Halopedia:Projects/Soundtrack project

The Soundtrack project is an ongoing project that aims to enhance the pages related to music in Halo media, boosting pages' readability as well as recording oddities.

Background

Music in Halo media generally includes soundtracks of the games and other visual media (including films and animated series). Most Halo media were released with official soundtracks. Most of these soundtrack albums and their tracks have been documented on Halopedia.

However, there have been cases of other musical pieces that were excluded from official releases. Most of the official Halo soundtracks do not contain every track heard in the games, such as variations of certain tracks or ambient tracks that went unreleased at the discretion of the composers/producers. Furthermore, marketing materials, such as trailers, often use music unrelated to the soundtrack of the media (e.g. Frederic Chopin's Prelude in Halo 3 Believe diorama) as well as original music that were uncredited and unreleased (e.g. background music for Deliver Hope). These musical pieces may not be sufficiently notable to have their own pages, but their usage should be noted nonetheless.

Project goals

Overall goals

1. Adopt a unified layout for articles on the tracks under the official soundtracks. Variations of these tracks that went unreleased from the soundtrack should be included on these pages.
2. Create new parent pages for soundtracks, titled as "Music of Halo X", to:
   1. List out different editions of the official soundtrack
   2. Record information related to the development and production of the soundtrack
   3. Make note of any music featured in related media but were excluded from the official soundtracks, either being music from another title or being public domain music.

Ongoing works

• Unify the format on individual soundtrack pages.
  • Adopt new layout, which includes "Overview", "Appearances", "Arrangements", and "Production notes", if applicable.
  • Embed YouTube links under the auto-generated YouTube topic channels (e.g. "Martin O'Donnell - Topic")
• Create parent pages "Music of Halo X".
• Record and catalogue cases of music not released in the official soundtracks.
• Enhance the "Template:Music infobox"
  • Include a parameter to the media its tied to.
  • Consider enhancements inspired by the template from Wookieepedia (example).
  • Consider embedding links to official music streaming platforms, including Amazon Music, Apple Music, and Spotify.

Completed works

These pages are completed

• Finalize the content, format, and structure of Music of Halo: Combat Evolved for a layout guide Done
• Update Template:Soundtrack Done

Resources

Interviews

Overall

• BSOSpirit: An Interview with Marty O´Donnell (2009)
• YouTube: Noodle - Noodle interviews Martin O'Donnell (2020)
• YouTube: The Act Man - A LEGENDARY Interview With Marty O' Donnell (Composer From Bungie, Halo, Destiny) (2020)

Halo Combat Evolved

• HBO: Q&A with Matt Soell about Gamestock 2001, round 1 (2001)
• HBO: Q&A with Matt Soell about Gamestock 2001, round 2 (2001)

Halo 2

• Gamespy: Halo 2 Music Interview with Nile Rodgers (2004)
• Music 4 Games: Interview with Marty O'Donnell (c. 2004)
• HBO: Nico Interviews Marty O'Donnell (2004)

Halo Wars

• Halo Wars Official Site: Over and Out (2008) (Stephen Rippy's personal site backup, with additional material)
• IGN: Halo Wars Music Attack Part 1 (2009)
• IGN: Halo Wars Music Attack Part 2 (2009)
• Original Sound Version: Halo Wars Interview with Composer Stephen Rippy (2009)

Halo Spartan Assault

• MacProVideo: Interview: Tom Salta (c. 2015)

Halo Wars 2

• Xbox.com: Halo Wars 2 Composers Revealed, Listen to the First Two Tracks Here (2016)
• Windows Club: Halo Wars 2 Composers speak to us about the Game’s Impressive Score (2016)
• Flickering Myth: Behind the Music of Halo Wars 2: An Interview with composers Brian Lee White, Brian Trifon and Gordy Haab (2017)
• Sound Architect: Halo Wars 2 Game Audio Interview (2017)
• Yahoo Movies: How the Music to Videogame ‘Halo Wars 2’ Was Made the Old-Fashioned Way (2017)
• Windows Central: Halo Wars 2 composers share the inside story of the game's spectacular soundtrack (2018)

Halo Infinite

• Halo Waypoint: Gareth Coker Sets a Fire in Your Heart (2021)
• Windows Central: What makes for great game music? Inside Ori, Halo Infinite development with Gareth Coker (2022)
• YouTube: Escapist - How Halo Infinite's Composers Are Defining the Future of Halo Music (2022)

Halo The Television Series

• Variety: ‘Halo’ Composer Sean Callery Discovered Master Chief, Kwan Themes While Honoring The Original Game – Sound & Screen (2022)
• Coming Soon: Halo Interview: Composer Sean Callery Discusses His Score (2022)
• CBR: Halo’s Composer Details Honoring the Game’s Iconic Music & Scoring Aliens

Notes on unofficial or unreleased music

• Halo Waypoint Headhunters/Mona Lisa score: https://soundcloud.com/plguitar/sets/halo-waypoint/
• Halo Combat Evolved, Halo 3: ODST, Halo: Reach music "inception": https://martyodonnell1.bandcamp.com/album/inception-halo (Commentary in YouTube)
• Halo Nightfall - Christopher Carmichael: https://soundcloud.com/christopher-carmichael/sets/halo-nightfall
• Halo 3 Believe Diorama uses measures 25-43, 60-64 of Frederic Chopin's Prelude, Op. 28 No. 15
• Halo 3 "glue": https://martyodonnell1.bandcamp.com/album/treasure-trove-of-glue
• Halo 3 Elements for Control Room: https://martyodonnell1.bandcamp.com/track/elements-for-control-room
• Halo 3 "Darkness trailer includes "Beyond the Infinite" by "Udi Harpaz and the Tel Aviv Symphony Orchestra"

Official soundtrack trivia

• Halo 3 Original Soundtrack -import version-
  • From Japan
  • Numerous covers
  • cover 1 link
  • https://www.neowing.co.jp/product/KDSD-20009
  • cover 2 link
• Halo 4 Original Soundtrack Remixes (Independent Physical release)
  • Promotional disk
  • front cover
  • Back cover

Adjacent task

Navigation boxes for "media" may include links to the soundtrack. This is an example Template:Navbox/Media/TFoRMedia.