Uploaded September 2024 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
I'm back! This is the latest project I've been working on, and I'm really excited to present you with this first restored track from Castlevania: Circle of the Moon! A very important game for me, it was one of my first GBA games when I was 14, and one of the first Castlevania games that I've ever played (the first one being Castlevania Adventure on GameBoy).
I spent a lot of time on preliminary research: I had to find all the original samples because none of them had been documented anywhere. But I knew that Sotaro Tojima used a SC-88 Pro when he wrote the music! I also coded additional python scripts to efficiently modify the midi files (the volume curves on the files extracted with GBA Mus Ripper were a bit of a pain!).
Please note that the audio is not recorded in real time from the SC-88, I use the module as a cool visualizer for the video, but each track is actually rendered separately (individual stems) so I can mix things properly.
"Sinking Old Sanctuary" was originally composed by Michiru Yamane for Castlevania Bloodlines (Megadrive) and arranged by Sotaro Tojima for the GBA.
I'm back! This is the latest project I've been working on, and I'm really excited to present you with this first restored track from Castlevania: Circle of the Moon! A very important game for me, it was one of my first GBA games when I was 14, and one of the first Castlevania games that I've ever played (the first one being Castlevania Adventure on GameBoy).
I spent a lot of time on preliminary research: I had to find all the original samples because none of them had been documented anywhere. But I knew that Sotaro Tojima used a SC-88 Pro when he wrote the music! I also coded additional python scripts to efficiently modify the midi files (the volume curves on the files extracted with GBA Mus Ripper were a bit of a pain!).
Please note that the audio is not recorded in real time from the SC-88, I use the module as a cool visualizer for the video, but each track is actually rendered separately (individual stems) so I can mix things properly.
"Sinking Old Sanctuary" was originally composed by Michiru Yamane for Castlevania Bloodlines (Megadrive) and arranged by Sotaro Tojima for the GBA.
![A Full Moon in Garoh [with howls] (Restored - Roland SC-88) - Golden Sun The Lost Age](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/d7hfTLBQuc4/mqdefault.jpg "A Full Moon in Garoh [with howls] (Restored - Roland SC-88) - Golden Sun The Lost Age
Playlist with all my other Golden Sun restored tracks: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLmKzt4avW8iLpm1sXSsT7OKnohNo5V6cg
Lossless FLAC files can be downloaded here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Q2MWzb_uSvXp0Z3vWthvErnzM3xyL6Em
~~ A Full Moon in Garoh [with howls] ~~
You can find the regular restored version (no howls) here: https://youtu.be/brDQmcvSwMg.
For this version, I extracted the howl sample from the game like any other instrument, with GBA Mus Ripper. The extracted sample is already at a higher quality than what the GBA normally outputs. Then I cleaned it further with Izotope RX10 De-noise, added proper reverb and panning. Thanks again to @jdoghere for his general advice on mixing! :)
~~ 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. Im 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 havent been found to this day. Ive 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")
