Will your old ocarina work with the Ocarina of Time remake?

By Igor. Published 2026-10-27

If you have an ocarina from years ago, you can probably use it in the Ocarina of Time remake. Nintendo says the Switch 2 version listens for your own instrument through the console's microphone, and STL, which sells Zelda replicas, says five notes are enough for all 12 of the game's ocarina songs. What matters is whether your ocarina reaches those notes. Nintendo also accepts humming, so the game may not be strict about tuning.

The ocarina in the drawer is a common story right now. We pulled the posts from Nintendo's 8 September Direct, which set the release date and showed the microphone feature, to 27 October 2026 through the Arctic Shift archive of Reddit: every post in r/OcarinaOfTime, the posts with ocarina in the title in r/zelda and r/truezelda, and the comments we could get with them. We read every post about a physical ocarina and found 20 people who got an ocarina years ago and are picking it up again for the remake. Our pull had no comments for the smaller r/zelda threads, so the real number could be higher. Nine of the 20 said when they got it, and eight of those nine have had it for ten years or more.

Can an old ocarina play the songs in the remake?

Most can, if they reach the five notes. Nintendo's announcement says the game will respond to instruments, and names no hole count. STL's free course for the songs names them: D, F, A and B, plus a high D that half of the songs need. Nintendo has not said how closely the game checks pitch.

A 12-hole in C has room to spare: an alto C plays from A4 to F6, going by the ranges makers publish (we list them on our tuner page). Three of the 20 returning players said theirs was a 12-hole, and none of them reported a problem with the range. Two of those three have had theirs for more than ten years.

What about a 4-hole or a 6-hole ocarina?

A 6-hole pendant in C covers all five notes: it plays from C5 to E6. A 4-hole pendant in C plays one octave, from C to high C, so it reaches D, F, A and B but not the high D. That covers six of the twelve songs, such as Saria's Song and Song of Time, but not Zelda's Lullaby or Epona's Song. Our 4-hole and 6-hole fingering charts show every note each one can play.

One of the 20 came back to a 4-hole and moved to a 12-hole, partly because tabs for the game's songs on four holes were hard to find.

How do you check that an old ocarina still plays in tune?

Warm it up first, then play each note slowly against a tuner. A cold ocarina reads flat, by about one cent for each degree Celsius according to Pure Ocarinas. Hold the instrument in your hands for a few minutes, play a few long notes, then check one note at a time with a soft, steady breath.

Your breath matters as much as the clay. Blowing harder raises an ocarina's pitch, and high notes tempt you to blow harder, so they read sharp. If one note reads off, play it again more gently before you blame the ocarina. If most notes sit far from the target at a soft breath, the instrument is the likelier cause. For the full check, note by note, see our guide to whether your ocarina is out of tune, or it is you.

What are game fans asking about real ocarinas?

Game fans posted most about Nintendo's own ocarina. We found 114 posts about a physical ocarina in the three game subreddits, some of them reposts of the same question. Nintendo's announced playable ocarina came up in 44, the quality of a particular replica in 22, and playing into the microphone in 20. Across all 114, 51 asked a question; the rest were news, photos and opinions. Only 7 posts were about coming back to an old ocarina. Of our 20 returning players, 5 wrote a post and the other 15 spoke up in the comments.

What do returning players need most?

Returning players most want to play the game with their own instrument. Twelve of the 20 plan to play their ocarina into the game, and one asked outright whether any 12-hole would work. Four want to learn or relearn the in-game songs, which our Ocarina of Time song pages set out note by note. Four want a way to learn to play, and one wants to read music instead of relying on charts. Five said only that they were getting their ocarina out.

None of the 20 mentioned a tuner. In the 83,606 game-subreddit posts and comments we pulled, the word appears three times, and only once about an instrument: a guide for game fans, written by members of the ocarina community, that points to a site with built-in tuners. On r/Ocarina over the same weeks it came up in 70 posts and comments, often as advice to someone unsure about a note.

Is it worth replacing an old ocarina for the remake?

Not if it reaches the five notes. Keep it, warm it up and start relearning a song or two before 5 November. A 4-hole in C covers only six of the twelve songs, and the only returning owner of one in our count replaced it. If a tuner shows most notes far off at a gentle breath, it will be hard to learn on, and that is a good reason too.

If you do decide to buy, our post on which ocarina to play the remake with counts what r/Ocarina recommended to people in your position. Our guide to choosing an ocarina covers what makes one playable.