Rick Reifenstein

50 Cent's show "50 Central" used a lot of my music last Fall. The Episode "Juice on the Loose" used the cue "The Shadows". Airing on MTV2, VH1 and BET several times in the Fall, the show resulted in a nice payday for me this month. History Channel's "American Ripper" is another one that appeared several times in the Fall and had a decent amount of my music in it. The Episode "Devil in the Details" in one of two episodes from the series with my music. "Ice Cold Killers" episode "Open Season" on Discovery Investigates also had music by me. My cue "Creeping Doom" had a nice size chuck of time in the series Fatal Attractions episode "Cry in the Dark". The series uses "Creeping Doom" a lot in their shows. The cue is perfect for thrillers! For licensing inquiries for your next TV episode, film, or game visit my Jingle Punks page at my  Jingle Punks page and click on licensing ...

Today was cue upload day. New cues were uploaded to Jingle Punks and processed. I then created a sampler to upload to soundcloud.com  https://soundcloud.com/rmreifenstein/april-2018-production-music-sampler Give it a listen and if you interested in any of those cues then get over to www.jinglepunks.com and look those cues up in the Jingle Player. I took a look at Band Labs version of Cakewalk today. I think the best thing is they included the TH3 guitar amp and FX simulator. It sounds great! The downside is it suffers from the same problems that the former Cakewalk did. After about 6 hrs it starts to hang. You could be in the middle of a session and it locks up. Waiting doesn't help. You eventually have to kill the process in task manager. Too bad.

Planning on making changes to my websites. This being one of them. I want to add music cues and videos. I'm doing a lot more on Instagram as well so look me up there as well. If you just search Rick Reifenstein you'll find me. Not too many folks with that name. Music news. Landed a nice placement in HBO's Vice News Tonight. I also started a new composing schedule in the studio which will increase the music output. Basically in February I decided to focus just on my Production Music composing. I can get easily distracted by offers to compose music for special projects. While that's cool and I will still evaluate projects case by case, I'm not going to be actively searching for them. I'm really concentrating on increasing my output. I'm really trying to saturate the Jingle Punks library with my cues. Right now Jingle Punks is the best way to license my stuff for projects. It makes the process clean and easy for all parties. Gotta run. More later. Links to n...

Whew! Time is flying by lately. Well Summer is here and we are busy! We've already done a few camping trips and taken the kayaks on a trip. Already did a little hiking too. I've been doing Augmented Reality experiments at the University lately. Mainly centered around using augmented reality in social media campaigns. I've been spending a lot of time in the studio lately. I have a lot of new cues out and ready. I've decided to go a different route with these cues. I thought I would go the non-exclusive and royalty free route. For a limited time you can license these cues from me through Music Dealers. There's a player down below. Click through and give a listen. If you interested in licensing a song, then click on the Music Dealers logo on the right of the player. The royalty free site isn't ready yet but probably in about 7 to 10 days I'll be able to get that information to you. Stay tuned for more....

Christmas has come and gone at Roundstone Cottage. The kids got what they wanted as well as some things they didn't expect but enjoy. I performed Pachebels Canon in D and Silent Night Christmas Eve. I always wanted to play the Canon in D, but never had a reason to learn it. I was asked this year to play with a choir who was going to sing an arrangement of Away in the Manger over top of my playing the Canon. I don't play live much anymore since concentrating on production music; so I was a little nervous. The performance went off without issue and the evening was very enjoyable. In other music news: I have music in Action Bronson Watches Ancient Aliens. If you've never seen this show, it's....different. It's on the VICE Channel so you'd have to expect different. The Episode is "Aliens and the Creation of Man". I have new cues to put into my Jingle Punks catalog this week. At least one big orchestral action piece. There are a few new electronic piec...

One of the coolest things about writing music for TV & Film is not only seeing what shows my music is in, but in what countries the shows end up airing in. Sometimes when I stop and think about it; it's really exciting to think about my music being heard in all the different countries. November marked the first time my music was heard in Hong Kong and Malaysia as part of "Going Deep With David Rees". Hello Malaysia & Hong Kong!! In November I saw continued airing of shows in the United Kingdom, Canada and Brazil. Pretty cool. Some of you may know that I also work as a technologist. As a technologist I often research new technologies and am tasked with figuring out how that technology might be used in the real world. Lately I have been thinking about augmented reality and how it could be used in music composition. What I am excited about is the potential for VST's (virtual instruments) to become augmented reality objects in a Hololens or something similar. I...

I've been thinking about my brand lately. A colleague of mine who works in marketing is always talking about how important it is to know your "brand". If you don't have a good understanding of your brand then it's very difficult to create a way to market yourself. So what is my brand? During my 20 plus years as a musician and composer I've written and played all kinds of different genres. Rock, Space Rock, Industrial Electronic, Ambient Electronic, Rockabilly, and Orchestral for all kinds of situations. Bands and stage productions; small independent films, and major TV shows. During all that time I never gave a thought to branding. I just wrote what ever style I thought was necessary. However since 2010, I've been fortunate to be represented by one of the best production music companies around, Jingle Punks. Since then I've been able get some great placements. Now I have data to look on and determine which styles have been getting the most work. S...

I'm looking forward to a long weekend with family. My in-laws should be arriving today. The weather seems like it will be nice for much if the weekend; however the Fourth looks like we might have thunderstorms all day. The studio has been quiet lately. I'm in the middle of my annual "re-tooling" period where I re-evaluate plugins and sounds before heading into a heavy writing and recording period. I've also been redoing my guitar setup in the studio. I've been getting pressure from friends lately to get out and play live again. I'm such a studio rat, and I haven't played live in 12 years; I don't know if I'd enjoy it anymore. Will see...

This weekend I was in need of a different approach in the studio. So I picked up my Roland GR-1 that I've had since the mid-90's. My goal was to use it for the whole track. Now of course many of the sounds in the Roland GR-1 are dated. They sound very 90's. However, the guitar synth offers articulation possibility that I can't get from a keyboard controller. When using strings in the GR-1 I can get more realistic sounding phrases. Of course the ability to use the language of guitar playing that I've developed over the past 30 years allows me to create pieces that are more complex. Now all the above being said I can't live and compose with sounds stuck in the 90's; so it's important to connect it with a sampler and new virtual synths. I'm always looking for better ways to get the music out of my head and new ways to manipulate the waveforms and notes on the screen. I'm definitely looking into using pen and touch more when working in my DAW. I w...

I've been using computers for over 20 years to compose and record music. During those 20 years I, like most, who use Windows based computers in our productions have gotten used to using ASIO drivers for our audio hardware. Well I think those days have come to an end. I read that with Windows 10, Microsoft gave their audio stack some extra attention. The result is that WASAPI is way more robust than in the past. Cakewalk posted on their website that Microsoft worked closely with the major DAW makers out there to ensure their software would perform better using Microsoft drivers. I decided to test this last night in the studio. I have to agree that using the WASAPI drivers on my legacy M Audio gear gave me much lower latency at higher bit rates than with the ASIO drivers. Another side effect seemed to be more robust performance in Cakewalk Sonar X3 Studio. Since this isn't a tech audio blog, nor am I an audio technology professional I'm not gonna start posting a long list o...

In the studio today to work on two items on my to do list. 1. Finish a few pieces for a wedding I was commission to compose and record music for; then upload them to my online folder for sharing to the couple. 2. Compile master list of tracks to upload to Jingle Punks. Once the list is complete I'll start mixing and mastering. My goals is to have new music upload this week to Jingle Punks. More later...

While the sun isn't shining today; this morning was made bright with blueberry pancakes with fresh blueberries, and covered in wonderful homemade red raspberry syrup. Fireworks at the lake are planned for tonight. We hope that the rain will hold off. Worked in the studio yesterday. Re-recorded an old song, "Filth", from the band days. Updated and arranged especially for production use.

Here's the latest from the studio. "Dad's Groove" was written on Fathers Day so hence the title. The initial riff was inspired by Clutch. I then added a Deep Purple vibe to it by adding the Hammond B3. The B3 mirrors the Bass line with slight variation to add some depth. The guitar is the 1st generation Jo Satriani model Ibanez with the original DiMarzio "Fred" pickups run through a Randall amp simulation. The gain is cranked, eq slightly scooped and a little presence added. Then it's run through a 4x12 Marshall cabinet simulator with impulses of Celestion greenbacks. No other FX or tweaking on the guitar. I wanted it to sound raw. Enjoy! https://soundcloud.com/rmreifenstein/dads-groove My Soundcloud page is a good way to hear the newest stuff from my studio and production music catalog.

Summertime is here and as usual I'm trying to balance time in the studio with time outside enjoying summer activities. Living next to a big lake with wonderful beaches doesn't help. So I usually shift studio time to the evenings or take advantage of wet rainy days. The kids are in the middle of their swim season. We also have had our fair share of picnics, beach parties and time out on the lake. Great summer fun! Summer also brings visitors that come and stay at the house. This weekend we have my Father -in- Law visiting. His visits usually result in long discussions fueled by good food. I'm not sure what 4th of July will bring. We usually have a pool party with the swim team families, but the weather forecast is calling for rain so we may miss out on fireworks at the lake. Studio News: I've been working on new stuff for #Jingle Punks. Some Rock tunes and EDM pieces. Jingle Punks got my piece "Plucky Theme" in a Blue Cross of California technology video...

I've been working on new music for Jingle Punks. The new stuff has a nice mix of electronic, orchestral and some rock. My goal is to have to available by the end of summer. This spring "Plucky Theme" was used in a Blue Shield of California technology video.Nice placement! I released some of the tracks from my production music catalogue on SoundCloud; so head over to SoundCloud and look me up to get a listen to those. I'm also working on a commission to compose and record music for a wedding. Not a usual request but I'm happy to do it. I am also will be starting another commission shortly for Evan City Pa. They do Halloween and Fall festivals every year and would like me to do supply the music. It's very early yet so I'm not sure what styles will end up in the mix. Lastly I'm still debating whether to play the Living Dead Festival this year. What do ya think?

The studio has been quiet this week. Took a mini vacation with the family. Took a couple of days at a resort hotel with an indoor water park. It was a nice way to kick some winter blues. I've been revisiting some older material; doing some remastering and re-recording. I also refreshed the tracks on my SoundCloud page.  https://soundcloud.com/rmreifenstein

Last night I watched one of the latest video's from The Hollywood Reporter which talked with Hans Zimmer, Marco Beltrami, Danny Elfman, Trent Reznor and John Powell. You can watch it on youtube here: It's always good to listen to how the A-list composers deal with issues we all face as composers writing for picture. Granted the projects I have worked on are nowhere near the same league as the projects these composers have worked on; however they share the same fears, anxiety, and pleasure in the same things that I believe many of us who compose music for picture. One area they talk about is how your "ears" change when you listen to your music with others in the room. You hear the music differently when your listening with someone else than when you are composing. Your suddenly not in "your" head but in someone else's. You sense things differently. Sometimes the "magic" that you felt when you were composing the piece or even all the way thro...

2014 was a great year! My family was healthy and we were able to make some fun mini vacation trips. My music was heard in more countries and in more shows than before. I signed an exclusive agreement with Jingle Punks music. I'm so excited about the opportunity to expand my work with a great company like Jingle Punks! I look forward to providing quality production music for Jingle Punks clients. My work at UVA this year was filled with lot's of projects and challenges. But with a great team like I have; those projects and challenges were handled successfully. This is an exciting time in the world of technology. As a technologist working in academia there will no doubt be lot's of testing and learning of the latest trends and the impact it will have on higher education.   So what's next? Continued releases of production music through Jingle Punks. I also am planning a better way of using social media to let you all know when new music is available and projects I'm...

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.