Rick Reifenstein

Yesterday was a day off from the University and a day home in the new studio/office. This was the first full day in the new studio/office. I have noticed being on the main floor of the house meant more coffee consumed during hours spent in the studio/office than normal. HHMMM I think there is a correlation there. :-) Most of the hours were spent working on an arrangement of music for the Library at the University. However it proved too difficult a task for the amount of time I have. During that same time period I have to produce a video showing off the Microsoft Surface installation in our "Declaring Independence" exhibit at the Harrison Institute. I spent the morning putting together the monitoring system and loading some more software on the computer. Mostly yesterday was trying to figure and configure which ever DAW system I was going to use. I have an older Cakewalk Plasma DAW, but it doens't support VSTi's; I also have the latest Reaper DAW. Reaper crashed server...

The Living Dead Festival 2009 really grew this year. They were however plagued by rain all week so arrangements for performances had to change. The crowds were smaller than expected; but the ones who came were big fans of the movie. One of my favorite parts was the exhibit by Andrew who has collected NOFLD for over 20 years. Probably the best moment for me was a conversation with Russ Streiner who was of course Johnny in Night of the Living Dead but was also the films producer. He and I talked about me getting in touch with student and indie film makers to provide free licensed music for films. He and I along with Jack Russo will be discussing in the coming months how best to work with their students at DuBois college Film making course to deliver fresh original soundtrack music for their works. If you are or know someone who is looking for original music for soundtracks for a film please contact me. I am willing to wave licensing fees! There are 2 new projects that just got put on the...

A reminder that I'll be performing at the 2009 Living Dead Festival in Evans City Pa. where the movie was shot. The ONLY festival organized and approved by the original cast and producers including Russ Streiner, Judith Ridley and Jack Russo writer of the movie "Night of the Living Dead". I'll be performing live cinematic horror music that will get everyone in the mood for classic horror. As spooky darkness approaches; the tone of the music changes too. Soundtrack music created live for the ghouls as they wait for the original cast to take the stage before the movie. I'll start around 5pm. http://www.thelivingdeadfest.com/ I'm starting rehearsals this week.

On Saturday night I had a great conversation with Gary Streiner about the 09 Living Dead Festival. Seems like it's really grown this year. It's a 2 day event with a festival like atmosphere on both days. There will be live music and DJ's. The second night will have the same stuff going on; but the big event is the outdoor screening of the movie. Gary asked if I would play live before the movie again this year. I really enjoy doing it. Live ambient electronic horror music on a spooky Halloween night! Can't get better than that. I'm planning on a slightly more involved set up so as to allow for a deeper sound. Maybe some sound samples from the movie as we get closer to the screening. Head over to I should be starting somewhere around 5pm or so. Meanwhile back in the studio to continue on the latest set of cues to send to Jingle Punks. This weekend I completed 2 really great exciting cues that should feel at home in an action game promo or maybe a History or Discovery...

As we head into one of my favorite months; I started thinking about last year during October I was up to my faders in horror music. Director/Producer Gary Streiner was putting together a video montage for the 2008 Living Dead Festival in Evans City and asked me to compose some music for it. The video was made up of previously unseen photographs and posters from the movie. We were working long distance and had many late night Skype chats as I composed the music. As with many projects it came down to the wire. He was dealing with getting time in the post house to put the video together as well as new material coming in that he was hoping to shoe horn into the video while I was composing. Usually notes to me were..."Sounds great , but I need a couple more seconds cause we added a new photo to that section" or "We need to shorten the music under the titles because the program doing the titles only has one damned speed!" Gary was great to work with and enjoyed talking sh...

Before I give an update on projects in the studio I want to talk about Isao Tomita. When I tell Electronic Music students today that he is one of my major influences they always ask "Who?" It surprises me how many people don't know this man. His albums I think are just as important as Wendy Carlos. Maybe more so. He didn't just redo the classics with a synthesizer he arranged the pieces for synthesizer and used sounds that ONLY a Moog can make. I used to sit for hours reading the back of my fathers LP's, memorizing the list of equipment Tomita used. It's where I started my electronic music self study and research. What other 12 year old would know what a Bode Ring modulator does. Or that a Roland Space Echo was a must have item. Thanks to Mr. Tomita I did. His human voices singing were other worldly. His strings lush. His music is the stuff of fantasy. I found a few videos of him working in his studio and I was like a kid meeting his favorite superhero. He is...

OK so before someone says "That's not really revolutionary!" I'd like to qualify that the goal was not to spend extra money with new sound cards. The idea was to use my existing 2 systems; one Apple based and one Windows based and get them working together with Logic as the master program. The result was using my master keyboard controller as the link. Logic sends MIDI information out to the keyboard through USB then the keyboard passes the information to the Windows box running a VST host by using a regular 16 pin MIDI cable. The audio from the Windows box them comes back to the Mac running Logic and records it on an audio track. The result is I can continue to write using MIDI whether I'm using an Apple past softsynth or a windows based softsynth. I now have the best of both worlds; with Logic Pro as the center of the sonic center of the universe. I gave the previously mentioned set up a test by writing a new cue for the next set of cues for Jingle Punks. I crea...