Peter Howell

Peter Howell (born 3 April 1948 in Islington, North London, England, United Kingdom) was a British sound engineer who provided incidental music for several Doctor Who serials as well as A Girl's Best Friend, the pilot to K9 and Company. He was also credited for incidental music on The Paradise of Death and The Ghosts of N-Space. Furthermore, he arranged the Doctor Who theme used for the first five years of the JNT era and was credited with special sounds for Planet of Evil.

Though uncredited, Howell's work on the title sequence that began with The Leisure Hive was more than musical. He claimed to have to worked very closely with Sid Sutton and to have fought hard to end the titles on a fade to white. Once he had convinced his superiors to allow the visual "white out", he was free to end the credits sequence with a "sonic boom". (DCOM: Meglos) This distinctive final note would become one of the most recognisable elements of his arrangement of the Doctor Who theme.

In 2007, Howell worked with archivist Mark Ayres to enhance the theme tune for DVD releases. Mark helped Peter with an all new 5.1 surround sound version of the theme using RAW elements that he archived from the tape reel from the Radiophonic Workshop. Later, Mark's 5.1 version of theme was later used in the 2018 Bluray releases.

He also contributed to the charity reference book Behind the Sofa: Celebrity Memories of Doctor Who.

Doctor Who incidental music

 * Revenge of the Cybermen (Assisted Carey Blyton)
 * The Leisure Hive
 * Meglos (with Paddy Kingsland)
 * Warriors' Gate
 * Kinda
 * Snakedance
 * The King's Demons (with Jonathan Gibbs)
 * The Five Doctors
 * The Awakening
 * Planet of Fire
 * The Two Doctors

Spin-off incidental music

 * K9 and Company

Audio incidental music

 * The Paradise of Death
 * The Ghosts of N-Space