Uploaded March 2024 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago

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Playlist with all my other Golden Sun restored tracks: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLmKzt4avW8iLpm1sXSsT7OKnohNo5V6cg
Lossless FLAC files can be downloaded here: drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Q2MWzb_uSvXp0Z3vWthvErnzM3xyL6Em

~~ Desert Heat ~~
There are three Desert dungeons in Golden Sun. Lamakan Desert, Suhalla Desert in Golden Sun 1 and Yampi desert in Golden Sun 2. (Note that the GS2 version of that track would be slightly different since the drum kit uses completely different sounds! I might upload a version at some point)

@jdoghere and I have been discussing the Golden Sun sounds on a regular basis, so I can't thank him enough for his help. He found out that there was some missing modulation information on the midi file extracted with GBA Mus Riper, affecting the Nylon-Str Gt tracks. It's something that I would have totally missed! (Note that basically this affects any "remastered" version that you can currently find on Youtube, since they are using the same midi files)
So I investigated GBA Mus Riper's source code, found the problem and re-built my own version of the tool. I made a code fork here if anyone's interested: github.com/justedni/gba-mus-ripper (you can look at the commit history for the list of changes). Also, Justice is the one who helped me identify the correct sample to use for the Nylon-Str Gt in the first place.

~~ Details about the restoration process ~~
Tools used: GBA Mus Riper (midi and samples extraction), agbplay (synth restoration), Reaper. And also my own VST plugin (github.com/justedni/goldensunvst).
Hardware: Roland SC-88 Pro, Roland JV-1080, expansion card SR-JV80-05 World, and Alesis DM5.
Midi files: the sequences are extracted directly from the game but need to be heavily modified in order to play them on the physical modules.
Sounds: most samples have been identified over the years, but some sounds come from my own research.
Synths: in Golden Sun, synths are specific to the internal audio engine, they are completely separate from the other instruments. ipatix managed to reverse-engineer those synths and made the code available on github. I'm using his tool, agbplay, to export them from the game in high quality (at a higher sample rate than what the GBA is capable of)
Drums: Golden Sun 1 uses samples from the SC-88 but on Golden Sun 2, Motoi Sakuraba changed all the samples. While some of them have been identified and come from the Alesis DM5, most samples still haven't been found to this day. I've extracted the samples from the game, denoised, re-panned and cleaned them.

~~ Thanks ~~
Mega thanks to Bregalad (GBA Mus Ripper) and ipatix (agbplay). I would never have been able to do those versions without their incredible work.
Massive thanks to the VGM Instrument Sources community, and especially FreeJusticeHere for his invaluable advice and help!
Special thanks to Coaltergeist and Cyanne for inspiring me!

Original song composed by Motoi Sakuraba. #GoldenSun #RestoredOST