El Noi De La Mare

What El Noi De La Mare Actually Is

It is a traditional Catalan folk melody that has circulated online for roughly two decades in multiple instrumental and MIDI arrangements. Most people encounter it through the Shantae video game series, where it functions as the primary battle theme for Risky Boots. The tune itself is older than that, rooted in regional folk traditions, but the fast-paced electronic version that circulates widely is a modern reinterpretation. I downloaded my first copy around 2011 off a now-dead forum thread. The thing about this track is that there is no single official release to point people toward. You will find it scattered across game OST repositories, forum dumps, and YouTube uploads. The most reliable route is to track down the Shantae Original Soundtrack. The version on that disc is the one most people are actually looking for. If you want the longer or arranged variants, you have to dig into fan-maintained archives, and those links rot constantly. Here is what I did when I needed the high-quality version for a project. I went to the VGMstream community and pulled the original WAV from the game's data files using a Hex editor. The soundtrack is bundled inside the game's asset directory. For the Game Boy Advance version, the audio files are stored in a compressed format that requires conversion. You can extract them with tools like Yabasic or GBA Sound Dumper, then run the output through a WAV converter. Takes about ten minutes if the game file is intact. A few times the archive was corrupted and I had to find a clean ROM to pull from. That happened maybe three times across several years of collecting.

If extraction is not your thing, buying the physical or digital OST is simpler. Shantae: Risky's Revenge includes the track on its officially released soundtrack. Digital copies run about ten to fifteen dollars on Steam or the developer's website. Physical copies are harder to find and often sell for significantly more on secondary markets.

Formats and File Sizes

The game audio comes in a few different formats depending on which title you are dealing with. The original Game Boy Advance version uses ADPCM compression, which results in small files but limited fidelity. The Nintendo DS version switched to higher bitrates, and the later remake uses uncompressed WAV or OGG files. A full orchestral or arranged cover you find floating around the internet will typically be MP3 or FLAC. FLAC versions of arranged covers usually land between 25 and 80 megabytes depending on length. One thing most people miss is that the MIDI versions you see posted everywhere sound nothing like the actual game track. MIDI files are just note data with a default sound font. They do not capture the instrumentation, the timing nuances, or the layering that makes the version recognizable. If you need the real thing, MIDI is not going to cut it. Use extracted game audio or a FLAC recording from a live playback. That preserves the actual sound.

A Problem I Ran Into With Timing

There is a specific edge case that caused me a lot of headaches. When I tried to sync the track to a video project, the BPM shifted slightly between the GBA and DS versions. The GBA version runs at approximately 168 BPM, but the DS remaster pushes it closer to 172 due to how the audio engine handles tempo. I spent about an hour trying to force the GBA audio to align with a 172 BPM grid, and it never worked cleanly because the underlying clock is different. The workaround was to just use the DS version for everything. Once I locked to that tempo, syncing became trivial. Lesson learned. Always check which game version the audio source comes from before you start any project that requires frame-accurate alignment. The biggest issue with this track is not finding it. It is finding a clean, uncorrupted copy. Many of the MIDI and MP3 versions circulating online are ripped from low-quality YouTube rips, which introduce compression artifacts and sometimes alter the pitch. If you are doing any kind of professional work with the audio, source quality matters. The YouTube rips will clip and distort when you run them through an DAW or try to layer them. Another practical limitation is that the melody is deeply tied to the Shantae franchise in most people's minds. Using it outside of fan projects or commentary can run into copyright issues. WayForward Technologies holds the rights to the arranged versions used in the games. The traditional folk melody itself is in the public domain, but the specific arrangements and recordings are not. If you are making a video, a game mod, or any public project, check the license terms. Fair use covers commentary and critique, but background music in your own game or film is a different conversation.

For people who just want to listen, the OST is the cleanest path. For people who need the raw audio for editing or analysis, extraction from the game files is the most reliable method. Avoid the scattered MIDI reposts unless you specifically want that sound. The track itself is straightforward once you know where to look, but the fragmentation across platforms and formats makes it frustrating to track down consistently.