Halo Original Soundtrack

Did You Know?

• A special edition of the soundtrack was released on October 28, 2003, featuring a DVD with a trailer, demo movie, and high quality music for Halo 2.
• Laced Records is producing a vinyl edition of the soundtrack across two LPs, either on its own or as part of a boxed set with the soundtracks to Halo 2 and 3, to be released in 2025.

Background

Martin O'Donnell, serving as audio director for Bungie, was assigned to write the music for Halo: Combat Evolved. He had previously scored Bungie projects such as Myth: The Fallen Lords while working for his audio company TotalAudio alongside Michael Salvatori. O'Donnell stated he approached the project "with fear and trepidation" and cited his main influences as "a little Samuel Barber meets Giorgio Moroder." Bungie's director of cinematics, Joseph Staten, told O'Donnell that the music should convey "a feeling of importance, weight, and sense of the 'ancient'" to the game's visuals.

O'Donnell's first piece, "Halo," which became the signature theme, was written and recorded in three days. He convinced Alex Seropian to allow an original piece for the game's 1999 Macworld Conference & Expo demonstration, drawing inspiration from the Beatles' "Yesterday." O'Donnell recruited Salvatori and three colleagues—Robert Bowker, Jeffrey Morrow, and Rob Trow—to produce the "chanting monks" that open the piece. Originally intending the Qawwali accents to be sung by a professional, O'Donnell sang an example, and the others suggested using his rendition instead.

The theme premiered at the 1999 Macworld Conference & Expo. The remaining themes were written, recorded, and produced throughout 2001 using equipment including keyboards, synths, samplers, and digital recording equipment controlled by computers. MIDI devices such as the Roland XV-5080 and EM-U Proteus 2000 were prominently used, with live instrumentation by members of the Chicago Symphony and Chicago Lyric Opera Orchestra added where needed. O'Donnell described the soundtrack's sounds as "Gregorian chant, string orchestra, percussion and just a bit of a 'Qawwali voice'."

Working closely with level designers, he divided the music into "chunks" for dynamic playback by the audio engine based on player actions. For the soundtrack release, O'Donnell rearranged the game's music to make listening "more enjoyable."

Reception

Reception of the soundtrack was generally positive. IGN praised its wide use of instruments, noting that O'Donnell and Salvatori found a stable balance between electronic and organic elements where other video game scores miss their mark. They described it as "one of the better videogame oriented musical experiences out there" and stated that playing the game is not required to enjoy the score. Michael Johnson of Monsters At Play called it "66 minutes of orchestral goodness," citing the wide range of music as a strong point. Nuketown rated it 9 out of 10, calling it "a welcome and invigorating reminder of good times had blasting unstoppable alien hordes." The release sold over 40,000 copies.