This week presentation is about DUB music. I am going to try to find an answer on: What is about that little island that has produced so much brilliant music? is it the "sufferation"? is it the climate? is it the weed?
PART 1
Let’s take a closer look at history of DUB:
HISTORY
Exclusivity has always been a major component of sound system culture in Jamaica.
And a way of helping to preserve it would be to scratch off the labels, so that no one could identify, what the song was actually called. No rival sound could identify what song you had.
Coxsone and Duke Reid started to make their own music in Jamaica. They made music specific to be played in the sound system. That was the beginning of record business in Jamaica.
Dubplates.
dubplate is an acetate disc — usually 12 inches, 10 inches or 7 inches in diameter — used in mastering studios for quality control and test recordings before proceeding with the final master of the record to be mass produced on vinyl. The "dub" in dubplate is an allusion to the plate's use in "dubbing" or "doubling" the original version of a track. The name dubplate also refers to an exclusive, 'one-off' acetate disc recording pioneered by reggae sound systems and drum’n’bass djs.
Dubplate history is very interesting, like most great inventions it was discovered by coincidence.
ln 1968, a man called Ruddy Redwood, operator of a sound system called The Supreme Ruler of Sound, went to Treasure lsle studio to run off some material exclusively on dubplates. But the engineer forgot to put in the voice. Ruddy took that record to a party that week and he played the vocal, which everyone knew, and then he played this version, without vocal. That was a big hit with the crowd. He went back to Duke Reid and said: "you can put that on the other sound of the record."
Science that moment most reggae releases have dub version on B-side. And not just reggae albums, this is common in ragga, dubstep, d’n’b and even widely understood electronic music.
Making a dub requires a lot of electronic equipment: samplers, reverbs, flangers, effects, filters... Note that we’re talking about 60s, when professional sound devices where very hard to find. People like King Tubby (dub legend) modified old electronics to obtain specific effect. Cutting and gluing tape was very common practice. Ingenuity of Jamaican artists was really incredible. Lee Scratch Perry tried to record cow mooing, to use this sound in one of his remixes. Cows were afraid of microphones and ran away. Perry took a cardboard roll, that is used in paper towels, wrapped it with tin foil and used that to imitate cows.
There were several studios in Jamaica: Studio One, King Tubby’s Channel one, Coxstone. They attracted crowds and other artists, because they had very good beats. If a tune was becoming a hit, other artists wanted to remake this tune. Especially Coxstone’s and Studio One’s beats and tunes became backbone of Jamaican music.
And new producers came after Coxsone, they saw that Coxsone had some good. So why shouldn't they copy them? And maybe they'd have the same success. A lot of great music is a result of remixing known themes.
"l'm Still ln Love With You" tune. This tune was a hit in the sixties.
Then it was a hit in the seventies.
Althea & Donna did "Uptown top ranking",
with the same rhythm track.
Sean Paul comes and rides it in the 2000s! So it's a hit again.
lt was easy to do that because there was no copyright law in Jamaica related to recorded music.
QUESTIONS
Would you agree that lack of copyrights helped create excellent tunes? If so, what do you think of copyrights now.
PART 1
Let’s take a closer look at history of DUB:
HISTORY
lf you go back to the late 1940's sound systems already were prominent in Jamaica.
They were bringing the music to the people. Although there was a thriving jazz scene in Jamaica, with live jazz music being played at least as early as the 1920's, most of these live events catered to the wealthy elite, so poor people couldn't afford the high price that these live concerts demanded.
So the sound system sprung up.
The sound system concept originated in Kingston Jamaica. DJs would load up a truck with a generator, turntables, and huge speakers to set up street parties. The sound system scene is generally regarded as an important part of Jamaican cultural history and as being responsible for the rise of modern Jamaican musical styles such as ska, rocksteady, ragga and dub.
They were bringing the music to the people. Although there was a thriving jazz scene in Jamaica, with live jazz music being played at least as early as the 1920's, most of these live events catered to the wealthy elite, so poor people couldn't afford the high price that these live concerts demanded.
So the sound system sprung up.
The sound system concept originated in Kingston Jamaica. DJs would load up a truck with a generator, turntables, and huge speakers to set up street parties. The sound system scene is generally regarded as an important part of Jamaican cultural history and as being responsible for the rise of modern Jamaican musical styles such as ska, rocksteady, ragga and dub.
Exclusivity has always been a major component of sound system culture in Jamaica.
And a way of helping to preserve it would be to scratch off the labels, so that no one could identify, what the song was actually called. No rival sound could identify what song you had.
Coxsone and Duke Reid started to make their own music in Jamaica. They made music specific to be played in the sound system. That was the beginning of record business in Jamaica.
Dubplates.
dubplate is an acetate disc — usually 12 inches, 10 inches or 7 inches in diameter — used in mastering studios for quality control and test recordings before proceeding with the final master of the record to be mass produced on vinyl. The "dub" in dubplate is an allusion to the plate's use in "dubbing" or "doubling" the original version of a track. The name dubplate also refers to an exclusive, 'one-off' acetate disc recording pioneered by reggae sound systems and drum’n’bass djs.
Dubplate history is very interesting, like most great inventions it was discovered by coincidence.
ln 1968, a man called Ruddy Redwood, operator of a sound system called The Supreme Ruler of Sound, went to Treasure lsle studio to run off some material exclusively on dubplates. But the engineer forgot to put in the voice. Ruddy took that record to a party that week and he played the vocal, which everyone knew, and then he played this version, without vocal. That was a big hit with the crowd. He went back to Duke Reid and said: "you can put that on the other sound of the record."
Science that moment most reggae releases have dub version on B-side. And not just reggae albums, this is common in ragga, dubstep, d’n’b and even widely understood electronic music.
Making a dub requires a lot of electronic equipment: samplers, reverbs, flangers, effects, filters... Note that we’re talking about 60s, when professional sound devices where very hard to find. People like King Tubby (dub legend) modified old electronics to obtain specific effect. Cutting and gluing tape was very common practice. Ingenuity of Jamaican artists was really incredible. Lee Scratch Perry tried to record cow mooing, to use this sound in one of his remixes. Cows were afraid of microphones and ran away. Perry took a cardboard roll, that is used in paper towels, wrapped it with tin foil and used that to imitate cows.
There were several studios in Jamaica: Studio One, King Tubby’s Channel one, Coxstone. They attracted crowds and other artists, because they had very good beats. If a tune was becoming a hit, other artists wanted to remake this tune. Especially Coxstone’s and Studio One’s beats and tunes became backbone of Jamaican music.
And new producers came after Coxsone, they saw that Coxsone had some good
Would you agree that lack of copyrights helped create excellent tunes? If so, what do you think of copyrights now?
ReplyDeleteIt depends on what kind of copyrights will be used.
But lack of copyrights is not an issue, more important is stupid marketing propaganda and law making every citizen of US&A a criminal by simply backuping their mp3 from Ipod (or is it Ipad? it's so many of them :P)
Most of the newly created bands, publish theire music without soome special copyright just to promote them self. All the onlines stores had changed the way we buy and sell music. And with all the big record companies finally realised that mp3, can make them money, they just stop fighitingh with it and started to work on new ways of secure the audio files, to better sell them. like on itunes. DRM etc.
ReplyDeleteWould you agree that lack of copyrights helped create excellent tunes? If so, what do you think of new copyrights?
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, lack of copyrights would be fatal for the music business ... The artists make music to make money through it, they are trying to do the best they can in order to sell more copies of their CDs. What sense would be recording music make, knowing that someone could legally copy and promote our work?
With some special copyrights I think it could help creating great music. But just for a remake or using a part of a song for a new one. Like Krzysztof said, artists aren't doing it for free but to make money. Having special permission or something for a remake(of course not for a lot of money, because it would kill the idea) could improve this kind of music.
ReplyDeleteAbout copyrights nowadays, who cares? :) Of course I would buy a CD of my favorite artist but only if it was cheaper. In my opinion prices are too high, even for a single mp3 song.