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Martin O'Donnell is an American video game composer and sound designer. He is best known for his work on the Halo series, for which he composed the soundtracks and sound effects. He has also composed music for other video games, such as Myth, Oni, and Destiny. O'Donnell was born on May 1, 1955 in West Chester, Pennsylvania. He attended the University of Pennsylvania, where he studied music composition and theory. After graduating, he worked as a freelance composer and sound designer for various video game companies. In 1999, O'Donnell was hired by Bungie to compose the soundtrack for their upcoming game, Halo: Combat Evolved. The soundtrack was a critical and commercial success, and O'Donnell went on to compose the soundtracks for the rest of the Halo series. In addition to his work on the Halo series, O'Donnell has composed music for other video games, such as Myth, Oni, and Destiny. He has also composed music for television shows, such as The Office and The Sopranos. As of 2021, Martin O'Donnell's net worth is estimated to be roughly $2 million.

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Martin O'Donnell Net Worth

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Timeline

In 2015, music from the Halo series was voted by listeners into the Classic FM Hall of Fame for the first time, reaching position 244.

The music for Halo 3 contained refinements and revisions to previous themes heard in the series, as O'Donnell stressed the importance of using previous motifs in the final installment of the trilogy; the composer wanted to "blow out" the epic sounds from the first game. O'Donnell also introduced a distinctive piano theme which had never been heard before, and first made its appearance in the Halo 3 announcement teaser. In an interview, O'Donnell stated that he has always approached music from the keyboard, and that at the Electronic Entertainment Expo—where the trailer would first be shown—he had a feeling that, "no [other announcement] would start with a piano." O'Donnell planned on composing the music "at the last minute", saying he had no intention of producing a large amount of music that would never be used. "It drives everyone crazy but it worked for me in the past and it works for the game in the best way. Writing music before the end just doesn't work for me," he said.

In 2013, O'Donnell began composition of an eight-movement symphonic suite entitled Music of the Spheres. Collaborating with Paul McCartney as well as Michael Salvatori and C. Paul Johnson, the symphony contained music to be implemented in the 2014 video game, Destiny, as well as any future installments of the franchise. On April 11, 2014, O'Donnell announced via Twitter he had been fired from Bungie "without cause". In June 2014, he filed a lawsuit against Bungie president Harold Ryan, claiming he was terminated without cause and that Ryan withheld pay for vacation and sabbatical time. In a response filed in Washington's Superior Court, Ryan denied wrongdoing. The suit was settled in June 2014, with a final arbitration ruling decided September 4, 2015, in which the court stated that "[...]Bungie breached the duty of good faith and fair dealing when it caused the closure of O'Donnell's stock and denied him any participation in the Profit Participation Plan". At the 2015 D.I.C.E. awards, Destiny was awarded Outstanding Achievement in Original Music Composition and Outstanding Achievement in Sound Design. In 2015, O'Donnell founded video game development studio Highwire Games. He is currently working on the soundtrack to their debut game Golem, a VR game. A musical prequel album to the game, Echoes of the First Dreamer (The Musical Prequel to Golem) was released by video game music label Materia Collective.

On September 26, 2014 O'Donnell's soundtrack to Bungie's first installment of the Destiny franchise was released, shorty before his termination from the company.

The Halo 3 Original Soundtrack was released in November 2007, and featured a fan contribution that was the select winner from a pool of entries judged by O'Donnell, Rodgers, and others. All of O'Donnell's work on the series was repackaged as Halo Trilogy—The Complete Original Soundtracks in December 2008, alongside preview tracks written by Halo Wars composer Stephen Rippy. The music to Halo 3: ODST was released as a two-disc set to coincide with the game's release on September 22, 2009. Reach' s soundtrack was available in digital formats the same day as the game's release on September 14, 2010; the physical two-disc soundtrack was released September 28, 2010.

O'Donnell's score to the Halo trilogy has been called iconic, earning him several awards, and the commercial soundtrack release of the music to Halo 2 was the best-selling video game soundtrack of all time in the United States. He went on to compose the scores for Halo 3 (2007), Halo 3: ODST (2009), and Halo: Reach (2010). 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. Subsequently, he co-founded Highwire Games and composed the score for their debut virtual reality game Golem, which was released in late 2019.

O'Donnell's music has been packaged into several soundtrack collections. For Halo' s music, O'Donnell created "frozen" arrangements that represented an approximation of a play-through of the games. The Halo Original Soundtrack sold over 40,000 copies, and was followed by two different releases of the music to Halo 2. The two volumes of the Halo 2 Original Soundtrack were produced by Nile Rodgers, with the first album being released in sync with the video game in 2004 and became the best-selling game soundtrack of all time in the United States. The second album was released more than a year after the soundtrack had been mixed and mastered.

After producing the music for Oni, O'Donnell was tasked with composing the music for Bungie's next project, which would be unveiled at E3 2000. After talking with Joseph Staten, O'Donnell decided the music needed to be "big, exciting, and unusual with a classical orchestra touch to give it some weight and stature. We also wanted it to have some sort of 'ancient' feel to it." O'Donnell came up with the idea of opening the piece with gregorian chant and jotted down the melody in his car. Because he did not know how long the presentation would be, O'Donnell created "smushy" opening and closing sections that could be expanded or cut as time required to back up a rhythmic middle section. The music was recorded and sent to New York the same night the piece was finished; the resulting music became the basis for the Halo series' "highly recognizable" signature sound, and what has been called one of the best-known video game themes. The use of the chant in the main theme has been credited with contributing to popular interest in the genre. Halo' s music used an interactive engine to change music in response to player's actions; this non-linear method has since become widespread. The scores for Halo and its sequel Halo 2 garnered awards such as The Game Developer's Choice Award and Best Original Video Game Soundtrack from Rolling Stone.

Soon after producing the music for Myth II, Bungie contracted O'Donnell for several of Bungie's other projects, including the third-person game Oni. In 1999, Bungie wanted to re-negotiate the contracts for Oni, and the negotiations resulted in O'Donnell joining the Bungie team, only ten days before the company was bought by Microsoft. O'Donnell was one of only a handful of Bungie employees who remained working at the company since then, until his termination as of April 2014. While O'Donnell worked at Bungie, Salvatori handled the business side of TotalAudio.

O'Donnell began his career in music writing television and radio jingles such as the Flintstones Vitamins jingle and scoring for radio stations and films. O'Donnell moved to composing video game music when his company, TotalAudio, did the sound design for the 1997 title Riven. After producing the music for Myth II, Bungie contracted O'Donnell to work on their other projects, including Oni and the project that would become Halo: Combat Evolved. O'Donnell ended up joining the Bungie staff only ten days before the studio was bought by Microsoft, and would be the audio director for all Bungie projects until he was fired.

In 1993, Dick Staub, a Chicago radio personality and friend of O'Donnell's, asked if his eighteen-year-old son Josh could visit O'Donnell's studio, as he was interested in computer games and audio. O'Donnell agreed, and in talking with Josh learned that he had friends in Spokane, Washington who were making a game O'Donnell had never heard of called Myst. In hearing the theme music to the game, O'Donnell realized that the game industry was making great strides in creating "legitimate music" that contained dramatic elements. O'Donnell became acquainted with the game's developers, including brothers Rand and Robyn Miller, and was hired four years later as a sound designer for Myst' s sequel, Riven. Among the games Riven' s developers would play in their downtime was a title called Marathon, created by Chicago-based Bungie. On returning to Chicago O'Donnell emailed a Bungie staffer and pursued them for a job.

O'Donnell describes his upbringing as "typical"; he received piano lessons and wanted to start a rock band when he reached junior high school. His father made films while his mother taught piano. Despite his interest in progressive and fusion rock, O'Donnell studied the classical component of music and composition at Wheaton College Conservatory of Music and received his Masters of Music Degree in composition with honors from the University of Southern California in the early 1980s.

Martin O'Donnell (born May 1, 1955) is an American composer known for his work on video game developer Bungie's series, such as Myth, Oni, Halo, and Destiny. O'Donnell collaborated with his musical colleague Michael Salvatori for many of the scores; he has also directed voice talent and sound design for the Halo trilogy. O'Donnell was Bungie's audio lead until April 11, 2014.