Tremsetter in my guitar

Some time ago I wrote about how I got my old Valley Arts guitar back. As I wrote in that post it was a little weird at first to play that guitar again, but after a few hours, it felt so natural. I couldn’t believe it was ten years since I played that guitar the last time. Today I’ll write about a modification I’ve done to all my guitars with Floyd Rose systems and why I have this tremsetter in my guitars.

One thing that showed me how many hours I have spend with my Valley Arts Guitar back in the nineties, was when I changed the strings after the re-arrival. I took off the old ones, added some new and started tuning up. Without a reference note or tuner in sight I just turned the tuners till it felt right. When I subsequently plugged the guitar into my rig and turned on the tuner, it was in tune – A440 spot on. After ten years it just felt right and was right – nice.

When I had played my old Valley for some hours and decided that I wanted to buy the guitar back, I also decided that I would re-install the tremsetter that I had in the guitar back then. Continue reading “Tremsetter in my guitar”

My Washburn Strat

I’ve written about my red and brown Gibson ES-346, and I’ve written about one of my my old Valley Arts guitars, so it’s only appropriate to write about my old custom built Washburn Strat, that has been my main guitar for more than a decade!

I’ve used this guitar on tons of sessions, and on every TV-show I’ve done for more than ten years. But even though I can be quite nerdy about guitars, there are several things I don’t know about this one – for instance the model designation.

Soren Reiff's Washburn Strat
Soren Reiff’s Washburn Strat

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Studio Jams #47

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about my first appearance on the TV-show “Studio Jams”, episode #34Today I’ll write about my second Studio Jams experience – episode #47.

As I wrote in my first post about Studio Jams I was very happy to be invited to participate – and being invited back was an even bigger pleasure. So when Producer Tom Emmi asked me if I wanted to do a Swedish show, I agreed instantly.

Mattias Bylund, Jannik Jensen, Pontus Engborg, Tracy Silverman & Soren Reiff
Mattias Bylund, Jannik Jensen, Pontus Engborg, Tracy Silverman & Soren Reiff, outside Svenska Grammofon Studion, Gothenburg, Sweden

The musicians for Studio Jams #47

Tom told me that he would bring violin virtuoso Tracy Silverman, but wanted me to find the rest of the musicians. I hadn’t been living in Sweden for that long, so my network of Swedish musicians wasn’t that big. But I had connected to a Swedish drummer, Pontus Engborg on Myspace and Facebook. Pontus and I have a lot of friends in common from the L.A. scene.

Continue reading “Studio Jams #47”

The new pickups in my red Gibson ES-346

Earlier on in this blog I have written about my red and my brown Gibson ES-346. I covered details about the individual models and their materials, plus how I acquired the two guitars. This post is about the new pickups and electronics I have installed in the red one and why I chose as I did.

Even though the ES-346’s were really nice when I got them, I missed the thin distinct single coil sound you can get from a Strat-type guitar. In addition to this, I started to get a little irritated with the sound of the stock pickups. The neck pickup had a boost in the upper midrange and the bridge pickup was a little too bright for my taste. I could remove the midrange boost in the mix when doing sessions, but live it really started to annoy me.

Soren Reiff got a Seymour Duncan Jazz SH-2 in the neck position
Soren Reiff got a Seymour Duncan Jazz SH-2 in the neck position

Continue reading “The new pickups in my red Gibson ES-346”

Short scale kind of guy

I have already written quite a bit about my two Gibson ES-346’s. You know all the nerdy stuff about the model and how I got them … this is a post about why I’m into that type of guitars … or more precisely short scale guitars. 

My first “real” guitar was a Gibson Les Paul deluxe. For several years I played that guitar from early morning til late, late night. I must admit that I also had an eye for the Fender stratocaster after I’ve seen Eric Clapton live, but since I really digged Albert, B.B. and Freddie King I stayed true to the Gibson-team.

Soren Reiff & Ricahrd Smith - copyright@Henrik Delfer
Soren Reiff & Ricahrd Smith – copyright@Henrik Delfer

Continue reading “Short scale kind of guy”

My honey brown Gibson ES-346

Some weeks ago I wrote how I got my red ES-346 and after last weeks concerts I got a lot of questions about my honey brown Gibson ES-346 – so I guess it’s appropriate to write something about that one too, so here’s the story. 

When I wasn’t playing my new red ES-346 either in the studio or in the couch, I sat and surfed the net to find more info about the model – you know a typical male thing to do after the product is bougth 🙂

Only a few weeks after I bought the red one I found another one for sale! Ok, the model designation in the add was not ES-346, and the materials was not like the ones I wrote about when I told you about my red one, but the photo was of a honey brown Gibson ES-346!

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My red “roadworn” Gibson ES-346

A couple of years ago, keyboard player David Garfield introduced me to guitarist Paul Jackson jr. and thereby his Gibson ES-346 that he brought along with him for the gig. At the time the ES-346 was Paul Jackson jr.’s signature model. The guitar sounded fantastic and was super versatile. It had a full and massive tone like a Les Paul, with lots of sustain, and at the same time a warm and jazzy tone when it was needed. I was impressed and maybe a little in love.

Soren Reiff, Paul Jackson jr. & Forrest Robinson
Soren Reiff, Paul Jackson jr. & Forrest Robinson

After the gig I did some research and found that the model had been discontinued. I browsed the internet from time to time to see if I could find a used one, but without success.

Continue reading “My red “roadworn” Gibson ES-346″

Reunion with Val

This is a story about an unusual reunion. If we are friends on Facebook, you might already have read a few lines about this a couple of weeks ago, but here follows a more detailed account.

It all started when I got an email with an interesting offer: A former “girlfriend” would like to come and live with me again. I was a little anxious about how my wife would react to this. But when she heard about this old relationship, she said “go for it”. There’s a really good reason for this – because when I mention ”a former girlfriend”, I’m talking about a Valley Arts Guitar from the early nineties 🙂 Another reason might also be the fact that I don’t keep my guitars at home, so she doesn’t care that much about how many guitars I have 🙂

Over the years I have sold a few guitars. Luckily enough, I have only regretted a very few of my sales. One of the few sales I’ve regretted was the two Valley Arts Guitars I had during the nineties.

Continue reading “Reunion with Val”