Dub Mix
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Dub understood as the craft of the mix itself: the engineer performing a recording live at the desk, muting and unmuting channels, throwing snares and vocal snatches into spring reverb and tape echo, sweeping high-pass filters and riding the bass so the arrangement breathes and mutates. Each dub mix is a unique performance of the board, unrepeatable and idiosyncratic to the mixer's hand. The emphasis is on studio technique, feedback, delay feedback runs, sudden drop-outs, as compositional tools. This is where the mixing engineer becomes the star.
History
The dub mix as authored performance was pioneered by King Tubby, whose custom-modified MCI console and homemade delay units at Waterhouse let him treat mixing as improvisation, and by Lee "Scratch" Perry, whose Black Ark layered tape saturation into hallucinatory texture. Their apprentices Prince Jammy and Scientist refined the technique into signature styles, while later mixers like Britain's Mad Professor extended it, most famously dubbing Massive Attack's "Protection" into "No Protection" in 1995. The idea that a mix is itself an original work, credited to the engineer, is dub's lasting gift to all recorded music.
Defining artists
Essential listening
- Dance of the Vampires(1981) — ScientistSpotifyYouTube
- Super Ape(1976) — The UpsettersSpotifyYouTube
- King Tubby Meets Rockers Uptown(1976) — Augustus PabloSpotifyYouTube
- Conspiracy on Neptune(1982) — Prince JammySpotifyYouTube
- Dub Me Crazy(1982) — Mad ProfessorSpotifyYouTube
- Dub from the Roots(1974) — King TubbySpotifyYouTube
Sources
- Michael E. Veal, Dub: Soundscapes and Shattered Songs in Jamaican Reggae (2007)
- David Katz, People Funny Boy: The Genius of Lee 'Scratch' Perry (2000)
- Steve Barrow & Peter Dalton, The Rough Guide to Reggae (2004)