French duo Justice are one of the hottest electronic-music acts today. They have achieved great success since the release of their debut album last year, which was even nominated for a Grammy-Award for “Best Electronic/Dance Album”. With an impressive live setup and some cool-sounding records, here’s a great opportunity to check out which gear they use…
Justice are Gaspard Augé and Xavier de Rosnay. Either releasing super-catchy pop singles such as “D.A.N.C.E.”; remixing major acts such as Britney Spears, Franz Ferdinand and Daft Punk; or causing widespread controversy (at least back home in France) with their ultra-violent video for “Stress”, Justice have put their mark on the current music scene. Their eclectic sound has managed to attract indie rock and dance music fans alike, and their influences couldn’t be more diverse. They say they are ”hardcore fans” of acts such as Sparks, The Beatles, Parliament, Snoop Dogg and Steely Dan, among others.
“We never aimed to do proper dance music. Some of our tracks are being played in clubs by DJs, and that’s great. But we wanted do an album that you could listen to at home – not just a collection of bangers. ” Gaspard told Remix mag.
Unlike many modern DJs, they don’t use MP3s when DJ-ing.
“I think the technical possibilities are wider with CDs than with Serato. You play faster when you don’t have to choose from a million MP3s.” said Xavier.
The act is also vocal about their preference for music software such as GarageBand and Cubase:
“We love the flexibility and the possibilities offered by software. A lot of people say that software is s**** because it doesn’t sound like analog-hardware stuff. I think the fact that it doesn’t sound like analog gear — but something else entirely — is why we like to use it. And with Cubase SX and GarageBand, we mainly used the sound libraries, which are quite amazing.”
Their electro-punk (or “heavy-metal techno” as dubbed by some) sound has gained them fans worldwide and the band has performed on major music festivals across the planet. Their live act is very impressive, consisting of their trademark glowing cross in the middle of the stage, an impressive amount of racks and two mighty walls of Marshall cabs on both sides of the stage.
Justice and their Pioneer CDJ-1000 turntables |
Equipment used by Justice in their productions include:
- An Apogee Ensemble Recording Interface
- A Power Mac G5
- GarageBand software
- Cubase SX
- Neve Preamp (on some vocals)
- For monitors, Altec iPod speakers and a Bose radio alarm clock
This isn’t Spinal Tap…Justice’s rocking stage gear |
Their Live setup includes:
- JazzMutant Lemur as their main instrument, plugged to Ableton Live.
- They have also been seen using Pioneer’s CDJ-1000 turntable and Korg’s microKONTROL midi controller.
- And, of course…lots of Marshall cabinets…
Watch “D.A.N.C.E.” video:
Links:
They have 6 racks full of gear…. for that? That was just awful. Music is getting worse and worse by the decade.
I would love to see you make better music, Igor.
In the meantime, let us all know where you work so we can show up at your workplace and then write on the internet how you get worse at your job every decade.
viktor i agree with you whole heartedly, obviously igor has been here for long enough to pass judgement on several decades of music, i think he may feel a little bit down about the whole thing that people are using much more versatile instruments nowadays its no longer just strings and wood, now we got circuitboards(bent or straight), pedals, racks, x-y controllers, and shit loads of l.e.d’s as our own little disco lights. as a producer of electronica i can say that its not easy making this music. it can sometimes take weeks to make a 3 minute track as you wanna add more and take more away, having to delete old tracks or warping them and then effects on top of the basic channels, thats just coming up with the synth that you want, then you need to add drums(whilst controlling the attack decay sustain release and hold of each hit).then you need to figure out the structure aswell as some kind of hook….and its soooo hard to think of words to go with these kind of tracks, lest we forget all the original hardwork that went into researching and buying the equipment, the money spent on that is probably something into the thousands if not tens of thousands.im 19 and i work my arse of to buy things that it takes alot to understand. so igor(busy being dracula’s servant) dont be so judgemental on music. im into jstice in a big way aswell as mitch uffie feadz autokratz simian mobile disco etc etc…aswell as inme reuben biffy and alll the rock, as unintentional as it was justice have managed to connect people from both sides of the pond, for christs sake, my band has a goth drummer who i got into electro and now he makes electro msic aswell as me…so nerr, and WHY SO SERIOUS???
i believe ed banger en troupe have changed my life.
Lol that’s so fake. All those stacks of shit are just there to look cool. The whole set is probably on a hard drive in the back and they just twist a few knobs once in a while to look intense.
Don’t get me wrong I like justice but electronic “live” shows are such a farce.
But since the way musicians get paid right now is by doing “live” shows it puts any non-dj electronic producers in a bit of a bind thus forcing them to do these silly live acts.
I think Justice do owe an apology to the gear-heads though for making something that looks as cool as a huge modular synth and a bunch of marshalls and not actually doing it . I don’t care if Justice is pretending to be playing it or not . It just pisses me off that something that has the potential to be so fucking awesome and badass is fake .
First of all Chris, they’re not fake, you just aren’t educated to well in electronic music. They would be fake if they were just looping a bunch of random samples that they bought online, but they aren’t. I would like to see you get on stage and replicate their music live. Impossible, unless there is 20 people on stage (smoking meth). Their Grammy Award winning album “Cross” was made from SCRATCH using synthesizers as old and vintage as the Korg MS20. Gaspard Augé and Xavier de Rosnay (Justice) locked themselves in a basement with 8 synthesizes, a computer, two beds, a mini fridge, and no internet for four months straight to produce this album. Oh, and when they finally came out four months later to get some fresh air and get laid, they decided they wanted to create one more song. So they went back down to the basement for another entire month to create the song “Waters of Nazareth”. They worked very, very hard to produce this album. I assure you. Now let’s get back to the live shows… Justice, and many other electronic groups, are limited to how much can be played live based on the number of tracks and effects being used in each song, vs there just being the two of them. So they do what is called a “DJ set”, as opposed to the impossible “live set”. Picture it like a giant club, only rather than focusing on dancing and girls, you are focused on the D.J. and the music, making it a concert. Their live performance is merely a time where Justice get’s to relax and spin the s*** they have worked so hard to make. In a way it’s double talent. Not only can they produce this bada** album, but they also have amazing D.J. skills. And people love it. And they always will. Here is a link to a metal forum where you will enjoy yourself a little better: http://www.livingformetal.com/forum/
OOPS***Grammy NOMINATED album “Cross”…. a huge honor either way…
I was at the opening show of So Me, Cream & 2 Shy in Brussels at A.L.I.C.E. Gallery! For those of you who don’t know, So Me was the artist behind the D.A.N.C.E. videoclip!! Check out the site for some cool pics http://www.alicebxl.com
Justice even popped by to check it out!
wow… garageband…. who knew?