The Dub Scrolls - dub techniques

[Mr. Pickles]

Not sure if you guys are already familiar with this; I found only a few passing references to The Dub Scrolls here on TB, so I figured I'd post it up for all to see:

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

It's a good starting point for those looking to cop dub sounds and learn dub production techniques.

Hope it's helpful and interesting.

Yes, I KNOW, I'm late to the party again...that's what happens when you live in the middle of nowhere and all your friends are old and greying.

[Costyou]

Thanks a lot! Really helpful!
Any other materials are welcome!

[Mr. Pickles]

More resources on their links page:

http://www.interruptor.ch/links.html

[WarriorJoe7]

I'm i a reggae band and i do alot of the things they say. Use flatwounds, roll off the treble completely and turn the bass up. play fingerstyle and close to the neck. I have a one pickup bass so rolling to the neck pickup doesn't apply to me.

This is the part I need to work on... playing old school.

"play with your thumb(not slapping, but plucking with the meat of the thumb very consistently). "

[Costyou]

For me, playing dub is one of the biggest challenges as to rhythm, consistency, sound etc.

[newbold]

Playing Dub is a bigger challenge for the rest of the band IME when it comes to rhythm and consistency.

It gives us bass players an opportunity to have more chances to step back, play sparsely, and use a lot of spatial effects.

It's another opportunity to reinvent/reassess our technique and approach to arrangement, tone, and interaction.

[Taylor Livingston]

I don't make dub music, but I do really like that page. It's a really cool style of making music that I think is refreshingly antithetical to most websites of "production techniques". Instead of all this junk about Neve channel strips and expensive monitors, you get ideas like this:

Open a digital watch and take out the watch module including battery and display. Connect a two phase cable to the microphone connector of a tape deck. Then pierce a needle through each phase of the cable at its other end. Press the Record button on the tape recorder and set the counter to zero. Now you can start touching signal lines on the watch module with your two needles. You should be able to hear some pretty interesting oscillations.

and

A Wicked hard-mp3-like effect can be achieved by converting your sample wave to an mp3 with good quality. Then just change the .mp3 label to .txt and open the file in notepad. Copy the TEXT (a nonsensical line of ascii code) to your clipboard and paste it to a different blank text file. Then take this new text file and change its' label to .mp3. Now, this new mp3 sounds close to a bad mp3 compression, but somehow different and better to use in a strange song.

I like this "try it and see" approach, and also the idea that cheap junky gear is sometimes better than expensive snob gear.

[Mr. Pickles]

^Guerilla recording at its finest.

[thefruitfarmer]

Great site.

The man's music shows he's the real deal.

Extensive how to articles. I never realised how to process a good skank - that's what my Boss PH-2 is for, with an old Analogue echo box.

Bookmarked.....

[nad]

I know dick about dub but this is neat, thank you.