Martin O'Donnell

Martin O'Donnell (born May 1, 1955), sometimes referred to as Marty O'Donnell, is an American composer, audio director, and sound designer 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.

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.

After getting his degree, O'Donnell moved to Chicago, where he expected that he would teach at the American Conservatory of Music.

The job fell through, and instead he worked as a grip in the film and television business.

O'Donnell began his musical career in the field after one of his colleagues who knew of his music background approached him to write for his film.

O'Donnell talked to his friend Michael Salvatori, who had his own recording studio, and offered to split the profits from the job with him; the two became constant partners.

After completing a film score and a few commercials, the two decided to quit their day jobs and produce music in Chicago; they founded a production company, TotalAudio.

O'Donnell composed the music for jingles for Mr. Clean and Flintstones Vitamins.

After fifteen years of composing for TV and radio commercials, he decided that he wanted to work on game soundtracks and move on from commercial-sounding music.

"I was hoping to find some other medium that would be new and cutting-edge and sort of the Wild West," he recalled.

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.

TotalAudio produced the music for Bungie's Myth: The Fallen Lords the same year.

The company later composed the music for Valkyrie Studio's Septerra Core: Legacy of the Creator, during which O'Donnell met Steve Downes, whom he would later recommend as the voice actor for the Master Chief.

O'Donnell described the work for Septerra Core as his most difficult assignment; during the production the TotalAudio studio burned to the ground and O'Donnell had to be hoisted through a window in order to save some 20 hours of recordings.

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.

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.

O'Donnell's score to the Halo trilogy has received critical acclaim, 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.

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.

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.

He went on to compose the scores for Halo 3 (2007), Halo 3: ODST (2009), and Halo: Reach (2010).

O'Donnell was Bungie's audio lead until April 11, 2014.

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.

His final work for Bungie was composing music for the 2014 video game Destiny.

He successfully sued Bungie for unpaid wages and stock ownership.

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.

Subsequently, he co-founded Highwire Games and composed the score for their debut virtual reality game Golem, which was released in late 2019.

On March 3, 2024, O'Donnell announced his intention to run for the U.S. House of Representatives in Nevada's 3rd congressional district in 2024 as a Republican.

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.