Ibiza Voice catches up with long time Homegrown favourite Justin Martin and talks production with the man from San Fran…

“Justin Martin is a cool cat from San Francisco whose profile soared in 2003 with the release of ‘The Sad Piano’, a huge goosepimpler on Buzzin’ Fly. A couple of years down the line and he was the first to release a track on dirtybird, the label he has a hand in running with Barclay Crenshaw, aka Claude VonStroke (who has already completed a DTPH session). The track was called ‘The Southern Draw’, produced with Sammy D, and Justin has been a regular on the dirtybird roster ever since. He’s laid down solo cuts like ‘Cicada’, remixed and released with CVS, collaborated with his brother Christian as The Martin Brothers on a range of tracks, including ‘Stoopit’ and ‘Duck Face’, and dropped a trio of remixes entitled the Re-Make EP

Besides his dirtybird output, Justin has released on such imprints as Classic and Utensil Recordings, and remixed Radiohead’s ‘Nude’ and Marshall Jefferson’s ‘Mushrooms’. And now, as dirtybird celebrates five years of service, many of Justin’s tracks feature on its triple-whammy anniversary release, including his latest bass-heavy blast ‘Robot Romance’, plus he mixes a disc too. A good time, then, to take a stroll

Down the Production Hole with the impassioned, yet not so serious, club rumbler to find out why he thinks doing the wrong thing is often right…”

First, can you tell us something about your frames of reference/what you think makes for a high quality electronic sound recording?

I love sound; I really am in love with it! And I find that some of the most striking and memorable recordings that I have heard in electronic music have been ones that can really shake a soundsystem. There are lots of things I listen for: recordings that are crisp and clear in the highs and have all of their bass tones resonating properly in their correct frequencies… Producers that know how to make things simple and still catchy… But the thing is it doesn’t always have to be the highest quality recording ever to still be a good song, just as some of the highest quality sounding stuff out there I could give two sh*ts about if the song itself is whack. So the obvious goal is to make a dope song and make sure it’s mixed down properly.

What’s your current music production set-up like?

I work on a Sonica desktop PC, which is an absolute beast of a machine! I have the older Mackie 624 monitors. I really love these things, very flat and accurate. I also have a Korg R3 (super fun), a Virus B (that I rarely use), and a basic MIDI keyboard. I have a simple DJ set-up with two Technics and a Rane mixer, and Serato Scratch. For software I use Sound Forge for sampling, and Live rewired with Reason for tracking. And everything is running through my PreSonus FireBox soundcard. It’s a pretty simple set-up but it works for me. My next investment is definitely gonna be a Moog… I was playing around in Barclay’s studio and those things make some beautiful noises!

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