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

~~ Happy Towns ~~
The theme for "happy" towns like Bilibin and Kolima, after you've lifted Tret's curse, but this is also the theme for the town of Lunpa, which you briefly visit early in the game but officially you only come back much later, to save Hammet from Dodonpa. This gets reused in GS2's Gondowan Settlement.
This track uses a combination of both Flute 2 and Flute 1 (they share the same midi channel). For both instruments, I'm only using the individual (restored) samples that were used in the game: full-patch versions don't work well here, the sound of additional samples differs too much from the original feel of the track.

~~ 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