Uploaded September 2023 | 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

~~ Isaac Battle ~~
Fun fact about this track: there's a small "bug" in the sequence (it's present on the GBA cartridge, I promise!). There's an Oboe at 0:32 that can only be heard during the first loop. On second loop (1:42) and the next ones, that melody is replaced by a Synth. This is because there's an "instrument change: Oboe" instruction that is only present at the beginning of the track, but then the same track is re-used to play synths (Motoi Sakuraba did this because there's a limit of 10 tracks per song in the GBA audio engine). But then, when it loops, the instrument is never set back to Oboe! I kept that "bug" to preserve the spirit of the original track :)

~~ Details about the restoration process ~~
Tools used: GBA Mus Riper (midi and samples extraction), agbplay (synth restoration) and Reaper.
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