Dub
Roots · 1969 · 60 to 90 BPM · also known as Dub Reggae
Kingston, early 1970s: King Tubby and Lee Perry discover that a mixing console is an instrument. They gut songs, swell the bass and drums, drown everything else in echo: the version becomes a work in its own right. Dub invents the remix, and the sound system does the rest. Without it, there is no disco dub, no house, no jungle, no dubstep: it is the most fertile root on this map, alongside musique concrete.
16 reference tracks
- Augustus Pablo: King Tubby Meets Rockers Uptown (1976)
- King Tubby: Dub Fi Gwan (1976)
- Lee Scratch Perry: Roast Fish And Cornbread (1978)
- Horace Andy: This Must Be Hell (2022)
- The Upsetters: Blackboard Jungle Dub (1973)
- Scientist: Dance of the Vampires (1981)
- O.B.F.: Dubquake 2016 (2021)
- Young Warrior: Zulu Charge (2021)
- Horace Andy: Safe From Harm (2022)
- Khruangbin: White Gloves (2022)
- Augustus Pablo: Stop Them Jah
- Augustus Pablo: Each One Dub
- Augustus Pablo: 555 Dub Street
- Augustus Pablo: Keep on Dubbing
- Augustus Pablo: Young Generation Dub
- Augustus Pablo: Skanking Dub
At a glance
- Tempo: 60 to 90 BPM
- First appeared: 1969
- Machines: Console de mixage, Roland RE-201 Space Echo, Écho à bande, Réverbération à ressort, Sound system
- The sound: Console de mixage comme instrument, Echo à bande Space Echo, Sound system et basses physiques
- Labels: On-U Sound, Studio One, Treasure Isle, Pressure Sounds, Black Ark
- Key artists: King Tubby, Lee Scratch Perry, Scientist, Augustus Pablo, Mad Professor
Producing Dub
Dub carries reggae's tempo, felt as 60 to 80 bpm, built on the one drop: kick and snare land together on beat 3, beat 1 left empty, while a dotted eighth delay turns a single snare hit into a cascade. Program a dry acoustic kit, then treat it at the console: a spring reverb on the snare, a Space Echo delay with 60 percent feedback, and the defining dub gesture, cutting the whole drum bus and letting only the echo tail ring. The bass never disappears into the echo: a fingered electric line, deep and round, two-bar phrases with silences, compressed hard for constant sustain, mono and enormous. Build everything else around the console, tape echo pushed toward self-oscillation, and a reggae riddim of guitar skank, melodica and half-spoken vocal fragments.
The full production course, in French: tempo, drums, bass, sounds, arrangement, mix, plugins and machines, and a step by step start.
Frequently asked
What is Dub?
Kingston, early 1970s: King Tubby and Lee Perry discover that a mixing console is an instrument. They gut songs, swell the bass and drums, drown everything else in echo: the version becomes a work in its own right. Dub invents the remix, and the sound system does the rest. Without it, there is no…
What tempo is Dub played at?
Between 60 and 90 BPM.
Who are the key Dub artists?
King Tubby, Lee Scratch Perry, Scientist, Augustus Pablo, Mad Professor.
