What is dub?
Dub is the first electronic music where an engineer becomes a composer and an the artist. I developed techniques to leave the mind while keeping the mind wandering. That's basically dub. A composition from the engineer.
I know it's a popular genre, but I'm always amazed at how many engineer and producer friends who are not familiar.
Yes. Because here's what: Straight-up engineering, you record whatever band [you're working with] and nothing's altered. Everything is just how the musicians played it. With dub, now we have to recompose it. One element is the element of surprise. How to keep it all together and get the listener hooked on one pattern, and also how to switch up the pattern. Now what I can tell you is that every time you listen to a dub track, it never sounds exactly the same. Each time things sound a little bit different, and it is part of the reason why these records last over 30 years; because I've developed techniques of how to put things into the music so that each time you hear it, it sounds a little bit different each time. It's always going to remain fresh.
When you were a teenager and had an interest in electronics and fixing TVs, winding transformers and repairing amplifiers for sound systems in Jamaica, how did that play into you coming to work with King Tubby?
Because I wanted some parts for the amplifier I was building. I was introduced to King Tubby by a friend who lived in my neighborhood.
And getting some components from King Tubby?
Yes.
What was it about being there at the studio with him that attracted you to producing music as well as mixing?
Well, King Tubby's [Presents The] Roots of Dub was an inspiration to me the first time I heard it. I liked what was going on. It was a good album to test the amplifiers that I was building, because of the frequency response.
At what point did you have an opportunity to get behind the console?
Well, I actually made him a bet after being at the studio. We had a workshop, and my primary thing was to help to wind these transformers, fix whatever televisions and whatever amplifiers that would come in there. Then, by being there, I started putting my theories together about how to mix music. But prior to that, I thought I could build a console. When I got out to the studio and first did studio work, I found that my theory in building recording consoles was not really a one-man operation. I started talking to him about features he might like, things like moving faders and automation. To him, it was a joke. One day he made me a bet. He said, "I bet you wouldn't know the first thing to do." Because I was exposed to the studio by watching, and because I was an electronic engineer at that time, he lost his bet, basically.
What did you learn from him about setting up the console that was specific to dub mixing?
I'm a self-taught person. I got to see what I learned and observed. "Okay, whenever I hear that sound, this is how it's done," or, "This is how to do it," whether I had no knowledge of the studios back in those times to validate my theory. I read books about recording. I didn't have any prior experience. It was a 4-track machine. By being there, I started using my electronic skills to evaluate the theories that I had in my head. So, he gave me a wonderful opportunity.
Dub mixing is such an extraction and a breaking down of the music to its essential core. Would you say that that is true?
Yes, because I have developed techniques of how to make the music not become monotonous. A lot of the time, if you just mix the music and play it, it doesn't have anything to keep the imagination going. As you know, remix was started in Jamaica, and then here comes the hip-hop and everything, and it's after remix.
Was it simply the availability of things like reverb, tape echo, and phase shifter that found their way into the music?
No, no phasers. High-pass filter.
What do you think drew you and King Tubby, as well as people like Lee Perry to those sounds?
Parts of it was it was unique. You didn't really hear it on any other record. A lot of people believed it was phasers when it wasn't phasers. We just set up the high-pass filter. Why does it sound like that? A whole bunch of untold, unique techniques that I had to develop. Then, 30 years later, I am having an interview with you about what I was doing when I was a kid.
Were you splicing tape together of performances, or were they all one take and then the best one went to record?
Usually it's one take. Back in those times, producers didn't have the finances to be in the studio, so someone would book four hours of studio time, and you have to record all the parts and mix the record right after that, all in four hours.
Yeah, it's very different now!
Yeah, that's why I don't want to spend six months in the studio making one record.
How long are you typically taking with a project these days?
Well, it depends. I can do about 30-some mixes in about 12 hours.
Wow!
Yeah. Some people it takes them six months, and the entirety is one half-assed mix. Just like you hear all those albums where in a couple hours they were done.
Right. Well, there's something to capturing a performance and just getting it down. People could play then, too.
People were probably more prepared.
Um, not really. There was no rehearsal. Whenever you were working with these artists like Bob Marley, they made it right on the spot. The guitarist and the lyricist make up the song and learn the chord progression right on the spot, and within two minutes, tape rolling, and we're recording.
Wow. I bet a lot of people don't realize that. After you left Tubby's studio you went over to Channel One. You went from 4-track machines to having 16-track machines there.
The records seemed like they got a little bit more clarity to them. What do you think the tonality change in those records were, or was it just your growth as an engineer?
Well, it was the engineering technique that I brought to it. I was the youngest one. Everybody has had their own way. When I was around Tubby's, I could hear all the defects that needed to be perfect, and every day I have a new formula for that. I'd listen to a mix and, "Okay, the snare doesn't sound good," and the reason the snare sounds like this is because it needed more bleeding. No compressors on anything, because compressors ruin the sound. I tried a bunch of things, but I was the hardest critic on myself. What sounded normal and good to other people, to me didn't sound good. That's what changed the sound at the studio. I didn't fix anything with consoles, or make a change to the console. What I did was to make changes to the recording technique. For example, back in those times, everybody believed that you should record flat, and I came and I recorded flat. "Well, okay, the reason why this record sounds like that is because it's flat, and you don't want bass coming through your hi-hat mics." So, I learned to use EQ to get the bass drum out of the hi-hat mics. Those changes were what helped those tapes to sound good. "Okay, the drum mic doesn't sound so good at this position. Let's try this position." I developed controlled bleed. "Okay, I need this amount of bleed on this instrument, at this frequency." So I put the whole thing together; you can hear drum bleed. Before, I was believing, "Okay, this is a kick drum. Don't let the snare or the hi-hat or anything bleed into the kick drum mic," and I would gate it. But when I go to listen to it, it sounded too stiff. I learned to develop the different types of bleeds. As a result, if I was playing the kick drum, I was listening to the timbale mic. I'd hear a little ring around the timbale mic, so I developed techniques to use all of that so when I put the entire drum set together it becomes the big, massive drum set that you're hearing.
You mentioned compressors. Do you not mix with any compression?
No. And I do not master [with compression]. If you want to see a goddamn monster come out of me, try mastering a song with compression. It doesn't work. It doesn't make bass fatter or do anything. The original idea of what compression means in electronics is completely different from what these guys think it is. Compression in electronics refers to the attack and release time. The first origin of a compressor had nothing to do with the broadening and fattening of sound. It's limiting. For example, the first use of a compressor, what they called in television repair, was AGC, or Automatic Gain Control. They use the same technique in radio transmitters, because you don't want the microphone over-modulating the transmitter, so they install a thing called an AGC control. Then they also do the same to a tape machine. You don't want the volume to go past this level or you'll distort the tape, so that's where it first came in. Knowing that I know how to build a compressor and a limiter, I can tell any engineer out there to put away the misconception; it does not make bass sound any fatter. I used the thing. I tried it, and it made the bass sound messed up, because now the bass is not breathing. It's not working at its natural dynamic volume. What's it good for? It has some useful properties on vocals. Back in the day, it was just a technique that I came up with for singers who sing loud and distort the tape. That's all it was for. Not to make bass and mixes sound fatter; all this verbal garbage I hear coming from some of these people.
Can you talk a little bit about some other misconceptions about gear? I also really want to talk about your position on analog and vintage gear versus digital equipment, because you are somebody who took analog gear to its limits. You used it in ways that no one was using it like that.
Yeah, well the first thing I heard people talking about was there was a Fisher reverb, and a Fisher reverb got that sound. Verbal nonsense. There was a Fisher reverb there, and I mixed two songs on it, but the reason I didn't mix any other songs on it was because it sounded noisy. It didn't sound good. So, this whole concept that, "Oh, there was a Fisher reverb on it," yeah, but I didn't use that on any of the mixes. I developed techniques using a console to get the reverb to sound like that. Now, when it comes to analog, analog gives you a fatter bass? Garbage. The reason why it's garbage is because digital can go down to one cycle. No tape machine, whether it's a brand-new tape machine or not, can produce one cycle. So, it's telling you that if the digital can produce one cycle, then, when you start to get in the range of 20 cycles or 100 cycles, it's going to reproduce it better. This whole misconception that vinyl sounds better than CD? Nonsense! Why? Because by the time you record to tape, the best tape machine out of the box – the most expensive tape machine – it automatically becomes a second generation. And by the time you've mixed it, that's one generation down. By the time you cut the stamper, that's the next generation down. By the time you go through the whole process after it becomes vinyl, it's several generations down. There's no way something five generations down will sound better than a first generation. With digital, it remains a one-generation process; you record at a current bitrate, which sounds better than vinyl. Here's the next problem with it. With vinyl, you have rumble with turntables. You find you have to put in a sponge or some dampening, or else the turntable's going to rumble. So, when I hear the verbal garbage about how vinyl sounds better than digital, that's nonsense. Then the second thing about it is that I can walk with several hundred gigabytes worth of songs on my thumb drive. Who wants to drag around boxes and crates of records? Some people do not know how to accept change; they don't know anything else, and they're stuck in one way. As you know, I developed a lot of these techniques in Jamaica, and a lot of people are still trying to understand how I did them. And God bless me, I alone have certain knowledge.
What do you think about the idea that your brain has to make sense of a digital file, because it's zeroes and ones?
Nonsense! Here, I did a study. I get two digital recordings, and I do what a tape machine would do. The tape machine, especially if it's not aligned properly, would start to lose the high frequencies. So, I get two digital recordings and roll off the high frequency [on one of them] and make it sound a bit more muddy. Then I get a group of people. Tell me which one is digital, and which is analog? When I get the final, people associate warmness with high frequency loss, saying, "There's high frequency warmness." That's what happens with a tape machine that is dirty or when it's out of alignment. Everyone says, "That's definitely analog! It's definitely warmer!" When I show it's two digital recordings, and that all I did was roll off the highs like a tape machine would do, or when you cut vinyl, this is what's supposed to happen. Then everybody says, "Whoops!"
Well, I don't think people necessarily know.
Look here, this industry is one of the most misleading industries. People just repeat what they hear the next geek say. Especially if that record reaches number one, everyone's going to say, "Yep, vinyl is better!" But look here, how much more vinyl plants are there left? How many more people are there making tape machines? Even SSL... they stopped making the [large format] analog consoles. Why? Because it takes more research and everything just to do one of those consoles. The new platform is digital. They stopped making carburetor cars not because it's better, but because new cars they have, with the fuel injectors, you don't need to adjust timing belts or anything like that. The computers run the injectors and tell the injectors how much fuel and when to fire the spark plug, precisely top dead center. They don't usually discontinue things because it's better.
Good point. What about color and the visual aspect of mixing? What are some common things that you see and go for, in terms of color palettes and the pictures you're painting with sound?
Well, I know this might sound like garbage, but different notes and different frequencies have different colors. Like, for example, bass would be blue. High frequencies, like hi-hat, would be white. That's the color I see flash in my head. That's what I see. It's where my imagination leads. The whole music, painting, any of that, it's something that happens in your brain that has to translate to your fingers. An artist might get a visual about that drawing and it's something that exists in their brains and get translated into [their] fingers. The same thing with the thousands and thousands of records I mixed. You're familiar with my discography. Is it a thousand? Tens of thousands?
How many titles have you released that are under your name?
Man, I stopped keeping track. When you do the quick math, just going back, bare minimum, was like five songs a day. So, five songs a day in seven days, how much is that? Thirty-five?
Yep.
