Hey guys, it seems like this kind of post would go against what I advocate to be real entertainment, but fear not.

This is actually a post that, besides being informative about one of the coolest new ideas on the Steem Blockchain, serves as an introduction to one of my favourite genres of music.

It's DUB!.

But, what is dub?.

Most people would confuse it with reggae, and while it may sound similar, Dub is a "technical" approach to reggae.

You see, when mixing engineers were bored at their studios in Jamaica and after having smoked a devastating amount of weed, they realized they could really push the envelopes on their mixing boards and effects like the Space Echo, delays, reverbs and compressors.

They created "instrumentals" using only the bass, drums, percussion and snippets of vocal tracks, in order to make versions that were more suitable for DJs who played in Jamaican sound systems.

I actually made that up out of the stuff I know about the genre, but here's the definition of dub according to a "trustworthy" source:

Dub is a genre of electronic music that grew out of reggae in the 1960s, and is commonly considered a subgenre, though it has developed to extend beyond the scope of reggae. ...
Dub was pioneered by producers such as Osbourne "King Tubby" Ruddock, Lee "Scratch" Perry, Errol Thompson and others in the late 1960s.

Well, that really doesn't tell us anything, does it?. Go home Wikipedia, you are drunk.

Mike Pawka says:

Look at the B-sides of Jamaican 45s beginning with rock steady, and you'll notice many of them say "Version". This is "dub", a simple instrumental remix of the A-side that may also include a few scraps of the vocals. The singers are "dubbed out", but in most other respects the version is identical to the A-side. Begun as a test for sound levels during the record-mastering process, version later became vogue. The Jamaican public developed an avid taste for version, and the scat-singing sound-system deejays took to recording their master-of-ceremonies raps over the hit-backing rhythms.

Pretty neat, huh?. It seems that what began as a testing ground for mastering, ended up being an entire genre (or sub genre if you are a Reggae purist).

David Katz wrote "The Beginner's Guide To Dub" for Fact Magazine, and states:

Without the dub invention pioneered by an elite coterie of Jamaican recording engineers and record producers, rap would never have become the world’s leading form of popular culture; ambient, jungle, house, garage, grime and numerous other types of technologically-driven dance music probably would not have taken off. And there would surely be no such thing as dubstep, currently the focus of youth culture in so many different lands.

He continues:

the man most readily identified as the ‘dub inventor’ is none other than King Tubby, the sound system proprietor and electronics technician otherwise known as Osbourne Ruddock, whose tiny front-room studio in the Waterhouse ghetto of western Kingston was a key site of dub creation.

Kirk DeGiorgio goes deeper into The Roots Of Dub:

As with many shifts in musical styles, dub owes its existence to innovations in recording technology.
Classic dub has specifically recognisable musical elements that define it: delay (echo), reverb, bandpass filtering (EQ) and an emphasis on the drum and the bass being upfront in the mix. These key components were cooked up in a home studio at 18 Drumilly Avenue, Kingston by the aforementioned engineer, Osbourne “King Tubby” Ruddock.

And Kirk goes on saying:

The dub mix would be performed live. There were no automated consoles available at this time. With Tubby’s console being a 12 channel into 4 buss console, there was plenty of scope for individual instruments to be muted and for elements of the drum kit – such as the crucial snare/rimshot – to have their own channel. Each channel had a dedicated reverb send, which enabled reverb to be placed solely on individual elements without muddying the mix as a whole.
The channels would also have their group sends to any of the four busses, plus three-band EQ. A further tape machine was used to inject delay with feedback. Dedicated units such as the Roland RE-201, AKA Space Echo, and Maestro Echoplex would later become popular units to achieve this effect.

So, as you can see, dub could be called the roots of modern electronic music. A genre that is performed by mixing engineers at their studios. Merely technical, where analog audio effects are pushed to its boundaries for creating musical soundscapes.

My favourite dub record

It doesn't boil down to a single track, but a whole record. It's the only remix of a Pink Floyd album approved by the band itself. And it was performed by Easy Star All Stars:

Easy Stars All Stars - The Dub Side Of The Moon

This is an amazing cover album of the original Dark Side Of The Moon by Pink Floyd. Easy Stars All Stars managed to pull out what I call a masterpiece, even bigger than the original.

I hope you enjoy it.

About ReggaeSteem

ReggaeSteem is the new home for reggae music and culture on Steem. A new global hub for lovers of the culture to converge, share creations, ideas, feedback and consume quality content-- all while getting rewarded.

Our ReggaeSteem SCOT Tribe built on the steem blockchain enables us to attract this very influential global community. A community that is undervalued, full of development and known for setting trends and 'going viral'. We believe by merging the cutting edge technology of Steem and the robust global community of Reggae lovers, we can spread the wings of both the Steem blockchain and Reggae culture, globally.

I hope to see you around ReggaeSteem, and if you have a favourite Dub track, please drop it in the comments!

Cheers

@greencross

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