“Shrouded in Darkness” - A Multi-Halo OST Mini-Medley/Mix

This video is not monetized, and all pieces used have been trimmed/edited/mixed. Three of the pieces were composed by Martin O'Donnell/Michael Salvatori (of Bungie Studios circa 2001, 2004, and 2007) for Halos CE, 2, and 3 (respectively); and one of the pieces was arranged by Paul Lipson/Lennie Moore/Brian Trifton/Brian Lee White/Tom Salta (of 343 Industries circa 2011) for Halo CEA. I doubt saying these things will stop potential copyright strikes, but it was worth a shot... :P

This one’s been a long time coming. Not in that I’ve been working on it for a long time, but rather because I’ve wanted to work on it for a long time (plus I’ve seen requests for it amongst the comments here or there). The thing is though, I’ve kind of just been putting it off. Much like H2’s Prologue, the different iterations of Under Cover of Night often take significantly different forms/styles, so I was worried that the medley would end up overly disjointed. To lighten this issue, I decided to only use iterations of the track that EXACTLY utilized the main melody. Offshoots/inspirations such as In Amber Clad/Trapped in Amber, Halo Reborn/Finale, and the other parts of Roll Call/Follow Our Brothers would be left out (I also decided to leave out Dream Again because I’ve already used it, and because it was so tonally different from the rest of the tracks). On the surface this may seem more restricting, but it actually provides me more freedom in how I can manipulate the individual tracks as well as get them to transition into one another.

Now let’s talk about the layout of this mini-medley. My goal with this one was to ensure that Under Cover of Night (with Cloaked in Blackness) was the main event, and the additional tracks are there either to lead up to it or bolster it further. To give it a strong opening, I started with the (relatively) soft strings of Follow Our Brothers (opening), and suddenly transitioned it into the much more pronounced High Charity Suite (Antediluvia). As these two tracks resolve, I transitioned into the faster-paced Under Cover of Night/Cloaked in Blackness, similar to what I did in “Tales From the Glass.” Now all that leaves us is Roll Call (second section). At first, I had no idea where to place this track. I suppose I could’ve wedged it between Follow Our Brothers and Antediluvia, but that would’ve made the percussion feel even more inconsistent across the medley. This was solved when I found out that UCoN is almost exactly 25% faster than Roll Call. This made for an easy tempo change so that Roll Call fit almost perfectly with UCoN’s percussion. Furthermore, the added vocals in Roll Call are just light enough that I could use them to bolster UCoN/CiB’s percussive sections without too much interference (plus hearing the two drum beats interact with one another sounds pretty cool), plus Roll Call’s bass guitar section was a cool way to end it. Hopefully it all came together as I planned! Enjoy! :)

Now what I did with Roll Call in this medley isn’t the only way I went about it, so I’ve also uploaded a second version that you can listen to here: https://youtu.be/imQWPmqr6k8

SoundCloud link: https://soundcloud.com/josh11735/shrouded-in-darkness-2/s-PsvzK

4:20 - The Wistful emote. This is part of a series of dark-gradient emotes I made. Sad eyes paired with a smile gave a kind of melancholy feel to it.

Thumbnail - Concept art for the mission Nightfall in Halo: Reach. Copied from https://www.flickr.com/photos/jameswong/sets/72157624851286711

Disclaimer: Halo © Microsoft Corporation. “Shrouded in Darkness” - A Multi-Halo OST Mini-Medley/Mix was created under Microsoft's "Game Content Usage Rules" (http://www.xbox.com/en-us/developers/rules). using assets from Halo, and it is not endorsed by or affiliated with Microsoft

Видео “Shrouded in Darkness” - A Multi-Halo OST Mini-Medley/Mix канала josh11735