About

Ben “Crossbones” Cooper is the brains and muscles behind Crossbones Studios, founded in 2008. A Chicago native, Ben is the local music industry’s equivalent of the “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon” game. Music and sound design have been his passion and craft for over a decade.

WHAT WE CAN DO FOR YOU

Composition
Arranging
Conducting
Music Editing
Rehearsal Schedules		 Sound Effects Editing
Foley
Field Recording
Background Sound
Voice Over Direction

Jeez…if for some reason, there is anything we can’t do, we can find the right people

SOFTWARE KNOW-HOW

ProTools
Sound Forge
Nuendo
Audacity
Sibelius		 Reason
Adobe After Effects
Fmod
Wwise
Animator DV

WORK ETHIC

Hard work and dedication is what you get from us to completing your vision. The Second City’s blue-collar blood is the life force of Crossbones Studios. Ben is an undaunted workhorse. The equation is as simple as: quality work = more work = paycheck + references for more work. It is a Mobius strip where everyone benefits.

The proof: At Ben’s night job, he sustained a spiral fracture in his left ring finger. Simply shrugging it off as a dislocation, he continued working for an entire week before getting x-rays. Going even further, he had surgery to set the bone and then hopped on a plane to make the goal of attending GDC ’08.

MUSIC

In 1995, a wee Ben Crossbones joined his first rock band and the rest is history in the making. He went on to perform and write in several bands contributing to over 300 live performances. As his palette developed and hunger for music grew ravenous, Ben pursued music in college. He studied music theory under Thomas Liley and was mentored in composition under Doug Loftstrom. In 2003, he received his B.A. from Columbia College Chicago. In the following years, a few of Ben’s “serious” compositions even got a bit of radio play. In a brief stint, Ben Crossbones attained the title of “Mr. Cooper” becoming a kindergarten through eighth grade music teacher. Ben still recites, “my most proud accomplishment was teaching collegiate level music theory to junior high students…and they got it.” Ben’s friends still recite, “Someone let you teach their kids?”

SOUND

In 2006, Ben began attending DePaul University to pursue another degree: a B.S. in Game Development. Old habits being hard to break, Ben found himself wading in a sea of If-Then-Else solutions, spending more time improving the sound effects and music than collision detection in game design projects. The end result was like Joust sounding like Top Gun. Needing some finessing in sound design, Ben studied meticulously under Oscar winner, David Stone. Soon after, Crossbones Studios began producing short films and animations specifically to apply sound design on. Talk about turning the house to screw in the light bulb.

BANDS

Lord Crossbones (Reggae/Rocksteady)
Devastator Sextet (Jazz combo)
Ben Cooper as Ben Cooper (acoustic/solo)
ShuttleCocks (Ska)
Metadata 404 (Electronic)
The Pints (Irish Folk)
Four Star Flag (Ska)

PROJECT WISH LIST

(You know, in case you’re working on these and you just happen to be perusing the page)

A Space Quest revival
A Maniac Mansion sequel
Duke Nukem (no, seriously)
Doom (ahem, I heard IV is in production. Cough!)
And…
Um… Sousaphone Hero? No? Okay, how about Wind Ensemble by Harmonix? Think about it, “Dude! You totally wailed on the intro to ‘Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun’.” “Naw man. You expanded on accenting that theme with the clarinet accompaniment.” “Whatever guys. If I didn’t release ‘unappreciated power’ we would have been toast.”