Marty O'Donnell and his creative partner, Mike Salvatori, had a successful commercial music studio in Chicago in the 1990s. A series of unlikely coincidences led to Marty's discovery of the fledgling Bungie game studio, which was also in Chicago at the time. Marty was so intrigued by the creative possiblities that games offered that he cold-called Bungie to offer his services as a composer and sound designer on Bungie's game in development, Myth: The Fallen Lords. That initial project launched a successful partnership with Bungie, and Marty and Mike would go on to compose the soundtracks for Halo and Destiny. Marty recently released the original soundtracks for Myth I: The Fallen Lords and Myth II: Soulblighter on Bandcamp. I caught up with him to remenisce.
The harrowing, often bleak, saga of Myth is brought to life with story elements narrated by Geoffrey Charlton-Perrin, whom Marty knew through his music studio. Geoffrey's readings of the journal entries are supported by Marty and Mike's empathetic music, which Marty says was a tough sell at first to the developers at Bungie.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjN6kEo8-Ss">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjN6kEo8-Ss
Writing the music for Myth I and II with Mike, and creating the sound design for the games as well was a learn-as-you-go experience for Marty. In fact, he says there really wasn't anyone to ask about how to write and implement music in games the way he wanted to do it, so he developed his own unique ways of doing it.
Marty says what's important to him about working on these games is that it launched a second career for him, and he's still using what he learned with his work today.
The soundtracks for Myth I: The Fallen Lords and Myth II: Soulblighter are available on Marty's Bandcamp.
Episode tracklist:
all tracks composed and performed by Martin O'Donnell and Michael Salvatori
Myth II: Soulblighter: Into the Breach
Myth I: The Fallen Lords: Crow's Bridge; Prologue (feat. Geoffrey Charlton-Perrin, narr); The Five Champions; The Fallen Lords;
Myth II: Soulblighter: Landing at White Falls
Myth I: The Fallen Lords: The Watcher; Siege of Madrigal (feat. Geoffrey Charlton-Perrin, narr)
Myth II: Soulblighter: The Great Library; Epilogue (feat. Geoffrey Charlton-Perrin, narr)
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Thanks to Dick Roberts for production assistance
