I cast him for Destiny 10 years ago because I loved his work in The Wire. Found out during the first session about our mutual love for classical piano. Rest in piece.
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Marty O'Donnell
@MartyTheElder
Composer
Las VegasBorn May 1Joined May 2009
Marty O'Donnell’s Tweets
I'm wondering if I should pull out my old Xbox 360 and play Halo 3 for one last time before the servers go down?
Twenty years ago today I put music to the first ten cinematics in Halo: Combat Evolved.
I’m thinking about doing a new series on my YouTube channel.
Highwire Plays Halo.
Jaime Griesemer, Paul Bertone, and I comment while the person who designed a classic Halo level plays through on legendary.
Interested?
For reasons I can’t go into, today is a day when I reflect on my successes and failures.
I’m proud that I helped get out of
I regret that I was unable to get Microsoft out of Bungie.
Just posted my first TikTok vid. Let me know if you like it.
I don’t want to make any enemies here and maybe it’s just cuz I’m old, but it seems like the streamers and twitchers (the ones who play while their image is on screen and never stop talking) aren’t really gamers.
They’re narcissists.
Just finished playing Halo CE on Steam MCC.
Where are the end credits?
Wow, 17 years ago today I helped to ship a little game called Halo.
Memories...
Just in case you never heard this. Shows how serious we were about making a competitive game.
Found a box of stuff this morning I had forgotten about. My wife is a saint.
I'd like to talk this opportunity to wish Happy Anniversary to Halo (#Halo20) Bungie (#Bungie30) and also best of luck to Halo Infinite (#HaloInfinite)
I’m thinking about starting a war with r/destinythegame on Reddit.
Who’s with me?
Late last night Bob O’Donnell died peacefully in his sleep. Earlier in the evening I sat with him quietly talking. He said he was comfortable. I said goodnight and waited till he slept.
He was a good man, a great father, and I will miss him dearly.
Ok, here’s the dealio. I saw that two old Bungie soundtracks were “available” on Amazon for $900.
I decided to put them up on Bandcamp FOR FREE. I thought I could tell Bungie Reddit fans about it, but somehow I didn’t follow their rules.
Now, I’m done with Reddit.
Let’s see, got the check, got 117k subs, maybe quit while I’m ahead?
I wonder if I should upload the full Steve Vai Halo 2 session on my YouTube channel?
So that Halo 3 Easter egg about the rings. That was figured out by hacking. I left clues in the game so no one needed to hack but it’s never been explained to my satisfaction. #IWHBYD
So many anniversaries.
So many memories.
All good ones.
July 1999 - alone in my car I sing the Halo monk chant for the first time. I sang it over and over until I got to the studio so I wouldn't forget.
Happy Birthday Halo!
I knew I had this somewhere. Here are some highlights. Good thing we took their suggestions. #Halo
Interesting when you hear something you did a long time ago and think “hey, that’s pretty good”.
#ODSTOST
One of the many reasons Sgt. Johnson (David Scully) was one of my favorite Halo CE characters.
Huh, Harvard is going online only this fall. I could do that.
Music Composition online with me perhaps?
I gotta say something about the anniversary of ODST.
All in all one of the best experiences of making a game I’ve ever had.
Wouldn’t trade it for anything.
Thanks and Paul Bertone.
Sigh…yes I’m an old guy, but this stuff is your history. You youngsters should look at a pivotal moment in Halo development.
The day Microsoft accepted the resignation of Ed Fries.
If a baseball team had a loosing record five years in a row you don’t just fire the coach you fire the GM.
Imagine if it was more than a decade.
I love baseball.
This might be interesting. I made this 15 years ago and never shared it ‘cuz the camera was set wrong and it’s all dark and grainy. Still pretty cool if someone can tell me how to rip the DVD to a movie file.
I'm so sad about the passing of my friend Stan LePard. He worked with me on just about everything starting with Halo 2. An amazingly talented orchestrator, composer, and truly wonderful human being. Please keep his family in your thoughts and prayers.
Stan's the one on the right.
I’ve always preferred cinematic moments to be in-engine. That allows for elegant and seamless transitions in and out of gameplay.
“Upgrading” to pre-rendered cut scenes can change the feel of the game. Plus it can be a jarring change in art style.
IMHO.
Thanks Luc! That was a lot of fun. Only the strongest will survive to the end of that marathon interview.
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My 2 hour long interview with @MartyTheElder IS FINALLY HERE: youtu.be/0zG18XfsnvI
We talk about his most controversial Halo opinion, his thoughts on Halo Infinite, his terrifying interaction with Activision, Halo 2 crunch, the lore behind 'I C O N I C' and much, MUCH MORE!
This is shopped.
Kidding.
Yep, we got the tech working and will be doing it for real.
Soon
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The @Halo community isn't ready for this!
Marty & Geek take on the Pillar of Autumn!
@MartyTheElder
I just watched some videos of people's reaction to the Halo Infinite E3 Trailer, and a "making of" video with my friend where they talk about how everyone likes the Halo 3 Fanfare.
It made me laugh because back when I wrote it, the marketing brass at Microsoft hated it.
It was fun talking with Halo fans this past weekend. Some day I should go back and explain how all the music was composed and produced (if anyone's interested).
Here's a taste - Halo CE Under Cover of Night. Proteus 2000, no loops, Super Tap, and me singing.
Can’t believe I missed this. SO COOL!!
Yay
Had to say goodbye to a best friend today.
Baxter was a good boy.
Wow, I wish I could run my Halo monk chant through Twitter.
Best echo chamber EVER!!
It's so interesting for me to talk with some of you 25 year olds. Your Halo experience starts when you were 5 years old. And while you were growing up with it, I was just getting older.
5 to 25 is quite different than 45 to 65.
#CaptainObvious
You should watch
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Tune in this coming Friday at 8PM (BST/3PM EST/12PM PST)
For Exclusive Never seen before commentary with myself and the Legendary @MartyTheElder as we play Halo Combat Evolved LIVE!
Link: twitch.tv/deebeegeek
1:28
I'm going to eventually (soon™) do a blog post with my version of the entire Music of the Spheres story, but until then let me correct one detail. MotS was finished and ready to ship 5 years ago, December 2012.
How to make a game when you don’t have a 10 year plan:
My good friend Paul Bertone donated some 16 year old whiteboards to Highwire Games today. I dropped them off at the studio but decided to bring two home.
Some whiteboard cleaner and they’ll be as good as new!
Did anybody ever translate the Covenant language in Reach?
We worked hard on that.
I think I still have the scripts.
For the record, no single piece of music should ever play on an infinite loop in any game I’ve worked on.
If it does it’s either a bug or a flat out mistake on my part.
I really appreciate Alan Tudyk's homage to my acting eight years later.
I’m thinking about starting a Discord channel and inviting just those people who study Halo music and have produced covers. Anyone interested?
Yep, this is the folder of old sessions that I found. We'll see how much work I'm willing to do in order to share more "Halo Music Inception" on my YouTube channel. Looks like I was organized at some point.
Replying to
Ok, this (hopefully) will be my last tweet on this.
I LOVE streamers and twitchers.
I was having a reaction to a streamer who was playing Reach for the first time but kept talking during the dialog and wondered aloud why he didn't know what was happening.
Peace.
Staying at my daughter’s house. In the bedroom she’s framed the music I salvaged from our studio fire in 1999. It’s the lullaby I wrote when she was born, and is now the main theme for Golem.
One part that’s not correct: “His final work for Bungie was composing music for the 2014 video game Destiny that went unused. He successfully sued Bungie for firing him from the company due to unpaid wages.”
ALL music was used. Sued for stock and won.
Replying to
Should I put them all up on my YouTube channel?
We could have done pre-rendered cut scenes in Halo, but chose not to for good reasons. Do you folks know why we felt strongly that keeping them in- engine was the far better decision?
For the record, I have nothing against Hayabusa armor. Anything that caused folks to hack the code and wreck my precious egg would be considered stupid.
Ok, while I wait for the Steve Vai movie to compress I keep finding weird junk in my archives. I don’t even know what this stuff is?
(Also found some old voice files from Halo2 original ending...)
I love the feeling of exploring a mysterious city alone at night with an unknown AI companion using neon signs and other things to show me the way.
I’m absolutely loving Stray.
Also a cat lover.
For the record “Be nice to the goose” is NOT an old saying.
It’s MY old saying.
4.6 million, huh?
Note to self: Ones of these days figure out how to monetize.
Mine came today.
How about that, number 000001, plus I got my scores back!
Thanks Mike, Happy New Year.
Help me get to 100k subs. See, I don’t make a dime
I’m thinking about doing spinal surgery on myself using a Bowie knife.
Saw it on a TV show.
Because of the response to my tweet about #ODSTOST I decided to put up a new video. Some of you might be interested. youtu.be/SJ_ay8y6GpA
