Rick Reifenstein

Exciting news this month! I signed an exclusive artist agreement with Jingle Punks music. Jingle Punks is the premier creative music agency. Custom music. Licensed music. Servicing film, television and brands. I'm very please to continue to work with Jingle Punks but with even more focus. I've been releasing music through Jingle Punks since 2010 and all of my music that has been placed in TV shows since then has been through Jingle Punks. They are a great team! The completion of this deal is good timing since I am starting to finish up my Fall collection of tracks for film, and TV. I've got Ambient Electronic, Orchestral, and Rock tracks ready for final touches and mastering. It's the time in the process where I put on my producer hat and get honest with my artist self as to what works and what doesn't. I have found over the years that 'time' is a good tool to use for evaluating tracks. I like to get away from a track after a while. When I come back to it la

Morning coffee conversation with my daughter turned into looking up people I used to know in the "business". One that always blows my kids mind is producer Gary Hartle who worked on shows like Avengers Earths Mightiest Heroes. My dad used to work with Gary when my Dad was a film editor in the 80's.They both worked for Kensington Falls Productions. As a teen boy into superheroes; seeing Gary draw Marvel type characters was awesome. Now I'm a father of a very talent daughter who can draw anime characters as good if not better than many of the pro studios. I can't draw to save my life. My dad, brother, and daughter have that gene. I got the music gene. I hope that my daughter can go after her dream. My dream came late in my life which led to my odd professional life currently. Director of Technology by day and TV and Film composer at night and weekends.

As a kid while staring at the back of Isao Tomita albums (yes vinyl albums) I dreamed about someday owning audio equipment that were stamped with the names I saw in Tomita's studio. Names like Moog, Roland, and Bode burned into my mind as "must haves" for when I had my own studio. I've been successful in owning two out of the three names. I own a Moog synthesizer and three pieces of Roland equipment. My first of the Roland brand was my trusty go to keyboard MIDI controller, the PC 200 MkII. I't survived many smokey bars, clubs, and art galleries. It's lived through cold over nights in the back of vans and in the trunks of cars; many times with no case and crammed in what ever space was available. It's hard plastic shell survived falling of the top of a pile of gear on a cart during load ins and outs. However, every time I needed it, it would turn on and be ready to go. Now however after 17 years it's started to show it's age. As I have transitio

Hello Japan! Just found out that the Nat Geo show "Too Cute! Puppies!" that has my song "The Mission" in it, aired in Japan! That very cool! Japan is one of the places I want to visit at some point. Also my song "Lux Atrum" was used a lot by the Canadian show E Talk. You can check out the song in the player on my blog at the top of the page.

I’ve been working on my Fall 2014 additions to my Jingle Punks catalogue. I’ve also been including the Roland GR1 guitar synthesizer in my set up in the studio. I used it a lot in the past for performance and recording; but since I’ve started composing for TV and Film I haven’t been using it as much. I find however that it’s a good way to get a fresh take on a new piece or get me out of a writing rut. I've been a guitarist for over 30 years and playing keyboard for only half that time. I think I'm a much better composer with a guitar in my hands. My hope is the update to the catalogue can be ready by Thanksgiving of 2014. In the meantime I have uploaded 2 songs from my Winter 2014 update and they are available in the player at the top of the page. Moonless 1st movement is the first part of a three part piece written for piano, violin, and bass. It has moments of suspense and sorrowful violin phrases. There is a version of the piece arranged for an orchestra; however I wasn’t

Summers at the house are usually a busy time with kids swim team practice and meets. Mini vacations to amusement parks and water parks are the second big items on the list. Summer is pretty much a good time for me to let my creative batteries recharge. I did however spend some time in the studio composing and recording some music for my daughters animated short she is creating. It was fun working with her on a creative project. There is still more work to be done on the film. I just scored the first couple of minutes to give her an idea what is possible. I was impressed by the fact that she didn't just agree to what I wrote; she listened carefully then politly said that it didn't quite fit with what she was looking for. She then gave me some examples to listen to. Typical director; going for the temp tracks straight away! ;-) There are some projects taking shape for the near future. One is to continue writing music for Dr. Kathy Gruvers guided meditation recordings. The next o

Beautiful day here in Central Virginia. Soccer this morning, nice afternoon visit with Father inlaw. Nice relaxing day! Speaking of relaxing I wanted to share with you all the link to the iTunes store that contains the meditations and visualizations for which I wrote the music. Even if you aren't the meditation type person; give it a listen. If you like ambient electronic music, your gonna love these. meditations & visualizations on iTunes

Before the holidays I discovered that my piece titled "The Kings Chamber" was used in an episode of Last Call with Carson Daley on NBC. The episode had Neil Gamain appearing. Being a fan of Neil Gamain's work, I was interested in seeing the episode. I finally saw the episode the other day. During the interview Neil is talks about his writing for Doctor Who and how that was a dream come true. My music appears when he starts talking about when Moffet asked Neil to create a new version of the Cybermen. That's cool! As a big Doctor Who fan from the Tom Baker years this is really fun! I can now play Three Degrees of Doctor Who by saying that my music appeared in an interview with Neil Gamain when he was describing his writing for Doctor Who.

Over the years I've scored about many live theater productions. I love live theater. I even have my undergraduate degree in acting and directing for theater. Composing an original score for a theatrical production can be an exciting experience; it can be daunting as well. Especially if what your composing is underscoring action on stage. Not difficult if what your working with is an opera. But your normal run of the mill dram? That's a different story. If your reading this you are probably familiar with what I am referring to when I say underscore. It's that music that accompanies a scene that adds mood or creates a certain emotion. Most of the time your not aware it's there. That's a good thing! It means the composers ego got out of the way and actually supported the scene. In theater, music is usually found during transitions, preshow and intermission to help set the mood and maybe cover over the sound of stage crews changing scenery. As a sound designer for theat

The evenings of this past week were spent at the local theater for whom I volunteered to write music and sound design work. The show opens tomorrow night. My family has been very involved in this little production. My youngest children are acting in it. My oldest did some set design and painting, and my wife brought her craft and former stage manager skills out of retirement. While it’s been nice to be involved in the production; we will look forward to some quiet family time and not so much running around. I’m happy with the music and will be sharing it soon with you all. I’m looking forward to getting into the studio soon. I’m continuing to compose and record music for Dr. Kathy Gruver’s meditation project, as well adding to my Jingle Punks production music catalog.  

Getting ready to watch Microsofts Build conference sessions and keynotes this week. One session I will definitely be watching is on Day 3. “ Sequencers, Synthesizers, and Software, Oh My! Building Great Music Creation Apps for Windows Store .” http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Build/2014/3-548 Why?? It’s simple really. I have been using Windows for composing and recording Film and Theatrical music and SFX since the mid nineties’. While I have used Macs for music production from time to time; I always seem to find a reason to go back to Windows based machines. I guess it’s a comfort level thing. I know how Windows handles digital audio recording, I know how it handles MIDI, and I know the software that runs on it to make music. After 20+ years of composing and recording, my workflow is based very much on the modern Windows environment. Especially with Windows 8 having One Drive so well integrated I use it for sending files to clients, receiving files from clients, backing up documents

It's been very busy at Reifenstein House. My kids are involved in a local stage play, as well as a few sports teams. Seems like rehearsals and practices are coming together as a perfect storm, fighting for time. But the play is a good thing and gives the kids a chance to experience that which was a big part of my life over ten years ago. At one time theater production was my main focus outside music. As fate would have it have also gotten involved by agreeing to be the sound designer and engineer. Of course that's not all that's going on. I am currently writing and recording music for a meditation series by award winning author and leading authority on health and wellness issues Dr. Kathy Gruver. I've known Kathy since college and have composed music for her for some of her other projects. I like the project because it allows me really dive deep into slow evolving and layered synthesizer patches. Something I always have enjoyed creating. Of course I am continuing to w

March 3 brought sleet and snow to Central Virginia; causing UVA to cancel classes and allowing non-essential personnel to stay home. So I'm using today to get sound cues ready for a community theater production my kids are involved with. It's been years since I put together sound FX for a theatrical production so it's a nice little diversion from the production music I've been writing lately. I have been recording a lot of production music lately. Right now I have three pieces currently in various states of being done. It's typically how I compose lately. I'll work on one to a certain point, leave to rest, while I move to another piece. Then I go back and tweak the previous one with fresher ears. This keeps me from "burning out" on a piece. If your ears are tired, then you can't hear anything new. The recent spark of creativity is largely due to my sample collection getting a nice big boost from some recent additions to the collection. The additi