A Halo Music Addendum Project.
It's part of a wider idea, involving a sort of alternate campaign, with new locations and gameplay inspired by the presentation from E3 2000, while retaining a vanilla faithful feel. Odyssey is being completely developed first, before the bigger project begins. The project is maintained and downloadable as a GitHub repo.
So what is it, really?
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- Tracking down the instruments and synthesizers used in the creation of the Halo: Combat Evolved score, which may allow for recreating the original soundtrack from the source, meaning the highest possible lossless audio quality. I am unsure how the game music files were treated in terms of compression and mastering, etc. This project will provide a high quality alternative source for adding classic sounding music to CE maps.
- Create a new version of the original score that is faithful to the overall atmosphere and mix of the original soundtrack. A benefit from this result will be that the stems used to create these tracks will be available for people to mix and match different elements from the music. This will mean that as a modders' resource, there will be the ability to create new "variations" of songs that sound at the very least close to the original. My hope is that if the files are used among multiple campaign maps for example, the maps may all have different components and mixes from the songs. This would help increase variety among vanilla "friendly" music in maps
- Create brand new tracks that sound similar to the original score. The idea is to provide music that almost sounds like "cut content" from the original game, with a faithful mix, but new content
- Recreate other Halo tracks in the style of Combat Evolved, to bring a more CE faithful supply of music, for use in maps.
- Create tracks that will "fit" if they replaced the real thing in a map. Under Cover of Night shouldn't stand out as jarring or out of place if it were replaced with a version from this project, for example.
IMPORTANT NOTES OF A LEGAL AND DISCLAIMER-Y NATURE
- I'm not a legal expert, so if anything about this project raises concern, please directly contact me, and I'd be more than happy to discuss there.
- Any direct rearrangements/restorations/recreations of the music from Halo 1 should be technically considered covers of O'Donnell and Salvatori's work.
- It is not my intention to infringe on/plagiarize/profit of any kind from that work. For me, this project is out of passion for the original soundtrack, and an exercise to improve my technique making music, and gain more insight into the development process behind the music of Halo. Please be sure to credit the real heroes behind this stuff and indicate this is a cover where it applies.
- Everything here is for use in content related to Halo: Combat Evolved or Halo Custom Edition. This means CE maps, but also includes media like YouTube videos of Halo content. Feel free to use this music for videos! Just be sure to link this github project as a credit (mainly to read this disclaimer).
INFO FOR MUSIC PEOPLE
Gear I'm using | (What it "replaces") | Examples of where it was used in the soundtrack.
Exact matches
- Roland JV-1010 | (Roland XV-5080 & Roland JD-990) | Synthetic vox from Under Cover Of Night, weird noises from Alien Corridors, main "backbone" from Devils... Monsters..., water-y sound from main menu and Library Suite, synth bass sequence from Covenant Dance
- E-mu Procussion & Proteus VX (Proteus Plus Orchestral and Proteus 3) | (E-mu Proteus 2000 - Protoza expansion board) | Rhythm percussion from The Gun Pointed At The Head Of The Universe, echo-y drum part of Under Cover Of Night. Also the drum pattern from Halo 2 - Impend
Possible matches
- E-mu Virtuoso 2000 - Cello & other strings from main Halo theme, may also be used for Lament for Pvt. Jenkins and Enough Dead Heroes
