Jonny Greenwood’s 2016 Touring Laptop Setup
Jonny during a performance of Pyramid Song in Paris, May 23, 2016 (youtube), with his laptop setup visible on the left. Here, the blue “MOTU” and “XT” lettering on his MIDI interface is clearly visible.
As with his keyboard setup, Jonny changed his laptop setup considerably for the 2016 tour. Gone are units which had been part of his setup for a decade. After expanding his setup for the 2012 tour, for 2016 he honed in on what was necessary and purchased new gear to fill those roles.
From when he first added a laptop to his touring setup, Jonny’s sole audio interface was always his Metric Halo Mobile I/O 2882. He used this interface for nearly every Radiohead performance from 2003 to 2012, as well as in studio (it appears in photos from the recording of In Rainbows). In 2016, this interface was replaced by a brand new Focusrite Clarett 8Pre – a unit which had only been released a few months prior. The 8Pre is a Thunderbolt interface, as compared to the older firewire technology of the Metric Halo, and claims extremely low latency, around 2ms. It is likely that Jonny was attracted to the interface due to its low latency, since with Radiohead he employs his laptop exclusively for real-time effects created with Cycling74’s Max.
Jonny’s laptop setup in 2008, featuring a Apple iBook G4 12.1″, Metric Halo Mobile I/O 2882, Midiman Midisport 4x4, and Kenton Electronics Control Freak SE. The Max/MSP patch visible on Jonny’s computer is the one used for 15 Step.
Jonny first began using Focusrite audio interfaces in 2013 for his solo performances of Steve Reich’s Electric Counterpoint, and he used a Scarlett 2i4 interface for his 2014 and 2015 shows with the LCO and for the 2016 Junun tour. Save for a couple of the shows with the LCO, in most of these cases the interface was used only to provide high-quality audio output – no external signals were processed.
Jonny rehearsing Steve Reich’s Electric Counterpoint for a performance with the London Contemporary Orchestra in Oxford, February 21, 2015 (Edu Hawkins).
Jonny performance with Shye Ben Tzur and the Rajastan Express in Berlin, November 12, 2016 (@linaduch on instagram). A Focusrite 2i4 is visible underneath a BOSS RE-20 Space Echo. In this context, Jonny’s laptop is used only as a sound source – not to process any external signals. The sounds from his computer are output via the Focusrite, pass through the Space Echo, and finally are sent to the mixing board via DI box (not visible in this image). This video of Kalandar at OMEARA gives a good impression of what Jonny’s doing, with Jonny adjusting the Space Echo in front of him and the generative Max patch behind him.
Another stalwart of Jonny’s laptop setup was his Midiman Midisport 4x4, which was used to transmit signals from his Kenton Electronics Control Freak SE and Roland FC-200 to his computer. The Midiman, Kenton, and Roland were all added to his setup around 2006, and were all used to control percussion sounds on songs like 15 Step and Videotape. In 2011, he used the Midisport to send data from his MIDI controller keyboard, a Roland PCR-500, to his computer for Codex. He switched to the newer Midiman Midisport 4x4 Anniversary Edition in 2012, but used it equivalently for all of the above. It also may have been used to send MIDI data to his Dave Smith Tetra.
Thom and Jonny during their performance of Give Up The Ghost on the Jimmy Fallon Show, October 03, 2011. Thom uses the Roland FC-200 in front of him to control a looping Max/MSP patch on Jonny’s Macbook Pro via the Midisport 4x4.
For the 2016 tour, the Midisport was replaced by a more powerful MIDI interface: a MOTU MIDI Express XT USB interface. Jonny’s Kenton Electronics Control Freak SE and Roland FC-200 remained part of his setup for 2016, and were both interfaced with his computer via the MOTU. I suspect that Jonny did not actually require the greater MIDI capabilities of the MOTU, but rather for neatness opted for a rack unit to fit in a case with his new Clarett 8Pre.
Jonny and his laptop setup in Lyon, June 01, 2016 (youtube). The BOSS TU-3 tuner in front of the keyboard rack is likely used to have a visual confirmation of when his guitar signal is passing to his computer, and to mute his signal if anything goes wrong with the computer, although it may be used with another instrument unrelated to the laptop setup, such as the Crumar Orchestrator.
The rack case for the Clarett and MOTU is a fairly nondescript flight-case, and was likely built for the the purpose by Plank (as is the case for Jonny’s pedalboards). The rack also houses a basic Furman power supply, providing power for the Clarett, MOTU, and laptop.
A look at the back of the laptop rack reveals a quartet of DI boxes. These are likely used to better interface the signals from the rest of the band to his Clarett 8Pre for performances of The Gloaming. The processed signals of the band playing are sent directly to the mixing board from these DI boxes. Since Jonny’s processed guitar signal is sent back to his pedalboard, rather than to the mixing board, he doesn’t need a DI box for it. However, he does keep a DI box on top of his Vox AC30 to send the mixing board a pre-amplifier version of his guitar signal in addition to the mic’d amplified version.
Jonny with his keyboard setup during Radiohead’s performance at Lollapalooza in Chicago, July 29, 2016. Jonny’s laptop has the same sticker (from the 2012 sticker set) as it did on the 2012 tour. The sticker is absent from the computer(s) which Jonny used with the LCO or for Junun, indicating that he has a dedicated “Radiohead” laptop.
Jonny uses a BOSS LS-2 to select whether his guitar’s signal is passed to the Clarett 8Pre and through his computer. The LS-2 offers boost/cut controls, but Jonny doesn’t seem make use of these. Instead, he probably boosts the signal slightly at the Clarett’s input, then attenuates it at the Clarett’s output. The boost/gain controls are on the front of the interface, while the output volume of each channel can be controlled digitally from Jonny’s computer.
