his head when it's time to credit them.
===Common===
*NAOKI / NAOKI MAEDA - this is his main pseudonym. Most often used for standard dance songs.
*Reven-G / RE-VENGE / Reven-G改 / Reven-G alterative - mostly used for ethnic songs.
*DE-SIRE - used for Trip Machine song series and Healing Vision.
*"BPM of Song" - used to credit songs from the PARANOiA series of songs.
*NM - formerly used for Ballad songs. It is now also used for dance songs.
*NAOKI underground - used for songs that are predominantly techno as well as for the Evolved series of songs. TAG and nc, who composed future Evolved songs "borrowed" this moniker to credit their versions.
===Collaboration===
*BeForU - A girl band founded and produced by Maeda.
*TЁЯRA - This is Maeda's occasional collaboration with jun
===Rare/One-Time===
*Black∞Hole and WHITE WALL - These aliases were used for two of the Pluto trilogy: Pluto and Pluto The First.
==Albums==
At the end of the Internet Ranking competition of Dance Dance Revolution 4th Mix, winners were given a CD titled "Naoki's Premium Tracks." A cd containing unreleased (some STILL unreleased) songs at the time, it's existence was branded as fake until Eddie Lehecka of popular Bemani-themed website Bemanistyle.com obtained it. The tracklisting are as follows.
1. Still In My Heart
2. B4U Glorious Style
3. Let The Beat Him Em! Classic R&B Mix
4. Silent Hill - Tell Me You Love Me For Christmas (Long version of Thomas Howard's song)
5. Paranoia Eternal
6. Dive -Instrumental Version-
Lately there have been talks of Naoki releasing his own albums, but so far Naoki has not announced anything.
==Game Credits==
===Producer===
*DanceDanceRevolution X - PlayStation 2/Arcade
===Music Producer===
*DanceDanceRevolution 2010/Hottest Party 4 - Wii/Xbox 360/PlayStation 3
===Sound Producer===
*DanceDanceRevolution Hottest Party 2 - Wii
*DanceDanceRevolution Hottest Party 3 - Wii
*DanceDanceRevolution 2010/Hottest Party 4 - Wii/Xbox 360/PlayStation 3
*DanceDanceRevolution X - PlayStation 2/Arcade
==Current State==
He hasn't contributed any new songs for the arcade version of DDR X2, despite composing a lot of the songs for the home version/teaser PS2 game and promoting the game (as well as DDR Hottest Party 3, which shares the PS2 version's songlist). He has continued composing songs for the 2010 DDR games for the PS3, Wii and Xbox 360 (which all share the same songlist as well), in which he is also the producer.
He has also not made a new boss song for the Arcade versions since Dance Dance Revolution Supernova 2 (Pluto) nor the home consoles since Hottest Party 2 (Osaka Evolved).
==Departure==
==External Links==
*Artist profile on RemyWiki
*Interview with Original Sound Version; 2009.
*Bemanistyle.com Interview; E3 2010
*Exclusive Interview on Facebook; May 2011
*Tracklist for Naoki's Premium Tracks on Bemanistyle.com
*Brief mention of Naoki's album on a Guide (Search for "Naoki's Premium Tracks")
==Trivia==
*Demo-ed DanceDanceRevolution Hottest Party 3's new Balance Board Mode on Japan Expo 2009.
*Also did a demo of Dance Masters/Dance Evolution on E3 2010. Youtube's transliteration function caused some of Naoki's words to be spelled out differently (the most notorious sentence being "The AIDS Virus").
*He (and some of his pseudonyms like NMR), along with U1, was available as playable characters in 5th Mix. The titular character wore a cowboy suit. He was once again made into a character on the Hottest Party series of DDR games on the Wii. There, he appears as a blonde dancer.
*Agent, who is a character from pop'n music 19 TUNE STREET, is based on Naoki Maeda's blonde avatar from the DDR HOTTEST PARTY series.
**What's interesting is that Agent's birthdate, April 28, is also Maeda's birthdate.
Category:Artists