Sound Factory (band)

Sound Factory is a band in the Pop / Jazz / Soul Italian music scene formed in Rome, Italy who recorded with some great musicians and among them there is Mike Stern, one of the best electric guitarists of his generation.

The members of Sound Factory are Julie P. (vocals & programming), Giovanni “MJ” Signoretti (piano & keyboards) and Roberto “Bob” Baruffaldi (drums & more).

In summer 2002, at a musical and poetry event in Rome, where many different artists followed one other, Giovanni played for the first time with the singer/songwriter and composer Julie P. as an acoustic duo, piano and voice. After this the pair decided to start working together joining their different musical backgrounds, giving birth to the Sound Factory project. Giovanni then started along with Julie the work of production, creating new songs, changing some of her old songs and taking care of the arrangements and composing the parts of all the instruments.

The intense work of the pair gave birth to the release of “Dreaming on” (2007), a CD including thirteen tracks and featuring the precious collaboration, as supervisor and more, of the drummer Roberto “Bob” Baruffaldi who, other than being part of the live line-up (together with Giacomo Anselmi/guitar and Fabio Penna/bass and Valerio Passi/2nd guitar), also entered the project in full title.

The project features excellent musicians like Giacomo Anselmi (gtr), Simone Ceracchi (bass), Fabio Penna (bass), Valerio Passi (gtr),
the bass hero Lorenzo Feliciati, the bass master Luca Pirozzi, the jazz italian legend Rocco Zifarelli (gtr) and the great and amazing jazz guitarist Mike Stern on four tracks.

They have a contract with Tunecore, the digital distributor and the album will be available soon on Itunes.

Fans have great expectation for an upcoming tour with important musicians as guests and they will know something more soon on the official Sound Factory myspace page.

Julie P. - Biography

Julie P. is a composer, songwriter, singer, dj (samplings, turntables), excellent sound and pro-tools engineer (she had her first home studio when she was seventeen) and record producer. She started composing music and playing at the age of thirteen. She started very early her career as a singer/rapper, at the very beginnings under the name of Lady Ice and later as Julie P.

Later on, in 1987, she teamed up with Ice One, well known dj and graffiti artist, producing some of the most interesting bands and artists among the underground Italian hip hop movement: Colle Der Fomento "Odio Pieno" (Irma/Virgin Records), Frankie Hi-NRG MC "La Morte Dei Miracoli" (BMG 1997), Ice One "B-Boy Maniaco" (1995 Irma/Virgin), Power MC's and produced a song for the talented Italian pop singer/songwriter Niccolò Fabi, "Immobile" feat. Frankie Hi NRG MC.

With her band Power M.C.'s she took part to a movie about incest "Le amiche del cuore" directed by Michele Placido and played the role of herself on stage.

In the early 90's Julie took part also to a famous TV show "Gran Premio" hosted by the tv legend Pippo Baudo and several other tv shows.

The artistical connection split up in 1997 and later Julie worked with producer Biagio Pagano, the head of Via Veneto Jazz, one of the best Italian jazz labels, who at the time was involved also in relevant pop productions.

She produced tracks (also singing some of them) on Il Bagatto "A Bag's Life" (2001 BAOL/SELF), rapper and author of a book.

She continued the collaboration with Il Bagatto giving her contribution merely as vocalist in his new album "Il viaggio del pazzo vol.2" (2007 Universo), one of the most downloaded italian rap/hip hop albums on Itunes.

Later collaborated with Dj Jurij with the song "See the Light".

She also acted in the successful avant-garde version of the classic Ulysses named Hypertext Ulysses by Luigi Cinque and with her verses has been a welcome guest for several editions of the poetry festival in Rome RomaPoesia.

In 2002, at a special musical and poetry event in Rome, where many different artists followed one other, she played for the first time with the pianist and composer Giovannni Signoretti as an acoustic duo, piano and voice. After this the pair decided to start working together joining their different musical backgrounds, giving birth to the Sound Factory project. Giovanni then started along with Julie the work of production, creating new songs, changing some of her old songs and taking care of the arrangements and composing the parts of all the instruments. The intense work of the pair gave birth to the release of "Dreaming on" (2007), a CD demo including thirteen tracks and featuring the precious collaboration, as supervisor and more, of the drummer Roberto "Bob" Baruffaldi who, other than being part of the live line-up (together with Giacomo Anselmi/guitar and Fabio Penna/bass), also entered the project in full title. The project features excellent musicians like Giacomo Anselmi, Simone Ceracchi, Fabio Penna, Valerio Passi, Lorenzo Feliciati, Luca Pirozzi, jazz italian legend Rocco Zifarelli and the amazing Mike Stern, one of Julie's best friends, a great soul.

Roberto "Bob" Baruffaldi - Biography

Roberto Bob Baruffaldi takes the role of a busy drummer both in live and studio sessions (with different TV appearances) from more than twenty years now with several contributions that also cover the jingles recordings area.

He played with different artists and several prominent bands like the rock-trio Sinergia and the Final Exit fusion project he shared along the road of its different shapes with great guitarist and composer Max Capriotti.

Bob is always busy playing live and doing studio sessions with different artists and he has just finished to work on the 1st CD Dreaming On from his big project Sound Factory. The Cd has just been released and features such great players like Mike Stern and Rocco Zifarelli just to name a few; he played the drums on all tracks and gave a meaningful contribution in terms of musical arrangements and directions along with his fellows and great partners-in-crime Giovanni MJ Signoretti (composer, arranger, programming) and Julie P (singer, arranger, programming).

The CD release will be followed by a tour and also a play-along package for drummers related to the music of this CD, will see the light and it will also feature charts for some of the tracks and grooves transcriptions.

He is also busy as a drum teacher and he's the main instructor at the drum department at Sonus Factory school of music in Rome. He had a past collaboration at Ettore Mancini's Drum Studio that has been his teacher for a long time since the time of the UM where Bob graduated several years ago. He also had a past collaboration teaching at the Università Della Musica and he keeps teaching occasionally at Percento Musica music school located in Rome, Italy.

He teaches drum techniques and he’s heavily involved with the promotion of his "full" project called Drum & Sounds that is strongly connected with the knowledge of the sounds of the drum set in every situation, both live and in studio. This project keeps him busy doing several clinics where he explain his concepts through an in-dept analysis about the development of the sound of the drums starting from the learning of all of the needful basic elements that should leads every drummer to get the abilities to being able to do a proper tuning of their instrument and that expands until the phonic principles necessary to properly record the drum set in live and in-studio recordings environments.

Due to the large interest shown by the people at his clinic Bob has plans to start recording his first instructional DVD called Drums & Sounds that will be followed by a related book.

His large amount of interests spans through different directions keeping him busy (according to his drumming schedules) in the past years being the drum tech with the likes of Vinnie Colaiuta, Virgil Donati, Gregg Bissonette, Steve Smith and Mike Portnoy. He's also involved as a contributor (reflecting his great passion and attitude for writing) for the the leading Italian drumming magazine Percussioni (along with its consociate Chitarre) for which he wrote more than 450 articles regarding interviews, instruments tests, multimedia reviews and stand-alone articles like his vastly acclaimed two-parts article Tuning Drums that received the cover on May and June 2003 issues. He also represents the magazine Percussioni participating at the world's greatest musical events.

The set currently (and proudly) used is a Gretsch Custom Grand Prix that it’s permanently set up and miked in his own studio "The Secret Place", ready to record any kind of drum tracks. Other brands and custom drum sets (made under personal, accurate specifics), snares and cymbals, are used for playing in clubs and other situations.

Bob also likes to use (he's not an endorser) Zildjan cymbals and Drum Art snare drums and sticks, and Yamaha hardware. The drumming influences comes from Vinnie Colaiuta, Jeff Porcaro, Stewart Copeland, Matt Chamberlain, Tony Williams, Manu Katche, Dave Weckl, Gary Husband, Phil Gould and Gary Novak just to name a few but the main influence always comes from music and non-drummers musicians. In fact, favorites musicians are primarily piano and guitar players like Pat Metheny that is Bob's real musical hero.

Robertopeland's multiples activities as a drummer are proudly sponsored by Percussioni magazine, Dori acoustic booth and Acustica drum store.

"Drumming and Music... they are always been some of my deepest dream, and the only thing I ever wanted". Robertopeland

Discography

• Sound Factory - Dreaming On (2007)

External links

• SOUND FACTORY AT BATTLE OF THE BANDS 2007
• SOUND FACTORY AT ALL ABOUT JAZZ
• SOUND FACTORY HOMEPAGE
• SOUND FACTORY MYSPACE OFFICIAL PAGE
• MIKE STERN OFFICIAL WEBSITE
• ROBERTO BARUFFALDI @ MUSIC SCHOOL
• TuneCore Website
• Interview with CEO Jeff Price

Songs snippets

• Memories | Mike Stern (gtr) | Lorenzo Feliciati (bass)
• Powerful Music | Mike Stern (gtr) | Luca Pirozzi (bass)
• Soul Bride | Mike Stern (gtr) | Fabio Penna (bass)

Licensing

• Permission is granted from the band to copy, distribute and/or modify this document.
• PERMISSION 1
• PERMISSION 2