Justin Meldal-Johnsen: From Beck to Ima Robot
Justin Meldal-Johnsen: From Beck to Ima Robot
As one of the most in-demand bassists working out of Los Angeles, Justin Meldal-Johnsen relies on Pro Tools M-Powered and the MicroTrack 24/96
As one of the most in-demand bassists working out of Los Angeles, Justin Meldal-Johnsen relies on Pro Tools M-Powered and the MicroTrack 24/96
Like many pros, Justin Meldal-Johnsen developed his career by identifying opportunities and making the most out of them. In 1996, he quickly moved from being the bass player for Beck to the musical director for the entire live band. And since then, he has earned recording, production and songwriting credits with an exhaustive list of artists, including Macy Gray, Tori Amos, Air, The Mars Volta, Garbage, Ladytron and many others.
Owing to years on the road, Meldal-Johnsen is a veteran of laptop rigs, which he currently uses with his own band, Ima Robot. “All the band members are quite technologically inclined,” he explains, “and we all have PowerBook-based rigs that we take on the road. It all involves a lot of soft synths and multi-track recording with small interfaces. Through the year-long world tour we did, I'm quite used to the small laptop studio and an Oxygen8—and getting a lot of programming, ideas and even possibly full-fledged tracks done.”
Many of Ima Robot’s songs start out on the road. “I think a good chunk of our new record that we're in the middle of right now began on tour,” Meldal-Johnsen explains. “Three of us in the band use Pro Tools M-Powered. Someone will start something, and he'll either complete it entirely and we'll take it to our main studio or my home Pro Tools HD rig, or it'll bounce around between laptops. It's been very, very easy to do stuff this way with that sort of extreme portability and compatibility between different rigs.”
Meldal-Johnsen is also an avid fan of M-Audio’s new MicroTrack 24/96 solid-state mobile recorder. “It's blowing my mind,” he enthuses. “It’s what every producer should have and probably has dreamed of having for a long time. I can just record the final pre-production arrangements of a song in the MicroTrack. And as MP3s, I can send them around, via e-mail, to all the musicians and they can have immediate documentation of what they had achieved in pre-production that day. Then I can import that file into a Pro Tools session and have it as a handy reference during the actual recording. Simple, but really helpful—it saves me a lot of time because I no longer have to do analog transfers into Pro Tools.”
Owing to years on the road, Meldal-Johnsen is a veteran of laptop rigs, which he currently uses with his own band, Ima Robot. “All the band members are quite technologically inclined,” he explains, “and we all have PowerBook-based rigs that we take on the road. It all involves a lot of soft synths and multi-track recording with small interfaces. Through the year-long world tour we did, I'm quite used to the small laptop studio and an Oxygen8—and getting a lot of programming, ideas and even possibly full-fledged tracks done.”
Many of Ima Robot’s songs start out on the road. “I think a good chunk of our new record that we're in the middle of right now began on tour,” Meldal-Johnsen explains. “Three of us in the band use Pro Tools M-Powered. Someone will start something, and he'll either complete it entirely and we'll take it to our main studio or my home Pro Tools HD rig, or it'll bounce around between laptops. It's been very, very easy to do stuff this way with that sort of extreme portability and compatibility between different rigs.”
Meldal-Johnsen is also an avid fan of M-Audio’s new MicroTrack 24/96 solid-state mobile recorder. “It's blowing my mind,” he enthuses. “It’s what every producer should have and probably has dreamed of having for a long time. I can just record the final pre-production arrangements of a song in the MicroTrack. And as MP3s, I can send them around, via e-mail, to all the musicians and they can have immediate documentation of what they had achieved in pre-production that day. Then I can import that file into a Pro Tools session and have it as a handy reference during the actual recording. Simple, but really helpful—it saves me a lot of time because I no longer have to do analog transfers into Pro Tools.”
