rub a dub

[mezmer]

anyone familiar with the details of dub/reggea/rocksteady production in the seventies? i know the basics like, they were rocking 1-4 tracks, roland space echo, various spring reverbs etc. and king tubby liked to make his own kit. but i'm hoping some serious heads out there will know more about which consoles/ mics they used and what kind of techiques got their recordings so good before and during mixdown.

i'm talking about lee perry, augustus pablo, king tubby, studio one etc.. etc..

please, please, dub master school me

-mezmer

[mezmer]

http://www.interruptor.ch/dub.shtml

[mezmer]

http://www.interruptor.ch/dub.shtml

this stuff is mostly geared towards computer production and using samples. i'm curious about recording myown though. getting a decent drum sound would be a good start.

[jenkel16]

That all depends on the kit and the space it's in. I would try a close mic on the kick and snare, or a mic that captures a nice blend of the hat and snare and some distant mics to capture room ambiance in an echoy space (big church, gym). Play with those until you find a spot that sounds good. That all depends, of course, on a kit that sounds halfway decent and a room that sounds halfway decent (a drummer that understands something about acoustics and playing style won't hurt either).

[mezmer]

well i am that drummer, and the kit is not the best. neither is the room so far. i've got my work to do. anything you can suggest to avoid at least so i won't waste my time too much?

-mezmer

[cl516]

when i listen to their records, i feel like a lot of the vibe comes from the energy of their players.

[AdamJay]

tubby built his own console,
but most of all, he used it like an instrument. that was the key to his sound.

by the way, this image came from the www.interruptor.ch website, which you so quickly dismissed as not useful to you. tutt

[ozraves]

I work with a guy who does a lot of dub. I bought him some reverb parts. It's a Fisher Spacexpander. They look like they came out of an old car. He rigged it up in a box. It's the sound. I've been meaning to post something up on it at Mojo Pie but been time deprived. Anyhow I play guitar on a lot of his stuff. Going to disk it's like anything else. It's about the performance.

[Dubalator]

Do some searches around here and ProSoundWeb and you will find some good info. I have a feeling that the main thing you will find out is they were using similar gear and recording techniques as were used in America, only a few years behind the times. What it really comes down to is the musicians (and of course the inventiveness of people like Lee Perry, King Tubby, Silvan Morris).

Here are some links to get you started:

http://gearslutz.com/board/printthre...threadid=27434

http://recforums.prosoundweb.com/ind...78/0#msg_78378

[TeReKeTe]

i remember reading that perry used the frikkin patch bay as an instrument, just plugging and unplugging rather than twisting send knobs. dunno if it's true or not, but it's a pretty bad-ass technique idea.

Otherwse, just CRANK the hi-end on your snare mic, crank the heads, play a lot of rimshots... OR, tune your snare all the way down and put some muffling (towel, etc) on top of it for the nice thuddy backbeats. kick, single-head, muffled to death. tiny drumsounds that get drenched w/ verb (dark verb) is the key. and delay, delay, delay.

I did a session a few months ago where we plugged a mic that was setup between the snare + hat right into the pre of a space echo. that was THE sound. play w/ the timing-- instant rub-a-dub.

basslines... simple, heavy, almost nothing above 1k in the sound. ribbon mics? I know coxsone used a ribbon on the bass amp for the studio 1 sessions and mic'ed it from behind. i also remember reading that the ribbon had been destroyed, and his engineer replaced it w/ a bit of leftover tape from a 1/4" machine... there's a mod idea!

otherwise, you've just gotta capture people going for it fearlessly, and then delay the **** out of stuff. mix like a DJ and you'll be slammin'.

[robd]

the way to get the classic dub snare sound is to loosen the springs on your snare just a little bit, and wrap a piece of cloth around the springs. thus, when you hit it, tthe springs snap back quickly and the cloth damps the snare. Experiment with different types of cloth (eg tshirt, towel, etc.) and with different tension on the springs.
the spring reverb that someone said looked like it came out of a car probably came out of a late 50's chevy. If you see such a car, you should scope it and see if it still has the reverb in it.
last but not least, go to that interruptor website that you dismissed, go to the section called "the dub scrolls" and read the whole thing. A lot of it might not be relevant to your situation, but there is a lot of good ideas there.

[mezmer]

wow,

thanks for the great responses. especially the details on drum sounds, thats the missing stuff i've been looking for. i definetly haven't 'dismissed' the interruptor site . i've read that stuff over a few times but it has been a while , most of the material seemed to focus on the mix/sampling/synths more than recording and getting a good drum sound w/ mic placement etc.

i really agree with the comment about good playing though. the 'sound' is for the most part the players, what they're doing/feeling if they're having an on day. my problem isn't the playing so much as the mediumish untreated room my cheap kit is in and the limited set of mics. i got the kit to get my chops together and to learn some about miking etc. next weekend my roomate and i will be renting and borrowing a bunch of mics and trying to dress the room a little. i'll try and post the results some time after that.

thanks again guys.

-mezmer

[mezmer]

ps.

thanks dubulator for the linkage. i was being daft and found little when searching. i appreciate.