Welcome to the Shining Guitar Website. Here you will find the entire archive of Shining Force One tunes created by myself (Grom).



Track 01 - Introduction
Track 02 - Title
Track 03 - Simone's Theme
Track 04 - Town
Track 05 - Attack
Track 06 - Enemy at the Gate
Track 07 - Overworld
Track 08 - Circus
Track 09 - Holy War
Track 10 - Battle on the Ship
Track 11 - Castle
Track 12 - HeadQuarters
Track 13 - Shade Abbey
Track 14 - Sad Theme
Track 15 - Darksol
Track 16 - Dark Dragon
Track 17 - Ending
Track 18 - Backing



About This Album
================

This album was initially conveived by myself and my good friend, and fellow guitarist Matt Creamer (Norrin_Radd) sometime around mid 2004. Although these plans never came to fruition until the summer of 2008. For a long time, both myself and Matt had wanted to create some music, we both had similiar musical tastes, we both loved the same types of games, we both shared a passion for Shining Force and for playing guitar. Any collaboration project would have been a feat in itself because Matt lives almost three and a half thousand miles away from me and we are yet to meet up in real life. Sadly, Me and Matt rarely speak to eachother these days, we have gone our seperate ways, we both live busy lives and the time zone difference makes it very hard to have a chat in real time. When it became clear we would never get the chance to create a collaboration project, I decided to start our coveted idea of "a shining force one guitar style" project on my own.

This album is dedicated to my good, and somewhat missed, friend - Matt Creamer aka Norrin_Radd.

In 1992, Climax Entertainment released Shining Force on the Sega MegaDrive (or Genesis to you yanks :P) and with it, one of my best childhood games. The music in particular brings back many memories of the summers of 93, 94 and 95 when me and my brother used to swap our SNES with our friends Sega for a month when we were off school =]. It brings me great pleasure to be able to present to you, my version of the Shining Force One sound track.

This album was no easy feat. My band, Male Function, consists currently of one member. Me. I only have a basic grasp of most music instruements, I am most definately not a 'Pro' at keyboard or guitar, nor do i pretend to be. My covers are not perfect, and im sure many of you can find faults or flaws in my playing. Please bare in mind that the Shining Force Sound Track was never intended to be played on instruments, and as such, there is no sheet music available (not that I can read sheet music). Ty from TSS called me a brave man for even attempting to cover some tunes such as the Circus Theme (named aptly for Rusty of SFC) and Darksol's Theme which feature some backing and/or main tunes that are too fast for me to play on guitar/keyboard.

The Sega Megadrive/Genesis actually has two soundchips, both controlled by the Zilog Z80; the Yamaha YM2612 Frequency Modulation (FM) chip and the Texas Instruments SN76489 Programmable Sound Generator (PSG) chip.
The Yamaha chip has 6 Stereo output channels, The Texas Instruments chip has 4 Stereo output channels, although two of these are only used for sound effects and do not actually feature in the Musical Score of the game, thats still 8 channels playing different sounds simultaneously. No wonder these songs are complex.

Using the wonders of mondern technology, I can isolate each channel in a song and learn it by ear. This allows me to recreate the sound (for the most part) from each channel - which in turn, will be mixed together with my other channel recordings to form a complete song. Here lies my greatest enemy though .. the timing. Those that have followed my progress through this project will know the countless problems ive met with regards to timing. the simple fact is, I use a crap program to mix these files together, and sometimes my mixing is out of synchronisation with the rest of the song. It is a problem im aware of, but not willing to resolve. Live with it.

What's the deal with that last track (18) ?
Track 18, Backing, is a mixture of backing tracks i created for this album, that I randomly selected. When creating these tunes I noticed that the lead guitar(s) often dulled out the backing that I made, so here you can hear the backing in its full glory :P

So, what instruments were used to create this album ?
The majority of tracks in this album will have some part of them recorded by my electronic keyboard, a Casio GK-3000 (76 keys 800 Tones). The keyboard was used to record the 'brass' instruments (trumpets, trumbones, tubas, horns), Bass instruments and Stringed Instruments (Violins, Harps, Violas, Cellos).
The first five tracks were made with my old guitar, a Crafter Cruiser RG-600/M.BK. The rest were made with my new guitar, pictured on the album cover, my B.C.Rich Warlock (Bronze Edition).

What couldnt be recorded ?
I tried, multiple times, to record my own percussion for these tracks, I even sought drummers to help, but ultimately I was left with no choice but to use the original percussion from the game. There was also some noises that I couldnt reproduce and so copied them from the original too.



Id like to thank the following people for their help, support and/or feedback on this project;

Mariska Neilsen
Ty (TSS)
Morgan Diaz
Pete Dale
Anthony Valance




[Xexxar] wrote :
This sounds very good in my opinion.
Can't wait to here more of them.

[Martin III] wrote :
Cool idea. I hope we'll hear more of this.
The demo has a nice "sound" to it. Reminds me a bit of Tubular Bells (cue stuffy British accent: "Two slightly distorted guitars..." ).

[Snipes] wrote :
Pretty badass man. Looking forward to seeing the finished product.

[Martin III] wrote :
Excellent! The title screen sounds a bit funny right in the middle, but other than that I do like these adaptations. Heavy guitar sound works well on Simone's Theme, heh.

[Xexxar] wrote :
They're awesome I really like them
Keep up the good work

[cyrax037] wrote :
Those are cool! Keep up the great work!

[Sladetheninja] wrote :
That's awesome. Any way you think you could do SF2 next ?

[Exevalon] wrote :
They sound pretty cool. Plan on doing the music for other SF games?

[Aldur] wrote :
The battle theme sounds rather too slow. Speed it up?
It sounds much slower, or doesn't flow as well as the original? I mean, Comparing the two side by side I guess what I'm saying is the flow isn't there? The others are good tho.

[Martin III] wrote :
It's a pretty good one. Doesn't seem at all slower than the original to me, actually. The three problems I noticed were:

1.The intro flourish(those first three or four notes which aren't repeated) doesn't sound quite as strong as in the original, I think because the notes aren't as sharply defined.

2.The guitar and the synth seem a bit out of sync in the second half.

3.I think it probably would have sounded better if it went on just a bit longer.

I really like the way the guitar punctuates the rhythm, though, especially in the first part

[Solby] wrote :
This is really cool. I'm attempting to learn guitar at the moment, but I'm about a month in and can only play the first 10 seconds or so of any given song.

I thought they were really well done. My only problem with the Town theme and Battle music was that it almost seemed like not enough of the original tune was taken out and it clashes with the guitar when they play at the same time.

[Grom] wrote :
okay ... im impressed.

take the town theme for example.... i havent even left any of the original tune in there !! the backing is 100% by me.

[Solby] wrote :
Well then....

I guess I would restate that as: I felt the backing was a little too prominant. Although in a way I'm more impressed now. Nice job.

[Martin III] wrote :
I love the arrangement; there's much more of a build-up to it. The different melodies are nicely layered, and mixed so that you hear everything just as you should. It's a fairly complex piece, and you've got it such that it doesn't sound like a mess.

[Tarrus] wrote :
I love soundtracks of the Shining Force series. I don't play guitar but I think that you done a fantastic job
Do you think that you will done the same for Shining Force 3 soundtrack? I love it!

[Exevalon] wrote :
Listened to some of the tracks and I think they are pretty good. My favorite is Enemy at the Gate, the Circus theme sounds very nice and I think the Castle theme has lots of potential, especially how it starts, but I think it still needs some work.
Shade Abbey sounds very awesome. I could just imagine your character walking through the lifeless town even though there are people walking around. Sounds brooding and melancholic.

[Stordarth] wrote :
Have to say I am impressed with all of them. even though there is the occasional timing issue, I know how hard it is to run separate tracks and get them to match up perfectly when merged. Epic win.

[Elvenfyre] wrote :
FREAKIN AWESOME
timing just needs a bit of work in the intro and it'll be perfect!

[Ty] wrote :
I like it!
I've only recently listened to the Shining Force soundtrack, but there's some neat stuff on there. Looking forward to hearing it with a guitar twist

[Elvenfyre] wrote :
haha, is the circus theme the evil town theme?

Have fun doing dark dragon, that could be an awesome piece done in metal.

[Ty] wrote :
You are a brave man indeed
Great to see the album released after all your hard work. I don't have much time right now (crazy moving stuff), but hopefully tomorrow or Tuesday I'll be able to give it a full listen and then start plugging it

[Newts] wrote :
Just downloaded the full album now - really impressed with it! Like you say they're really complicated tracks in the most part, with so much going on in terms of instruments and keys and scales and the like. I would never be able to come half as close as you, so I tip my hat to you in time-honoured Shining fashion!

[NORRIN_RADD] Wrote :
Dude you actually did it! 4 years in it's inception, but here it is! This is pretty much the first time anyone has recorded Shining Force 1's music on guitar, or anything else for that matter. This really is a refreshing and completely kick ass VG arragement!

I just finished listening to Battle 1, and I am definitely stoked. This is exactly like we talked about way back in the day dude. Shining Force music sounds so good on guitar!

I actually really liek that you used the original drums for this. It really adds to the nostalgia of the games all ready fantastic score.

Well done dude, seriously!

Whoa, Battle 3 is insane! And I really dig the clean part in Battle 4!

I remember way back in the day that audio rip you did for Shining Force was pretty much the only one you could get, anywhere. Dude, good times.

I noticed the shout out to me on the webpage as well. It has indeed been a long time since we regularily spoke. It's kind of sad, but hearing this album definitely brings back the extremely fond memories of us gabbing over MSN non stop. And all because we both really liked the soundtrack for Shining Force! That's such a cool thing man, that a friendship was formed based on the music of a game. It really puts everything in perspective, hearing this album of yours. I miss you too bro.

When I finish this god damned program at school (hopefully this summer), I'll try and meet up with you again on MSN, I promise.

Anyways dude, well done on the soundtrack. It has my highest approval. Shining Force for life!

Matt

[Grom] wrote :
Hey dude ! really nice to hear from ya after all this time ! we seriously need to catch up big time =] hehe.
I look forward to getting back into the swing of things on MSN this summer - and hopefully, we can start some collab work !!
Peace Bro !!