About Naoki Maeda
Naoki Maeda (前田 尚紀) was born in April 28, 1961 in Toyonaka, Osaka, Japan. Naoki Maeda is more commonly called simply Naoki, and is a Japanese music composer and producer who works for Konami. Naoki's official title is Konami AM Internal Sound Team.
Though Naoki worked on many different video game titles like Salamander, his most known contribution is to the Bemani series as the main composer for the Dance Dance Revolution games. Most of his songs are signed with a pseudonym. Little information on Naoki is revealed officially: for example, on an interview with several music producers released in the DDRMAX Dance Dance Revolution booklet, Naoki's profile was the least complete, not revealing his age or how much time he's been working for Konami.
BeForU & TERRA
BeForU is an all female J-Pop group who performed music primarily for the Bemani series of rhythm games. BeForU debuted in 2000 with their song "DIVE," which was notable as being the first J-POP song in the Dance Dance Revolution series. BeForU is produced by Naoki Maeda, one of the lead Konami musical producers.
TERRA is Konami's in-house rock and J-Pop group that composes music for Beatmania IIDX, Dance Dance Revolution, Pop'n Music, GuitarFreaks, and DrumMania. Naoki Maeda is a member of this group, being a composer, arranger, guitarist, producer and vocalist. The other member of this group is Junko Karashima who is a Vocalist/Lyricist.
Naoki Trivia
- Sometime in 2006, it was announced that Naoki is 45 years old.
- Enjoys the city of Los Angeles, California, Spring & Summer, producing music, and personal freedom.
- Dislikes Fall & Winter, jealousy, selfishness, and quietness.
- Started playing piano at age 4.
- Attended the Osaka University of Arts.