Rick Reifenstein

I played with the Kinect for a little over an hour last night. Wow! It does everything Microsoft said it would. There was nothing I needed to excuse away as what you get with cutting edge tech. No! Kinect is awesome! Even though I ordered a few of the other games for Kinect, I only played all the games on “Adventures” to start with.  After the first round of “Rally Ball” I was ready for a short break and a glass of water. This thing gives you a whole body work out. I suspect that the fitness games for the Kinect will make the Wii Fit games look like retirement home exercises. Of course Kinect also allows you to use gestures and voice to control movies and navigate through the dashboard. All was easy to do and learn. Instructions pop up on the screen. I found the voice recognition to be very good. Despite being a little sore from yesterdays Kinect session; I plan on trying out the Kinect Sports tonight.

Fall has come to Virginia painting wonderful colors in the sky and on the mountains. While I have taken the time to enjoy them this year, I have also been very busy looking at upcoming New User Interface advancement both in the areas of computers and gaming technology. I am waiting for my Kinect to arrive. The downside it’s a Christmas present for the family so I’ll have to play with it in secret. I think that the impact Kinect will have with the computing world will be felt much broadly then just gaming. Motion capture will surely be integrated into the next Windows OS Win8, which will enable it’s use for small gestures and facial recognition as well as large scale manipulation of objects and data like we saw in the movie “Minority Report”. Microsoft Research is already working with this technology in the lab in the form of prototypes. It’s important to keep in mind though that these advancements take time. I’ve followed two Microsoft Research projects from just research to full prod

I love NUI's! I know Steve Jobs said that it's unnatural to have a touchscreen on a laptop because of arm fatigue. To a certain degree he's correct. But you don't constantly have your arms up at the screen. You do bring your arms to a resting positon. Teachers do it everyday when using black and smart boards in todays schools. After several weeks of using my new 20 inch HP multitouch screen at work, being forced to use a trackpad or a mouse is like going back to the stone age. I find that when I'm working at home on the laptop or at somone else's computer my natural instinct now is to use my fingers to move windows, close programs, touch and hold for the right menu choices. At first it doesn't seem natural because are used to using a mouse or a trackpad. It seems almost primative to think about using your fingers. But using your fingers to move things around and to select choices are the most natural. It's what we want to do in most situations if you wer

I spent much of today creating media to be played in a Silverlight player for the latest interactive kiosk in the Harrison Institute main gallery. This is v.2 of the kiosk. The aim of this version was to create a full screen player with a playlist that a user could navigate easily by touch. While Windows Media Player has big buttons for touch screens; the playlist is a little too tight for navigation by finger. Silverlight has some great tools built in that allow for large easy to navigate playlists. I also decided that I wanted some movment on the screen, but something that wouldn't seem out of place or distract the listener. I decided to create little movies based on slideshows using the cover art of the CD that the music was pulled from. Using the latest Windows Movie Maker software I created a neat little slidshow with fades and title FX. The slideshow was then imported into Expression Encoder 4 as many times as there were tracks. Then using the overlay feature each song video

I started working on the new touchscreen installation for the main exhibit gallery this morning. The original touchscreen failed to restart after a power glitch during a storm last week. The machine was due to be replaced anyway. I dismantled and removed the old machine from the pedestal. It will be replaced by an HP touchscreen run by a computer in the cabinet of the pedestal. However much to my disappointment the Bose speakers that are built into the pedestal take up too much space inside the cabinet of the pedestal to allow for a regular sized PC in side. At first I thought of using a small form factor Dell that we may have in surplus; but my colleague suggested a more devious plan. You see Apple doesn't have support for true multitouch for displays without a home brewed solution like Lux. Plus because of my development work for our Microsoft Surface located in one of our other galleries, I'm getting more comfortable and familiar with XAML and C#. SO.. the devious plan is to

Last week and this week have been centered on the creation of interactive touch computer programs. For the University Library I've been working on a plan to use moble devices and Microsoft tagging software to create an augmented experience in our exhibit galleries at the Special Collections Library. I'm also working on multi-touch based programs that would allow visitors to explore interactive maps and other learning programs centered on the archeological research that was done at the Flowerdew Hundred farm in Virginia. I have also been working on multi-touch software that would aid in the teaching of children with learning struggles. My wife and I homeschool our children and are always looking for new and exciting learning tools. NUI designs are actually an easy choice for children that require a tactile approach to learning. The hands on learning that can be achieved through touch computing combines both tactile learning and computer aided learning. I've decided to use

I'm deploying the latest interactive kiosk I've designed and set up for the new exhibit at the Mary and David Harrison Institute and Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library at the University of Virginia. The interactive display is running a media player that visitors can use to select and listen to African tribal music. It's part of the larger Global Collections exhibit at the Harrison/Small Library. More information on the exhibit can be found here... Global Collections Exhibit My major goal in this installation was to strip away the Windows desktop and replace it with a desk top with only the media player icon. The reason was so that I could achieve total lock down on the machine AND even after a reboot, only the media player with the current play list was available.

I had a great Labor Day weekend. Spent time with the family. Just hanging around the house. I did get some time in the studio and recorded some new material that I will post before too long. As you know I also am involved in some NUI (New User Interface) development at part of my work at the University of Virginia. I produced the following video to show of the Microsoft Surface computer table that I developed some applications for as part of the "Declaring Independence" exhibit at the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library. I hope you all had a great weekend.

I thought I would post a few entries from my Twitter feed that might be interesting for you guys.I wrote the guys who makes the MIDI controller. I'm really excited about the Fantastic Voyage re-work. I loved that movie when I was a kid and can't wait to show my kids. I'll wait till the renewed soundtrack and DVD come out. The David Lynch movie was cool. Not a biography but more of a film about what life would be like just hanging out with David.  Lunch time discoveries: MIDI Controller http://youtu.be/M3Zad5_eWVA about 3 hours ago via TweetDeck    Restoring the Weird Interior Sounds of Fantastic Voyage http://bit.ly/cb8ajD They are using Cedar plugins and a SADiE system. Fun read. 10:00 AM Sep 1st via TweetDeck      About to sit down and watch "Lynch" docum

Learning how to do camera tracking and some animation using Blender and Voodoo. It not too difficult. In a normal production having a story board and shot list would make things easier when you trying to keep track of where you are during the animation process. Plus I was doing this at home so there were some interruptions. This example didn't have a lot of tracking for Voodoo to do. It was a still shot which and was pretty steady. I have another example which I'll post later that shows footage shot with my iPhone and tracked. Then flew in a model from "Sol Command". It turned out OK. I want to next work on creating some atmosphere effects as well as some blender "camera" focus effects. Not bad for an hour or so of work.

Planning on doing some test shoots in the Digital Media Labs new video studio today. Testing audio from the Countryman mics, through the M-Audio console to the camera. While tape is rolling might as well test the new green screen backdrop installed this summer as well. I hate doing things with out any direction. Maybe I can come up with a little skit or subject to shoot around. In this picture you can see the new studio, the DeSisti lights in the grid, the SmartBoard in the background, and of course the Sony DVCAM with the new teleprompter attached.

While it's been availabel on YouTube for a while; I thought I would post it at the bottom of the blog page. It's in HD so you can enjoy all of LE Spry's great computer generated 3D images. The images include images created by the SDO (Solar Discoveries Observer) probe from NASA. We took first place with this video in a NASA sponsered contest, and got some pretty cool swag from NASA's Goddard facility. In other news just got word from Gary Streiner that this years Living Dead Festival is canceled. I'm deeply dissapointed and hope we can all look forward to a good scare in 2011.

July has been a busy month and one that went by at light speed. July was very busy at work. Kaltura video and audio content editing and delivery software has been a tool that is being adopted very rapidly here. Faculty are using in Wordpress sites for their classes, and departments are using it for delivery of content for websites about specific projects. I have been part of the team helping the a a couple of the first "test" cases. Eventually the whole University will be using Kaltura as a piece of the newly designed Collab (Sakai). I finally get to use my 14 years experience in audio production for web delivery. All of the above has made for a lot of meetings! I have also bee involved in getting our telecine machines up and running. I've been leading a team in figuring out what we need to get the telecine operations working. We have a very talented student doing the heavy lifting. After a few phone calls and hours of trial and error we think we are where we need to be t

My wife and I watched "The Book of Eli" the other evening. I really liked the film. What really stood out for me of course was the music. The music was stark and other worldly, which fit with the visuals on the screen. What was really great was that the music was done by Atticus Ross, who until now was only known by the fans of industrial electronic fans. No I can't say that a small music budget was the reason for choosing Atticus Ross as the composer, but it got me thinking about how we are seeing more and more relative newcomers to the motion picture scoring scene. Could it be that with budgets for movies getting smaller and smaller that producers and directors are looking into untapped resources for music? Maybe forcing them out of the traditional "Hollywood" score and venture into the world of the independent musician with a room fool of synths, guitars, drums, and other weird auditory oddities? The result is not only a smaller expense report in the area of

Good weekend in the studio. I needed to get back to writing new music for my licensing catalog. I needed to write in a new direction. I wanted to get back in touch with my progressive rock and electronic music background and combine that with the latest direction I've taken with writing music for film and TV. I started with good hard rock n roll drums. I had been wanting to get back into writing guitar based modern progressive rock riffs again, so I started there. I had borrowed the main riff from a song I wrote back in the early 90's with the rock band Prodigy. I was able to do with this cue what I wasn't able to do back when I performed this song originally which was add a string section, synths, and layers of arp'd percussive synth. I'm very happy with the result. I wanted soemthing Tool "like" but with my personality and I think I got that. What's next? No new projects in the studio yet. I am continuing to write for my licensing catalog. Mixin

June was a busy and exciting month hear at the studio. In the beginning of the month I composed and recorded an electronic score for a short film that was entered in the SDO (Solar Dynamics Observatory) "Capture the Sun" Contest. L.E. Spry and I took first place in our category. We were very happy with the results and it fueled our desire to do more. The film "Payoff" came in from Jack Russo's Film School. "Payoff" is the result of students work over the semester. It was a fun film to work on. The temp track had only about 4 cues, but I saw the need for a few more. The film put me in mind of what would be the first 12 minutes of a TV crime drama. Something along the lines of a CSI or Law and Order. That feeling actually pushed me in the direction of a mixture of synthesizers, rock, and orchestral elements. Two of the cues allowed me to flex musical muscles I hadn't used in a while. The temp score had some industrial electronic or house electronic

June 07 Little bits of update Time to shut down out on the deck. Watching a video on writing music for TV licensing. See ya behind the mixing console! :-) 11:39 AM Jun 5th Can't really plan anything today. Running audio for an event at the University from 1-3pm today. Maybe work in the studio tonight. 9:27 AM Jun 5th Small project I composed music for SDO "Capture the Sun" Contest. The video http://bit.ly/bcyxke The audio track alone http://bit.ly/bl44IS 12:44 PM Jun 4th Sent song title and credit info to Ships on Fire image guru L.E. Spry for the music I wrote for our entry in the SDO competition. 11:36 PM Jun 3rd Rig of choice in the studio tonight. http://tweetphoto.com/25140073 10:31 PM Jun 1st

Email filled morning here at HQ. Blocked off this morning to have coffee and breakfast in the office so I can catch up on contacting some people regarding possible scoring projects. It looks as if the late spring will be a lighter than I first thought. So I'm looking for some new scoring opportunities. Basically... I'm available! Earlier this month I submitted "Kings Chamber" to Music Dealers for consideration to be in a feature fantasy film.  I was kinda of shoehorning the song into what they were looking for; but I think it was close enough to be legitimately considered for the song. L.E. Spry, my partner in crime at Ships On Fire, came to me with a new short project. He is creating a 3d animated short as part of a competition surrounding the solar probe project that is headed up by NASA. We've got 2 weeks; so when I get the animation I'll have maybe a week. I love it! If know me then you'll know I LOVE pressure. I do my best work when the project I

Today was "Music Business Day" in the Office/Studio. There were several new pieces that were ready to be included in the catalogs of both Jingle Punks and Music Dealers.While Music Dealers has always been online for as long as I have been using them; Jingle Punks used to be snail mail centric until a few months ago. I was really excited when the Punks went electric on the submission process. I know feel like I don't have to wait till I have a full CD's worth of music before I burn and ship to New York. This round of submissions were full of diversity. Some orchestral with a beat. Some very ambient almost atmospheric. Two that were more Windham Hill acoustic piano and guitar pieces. Unfortunately other issues came up here at the house so only Jingle Punks got the new music. Music Dealers updates will have to wait till tomorrow. I haven't heard from John Johnson at Darkstone Entertainment as to whether he received my CD or if he has had a chance to listen. I unders

The birds are singing and the trees are slowly putting on their green. It's mornings like this and the evenings that follow that refresh my energy when things get busy. They are about to get busy. In an earlier entry I wrote about the possibility of my job changing a bit. Well it appears those changes are green lit. Starting...when ever I can swing it, I'll be spending half my time at the Digital Media Lab at the Univeristy of Virginia putting my 23 years of experience in music and audio production to work. I am excited to have the opportunity to do some instruction. The DML is the place on grounds for students, faculty and researchers can go and use and recieve instruction on how to use, digital media equipment. There are all kinds of projects being worked on. Audio, Video, Photography, Art, Virtual Reality, and Interactive Software Development, are areas that the DML works in. I'm very excited about the opportunity to be working in this team. I have some other thin

After a long, cold, and snowy winter in Central Virginia it looks as if Spring may be around the corner. This weekend’s temperatures are expected to be in the high 50’s close to 60 degrees. For me this year Spring will bring more than sunny days and warmer weather. It is also bringing two student films to score and possible changes in what I do at the University of Virginia. Russ Streiner, currently at the helm at the Pittsburgh Film Office and most famously known as Johnny from “Night of the Living Dead” and one of the producers of the film, has recently contacted me about working with film students at DuBois Business College in DuBois Pennsylvania. The idea is to get young filmmakers thinking about post production audio like soundtracks, not at the last minute but part of the overall planning of the project. On my part it is a great chance for me to make some connects with young and talented filmmakers. Spring is also bringing opportunities to do more work with students and

Last night I decided to hook up and power on an old reliable piece of gear that I used very often in the 90’s and a bit in the 00’s. The Roland GR-1. Before purchasing it; I would dream of the many doors this guitar synthesizer would open for me. I had Fripp/Belew dreams. I used it in Prog. Rock, Hard Rock and Industrial bands. However for the last 5 years it has sat untouched until last night. I literally blew the dust off it last night and powered it on. I forgot the rich tones that can be produced and some pretty good imitations of other gear in Roland's rich history. I had to trigger the synth with a midi feed from another keyboard. The GK-2 pickup cable that’s used to connect the guitar has seen much better days and after repeated accidental stepping on the the cable it has start producing many errors and terrible sounds from the synth. A new one will be ordered asap. Soon new pieces of music will be produced using the Roland GR-1 so stay tuned. In other news one of the comp

Winter is planning it last hoorah last night and today here in Virginia. Snow and ice are expected. I was planning on staying home today anyway. Staying home and enjoying a 3 day weekend with the wife and kids as well as some time in the studio/office will nice. I had a late night session last night til around 2 am. Finished up "Reflections of the Soul". I was having a real tough time finding the right synths and the right sounds, but was able to settle on something deep in folders of Kontakt. I also had some success with a little known simple but spot on synth called A Synth. Ran A Synth through Guitar Rig on the "Tomita Rig" patch I wrote which worked very well. I'm gonna have to remember that. There is a lot of my time that is being scheduled for non-music projects in the coming spring. My work at the University of Virginia, Harrison Institute will be keeping me busy in the worlds audio/video engineering, and interactive software development. My hope is t

Today was the first day back at the University after having 14 days off. I wasn't planning on 14 days but with the big snow fall we got in Virginia, I was snowed in for 2 of those days. Of course while everyone in my office was at home; as geeks we checked email, read forums, followed blogs and checked twitter feeds dealing with the latest IT news. So it's not so strange that most of our discussions were about ubiquitous computing, smart homes, tablets, Microsoft Surface and Microsoft's Natal Project. Heck even my meetings today with my supervisors were about Surface and Interactive Computing. Building mobile phone apps has also been put on to my todo list for the new year. All the while visions of the latest Richard K. Morgan novel I'm reading is dancing in my head. In the studio we're still in set up and bug squashing mode. I set up the Juno 106 up and ran it through Guitar Rig3. Only trouble is that the synth is dieing a slow and ugly death. Lot's of digital