Back to Ignition Mag frontpage How to get dubbing Pt.1 - By 'DubMan73' (Contributor) - 6 March 2001 Well now... Get to know the basics. Go get some old Dub Records. Lee Perry and King Tubby are good names to start your research on. Listen for a while. Dub is an artform which evolved from the recording techniques available in Jamaica back in the seventies. Now, thanks to modern technology, you can use easilly accessible equipment which offers far more possibilities, especially when it comes to editing and controlling details of the production, than on those old dub vinyls. It is felt by some producers however that real dub must be mixed by hand in real time as a "direct-to-tape mixing performance". After getting an overview on this page you can find more information about individual aspects of the recording process in the following specialised chapters. Setting up the studio Make sure you got something named 'delay' on it, else go get some. If you got it, then put it on the table/desktop, plug something in it and learn how to use it. Make the delay repeat in time. Some have nothing written on the switches, some says milliseconds, some state the tempo and things like 3/4th note. Those are there to make the delay sync in time. If you're not familiar with syncing delay to music, then pick up a (search engine) 'delay calculator'. Search for something called 'reverb'. There are lots of reverbs around. Listen to them and pick your favourites. The old-skool version is called 'spring reverb'. Many older guitar amps incorporate spring reverbs. Try to get one. They're cool. Believe. Get some filters - Make the sounds sound stand out more natural in the final mix by removing unwanted background noise etc early on. Filters remove certain frequencies out of the sound. Research on 'audio filter and eqs' on a search engine to get more info. Record everything - You never know when the sound of your life is going to happen. Record your sessions, even if just trying out some new freeware effect plug-in from the web or your friends guitar-effect-box. You never know when you hit a cool mass of sounds. You can sample off the 'house-tape' later on. Put it on DAT, MiniDisc, 2-track, my god! just a plain C-tape will do! It'll be retro sound and better than nothing. Use effects in wild orders. Don't rely only on 'old-tricks', you can put the distortion after the reverb. You can put vocals through guitar-amps, wah wahs, walkie talkies, toy-radio-speakers and so on and re-record them to get some nice new textures. Be creative. Make your friend hower a mic in a empty fish-bowl and leave another just lying on the table, mix those signals and get a free space-phaser. Send in your ideas to me! We'll post them here!