Kelly Bailey is a composer, musician, game designer, conceptual artist and programmer. He was the senior game designer of sound and music at Valve Corporation

Valve Corporation

Valve Corporation is an American video game development and digital distribution company based in Bellevue, Washington, United States...

 until he left in 2011 with Mike Dussault, to concentrate on their project Sunspark Labs LLC.

Bailey is notable for being behind the Half-Life

Half-Life (series)

The Half-Life series of video games share a science fiction alternate history. Nearly all of the games are first-person shooters on the GoldSource or Source engines, and most are linear, narrative, single-player titles....

 series' music and sound effects. He is married to Christina Bailey.

Biography

On the defunct Half-Life website, his function was described as follows: "Kelly did all of the music and sound effects for Half-Life, and wrote sound code to create character speech and DSP reverb effects."

On the previous version of Valve's official website, his function was described as follows: "Kelly, formerly a product unit manager at Microsoft, has a programming background that includes consumer multimedia, database engines, and networking. He created all of the music and sound effects for Half-Life."

On the current version of Valve's official website, his function was described as follows before it was removed after he left the company: "Kelly is Valve's senior audio producer, responsible for creating sound effects & music."

Bailey built the test chamber disaster sequence featured at the beginning of Half-Life with John Guthrie in a weekend. He also sketched out the journey through Silo D for the Half-Life chapter Blast Pit.

It appears Bailey used samples from other existing soundtracks in his works, or at least used stock sounds also used by other artists. For instance, the track "Radio" from the Half-Life 2 soundtrack can be heard during the 2002 film 28 Days Later

28 Days Later

28 Days Later is an acclaimed 2002 British horror film directed by Danny Boyle. The screenplay was written by Alex Garland, and the film stars Cillian Murphy, Naomie Harris, Brendan Gleeson, Megan Burns, and Christopher Eccleston...

, in the background at 00:26. Another example is the track "A Red Letter Day" from the Half-Life 2 soundtrack, that makes up the start of the track "London Deserted", this time from the soundtrack of the 2007 film 28 Weeks Later

28 Weeks Later

28 Weeks Later is a 2007 British/Spanish film sequel to the 2002 post-apocalyptic horror film 28 Days Later. 28 Weeks Later was directed by Juan Carlos Fresnadillo and released in the United Kingdom and United States on 11 May 2007...

, the sequel to 28 Days Later. Whether this was by chance or not is unknown.

Half-Life 2s Gordon Freeman

Gordon Freeman

Gordon Freeman is a fictional character and the main protagonist of the Half-Life video game series. He is a theoretical physicist who finds himself thrust into a battle for survival against both alien and human forces. Throughout the series, Gordon must prevail in hostile situations despite...

's face was based on him, among other Valve employees, such as David Speyrer, Eric Kirchmer and Greg Coomer.

Around March 2011, Kelly Bailey left Valve with colleague Mike Dussault to work on their project Sunspark Labs LLC, launched in December 2010, developing iOS applications, their first being "Morfo", released in June 2011. However he may probably work again for Valve in the future. The news caused some concern and displeasure from the Steam community due to the lack of any public farewell or notification regarding Bailey's departure.

Video games

• Half-Life (1998)
• Half-Life 2
  Half-Life 2
  Half-Life 2 , the sequel to Half-Life, is a first-person shooter video game and a signature title in the Half-Life series. It is singleplayer, story-driven, science fiction, and linear...
  
   (2004)
• Half-Life 2: Episode One
  Half-Life 2: Episode One
  Half-Life 2: Episode One is the first in a series of episodes that serve as the sequel for the 2004 first-person shooter video game Half-Life 2. It was developed by Valve Corporation and released on June 1, 2006. Originally called Half-Life 2: Aftermath, the game was later renamed to Episode One...
  
   (2006)
• Portal (2007)
• Half-Life 2: Episode Two
  Half-Life 2: Episode Two
  Half-Life 2: Episode Two is the second episode in a series of sequels to the 2004 first-person shooter video game Half-Life 2. It was developed by Valve Corporation in tandem with Episode One, the first game in the series, and released in Q4 2007 via Valve's Steam content distribution platform...
  
  (2007)