Music
 
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| The original promotional CD | |
Oni's soundtrack is a mix of symphonic, techno, and ambient pieces. As far as who composed it, these are the names credited on the back of the CD, but see below for an in-depth investigation:
| “ | Martin O'Donnell, Michael Salvatori - TotalAudio Paul Sebastien - Power of Seven |
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TotalAudio
TotalAudio is a music and sound production company founded by Martin O'Donnell and Michael Salvatori, apparently incorporated officially under the name O'Donnell/Salvatori Inc. The company was contracted to score Bungie's games starting with Myth: The Fallen Lords. In 2000, Marty would join Bungie as an employee, but TotalAudio continues to operate (at least for the purpose of copyright maintenance and royalty collection). O'Donnell and Salvatori have individually gone on to compose for various games.
Regarding Oni's music, O'Donnell stated in this interview that the first work on the soundtrack was done by Power of Seven and that TotalAudio then composed as much new music as they did, making the soundtrack a 50/50 product between the studios. Since O'Donnell and Salvatori worked closely at the time, we do not attempt to distinguish which of the two men composed each piece assigned to TotalAudio in the table at bottom.
Based on findings by Odyssey Sound Team, who are recreating unreleased music that was produced by TotalAudio for Oni and other games, certain tracks can be assigned to TotalAudio based on the same synthesized instruments being used for Halo CE. These tracks include Searching and The Hunt, as well as the music in the mus_amasian OSBD (named by fans as "Up and Away") and the ending of End Titles. The Drum n' Bass "beats" in Searching, The Hunt, and End Titles originally come from the E-MU Phatt Beats sampler CD, which TotalAudio used in other projects. The unused Halo CE tracks HERE and HERE use beats from the same CD, as well as "A Walk in the Woods" from Halo CE. "Up and Away" also shares samples with "Perchance to Dream" from Halo: CE and "Dream Again" from Halo 3.
The atmospheric ambient tracks in Oni (collected here), some of which were strung together to make the CD's Ambient Suite and some of which are only heard in-game, are quite different from the other music in Oni, but these are also the product of O'Donnell/Salvatori. Similar ambient work can be heard in TotalAudio's score for the 1999 game Septerra Core, specifically Secrets of Marduk, Holy Guard, Mystic Delving, Biomech Heart, and The Chosen Ruins. Five of Oni's ambient tracks are actually reused from Myth I/II, TotalAudio's previous work for Bungie.
Power of Seven
The name echoes Bungie's "cult" of the number 7, but Power of Seven was an independent digital music content publisher founded in Minnesota and headed by Paul Sebastien. Bungie fans also know them for producing the opening themes to Marathon 2: Durandal and Marathon Infinity.
In 1996, Power of Seven was acquired by audio company Headspace, Inc. and the studio was relocated to Headspace's HQ in San Mateo, California. In 1999, Headspace renamed themselves Beatnik, Inc. (The California company which currently creates meditation audio programs under the name Headspace is unrelated.) Beatnik became defunct in 2011.
The "trio"
Although the original entity known as Power of Seven ceased to exist when it was integrated into Headspace, Paul Sebastien was allowed to use the name for contracted work outside of the Headspace business. When Oni's upcoming soundtrack first began to get some press, this article from spring 2000 called Power of Seven a "trio, consisting of musicians NVerse, Brian Salter and Kim Cascone."
"NVerse" was apparently an alias for Paul Sebastien. In 2023, Sebastien confirmed by email that he created Trailer as well as other possibly unreleased tracks. Sebastien was also a founder of the techno band Psykosonik; over the course of the band's existence (1992–1997), four of their electronic dance songs charted in the Billboard Top 40 even though they only released two albums. The style of Trailer resembles the output from his band, as exemplified by songs like Teknojihad and Killjoy.
Brian Salter, who has composed for other games, also released his own album called "Missing Scenes (1997-2005)" under the artist name Plektric in 2005. The following tracks are very clearly alternate versions of tracks from Oni:
- 1. Furies (Konoko Chase)
- 4. Two New Villains (Whirled Piece)
- 5. Ellipse (Oni Fever)
- 6. Mr. Bailout (East Wind)
- 7. Drop Zone (Pursuit)
Salter released additional alternate versions of two of these pieces on Smartsound.com: Terminus (Konoko Chase) and Crucial Dossier (Whirled Piece). The article Konoko Chase documents all versions of Salter's piece.
When asked by email in 2023 about the bonus MP3 No One Left to Trust, released as promotional material, Salter recognized it as his work, and he also recalled making Fight and Internal Space.
Kim Cascone is a noted experimental electronic composer, and his work (some of which can be found here) is way more avant-garde than what you'd expect to hear in a game – though he did score Obsidian, a 1997 surrealist puzzle game. Cascone briefly mentioned that he was working on "sound design for a Japanese anime game" at the end of this 1998 interview, which he confirmed by email in 2022 to have been Oni, however he referred to his contributions as "spec work" and didn't think that his "sound design" was used in the final game. Paul Sebastien's recollection in 2023 was that Cascone's work was on "audio sound FX areas such as gunshots and foley sounds etc. primarily — not music".
Specific attribution
Based on the styles of the musicians, their public statements, private correspondence with them, and their released music, we can attribute these individual pieces with a fair amount of confidence:
| CD track | Name | Composer |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Oni Anime | O'Donnell/Salvatori |
| 2 | Trailer | Paul Sebastien |
| 3 | East Wind | Brian Salter |
| 4 | Searching | O'Donnell/Salvatori |
| 5 | Pursuit | Brian Salter |
| 6 | Loss | O'Donnell/Salvatori |
| 7 | Hurry | O'Donnell/Salvatori |
| 8 | Fight | Brian Salter |
| 9 | Ambient Suite | O'Donnell/Salvatori |
| 10 | Internal Space | Brian Salter |
| 11 | Farewell | O'Donnell/Salvatori |
| 12 | Konoko Chase | Brian Salter |
| 13 | Oni Fever | Brian Salter |
| 14 | The Hunt | O'Donnell/Salvatori |
| 15 | Whirled Piece | Brian Salter |
| 16 | End Titles | O'Donnell/Salvatori |
| -- | No One Left to Trust (bonus MP3) | Brian Salter |
| -- | All in-game ambient tracks | O'Donnell/Salvatori |
| -- | mus_amasian ("Up and Away") | O'Donnell/Salvatori |
| -- | mus_xgrv1 ("X-Groove") | O'Donnell/Salvatori |