Blog - Page 4 of 5 - SOREN REIFF

January 7, 2013October 17, 2018

Studio Jams #47

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about my first appearance on the TV-show “Studio Jams”, episode #34. Today 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, 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.

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December 17, 2012October 17, 2018

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

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December 10, 2012October 17, 2018

My first “Studio Jams”

The other day I shared a link on my Facebook profile to a track I did for the american tv-show “Studio Jams”. I’ve played in two full episodes of Studio Jams. This is the story about the first international version of the show I did – recorded in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Several years ago I was contacted by TV-producer Tom Emmi – he was planning a trip to Europe and Scandinavia. Tom had heard about me through keyboard player David Garfield, and Tom wanted to invite me to participate in the first international version of the program Studio Jams.

He described the formular. I saw some samples from earlier Studio Jams and I was totally blown away – it’s some really great shows Tom is doing. Basically it’s a documentary about how musicians work and comunicate when they meet and jam without anything planed in advance. The episodes are shot in a recording studio, so you get the original sound from the instruments thru samples from the rehearsals, but also the recorded and mixed version of the final take of the jammed tune.

Soren_Reiff_Studiojams#34 — Soren Reiff in Studiojams #34

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December 3, 2012October 17, 2018

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

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November 28, 2012September 13, 2018

Why did I become a professional guitar player?

After writing about how thankful I am to be a musician, and how privileged I think I am to be able to live from my music, I think it might be logical to write about how this happened, and why I become a professional guitar player. Here’s a little story from the past …

Many years ago a young guitar player called me, and wanted to take private lessons from me – three hours a day, five days a week. The reason for this? He wanted to get all the gigs I had. I told him that it was a tough and intense schedule he asked for, but he was consistent. A couple of months later he showed up with his guitar a monday morning, ready to start. After the first day he was tired, after the second day he was very tired, after the third day he was exhausted … “couldn’t we just do something different the next day, like going to the tv-set where I worked and check out my rig or something?”. The fifth day he went back to the town he came for – had to reconsider his life and career plans.

A week later

He called me about a week later … “could I talk with him for a minute or two?”

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November 23, 2012October 17, 2018

Playing with Richard Smith

A couple of weeks ago I did some clinics and concerts together with guitar ace Richard Smith. We had some great days together and I definitely hope we’ll hook up again soon to do more of what we just did. Here’s a little something about those days.

Meeting Richard Smith

I’ve never met Richard before I picked him up at the airport a few hours before our first clinic the very same day. We had been skyping briefly once the week before, but beside that we have only been in contact by the internet. Kind of interesting starting point when you are supposed to do concerts and clinics without time to rehearse together.

How did we get to connect?

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November 15, 2012August 28, 2015

Kim S. Hansen’s keys on Let’s Play

Now it’s time for keyboards … today I’ll let you have a sneak preview of Kim S. Hansen’s keys on Let’s Play from my Gratitude album. When I started to work on this song the working title was Saturday Brunch, so don’t get confused 🙂

I introduced Kim earlier on this blog – we have know each other for more than twenty years now. But since he moved to L.A: and I didn’t, we haven’t seen each other that much. Maybe we have had a beer or barbecue when I’ve been in L.A. but that’s unfortunately not that often. And Kim and I haven’t been playing together for ages, even thou I definitely miss that.

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November 10, 2012October 17, 2018

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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October 29, 2012October 17, 2018

Michito Sanchez and his percussion for Let’s Play

If you have read my former posts concerning the development of my tracks, you know I’m going to write about Michito Sanchez and his percussion for Let’s Play today. If you haven’t read my former posts concerning this tune, I’ll suggest you listen to the samples I placed in those post before you continue … I think it’ll make this post much more interesting … but on the other hand … go ahead, read and listen – you can always return to the others posts later. And don’t get confused about the title – when I started the working title for the track was Saturday Brunch … sorry about that 🙂

Soren _Reiff_Michito_Sanchez — Soren Reiff together with Michito Sanchez

Soren Reiff and Michito Sanchez hanging in L.A.

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October 26, 2012October 17, 2018

Adding real drums and bass

Today I’ll write a little about the next stage in the development of Saturday Brunch. Today you’ll hear what happened when Gary Novak and Jimmy Haslip added their golden touch to my song, by adding real drums and bass, instead of my scratch programming.

I introduced Jimmy Haslip and Gary Novak earlier on this blog. If you haven’t read that post, I can easily sum it up: They are outstanding musicians who have played with almost every artist imaginable within the modern and groovy jazz world. I guess no matter what track you find them on, you won’t be disappointed with their playing.

I’ve also described my workflow around my demo’s and how I prepare my demo’s for the real sessions in an earlier post, so I won’t waste time with that here. Let’s move straight to the cut of this track.

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