MAKING DUB WITH COMPUTERS - CHAPTER 33: AUDIO (1) - ONE-SHOTS, LOOPS AND STEMS

Don't think everything is said and done about Dub mixing. It's just, how should I put it, an introduction. Basic Reggae Musicology and setting up your studio for a Dub mix is an introduction. Until this point, namely, we've only used MIDI technology for the creation of music and for that, you need to have a little bit of insight and also a little bit of musical feel. In fact, for the creation of the musical track I used zero knowledge about Dub and every knowledge I have gained as, well, musician.

I know a little bit about chords, bass lines and drums and a little bit about themes and clavinets and thing. I've worked with musicians and I always listen to music with an analytical approach. Still, being a producer or a Dub engineer is not the same as being a musician. There's a huge difference as everybody with even a grain of insight into the Music Making culture can tell you. Nuff said. 

An engineer in a studio, especially in pre-computer days, dealt with recordings. Actual recordings from actual musicians, not synthesizers, samplers and drum computers following a programmed sequencer pattern. An engineer deals with the vibe of the music, too, not so much with the actual musicological side. To an engineer it doesn't matter which chords, bass lines or whatever is used. The engineer "just" turns the musical play into something audible. In our case, that audible something is Dub.

Next to programming/playing MIDI stuff into a sequencer, you can choose to use the sequencer for pre-recorded material too. Next to, or instead of. There are basically three different forms of audio that you can use to construct your basic (instrumental) Reggae track: loops, stems and one-shots. All these three forms deserve their own chapter, but what they have in common with each other is the same as what they have in common with what we have been doing in this tutorial thus far: creating a track from where we can make a Dub of.

Here's a short description of the three audio forms I'd like to cover:

ONE SHOTS

The most common use of one shots are drum samples in a drum computer or sampler. Load the one-shots, program a rhythm and off you go. They can also be used to spice up things musically or as a plain sound effect while you mix your Dub.

LOOPS

Loops are shorter or longer recordings of drums, bass, horns, the riddim section. They can be one bar, two, four, eight, up to thirty-two and even beyond. Using Loop Player and Editor features, you can change the rhythm and pitch of the loops to make a workable multi-track of a Reggae track. 

STEMS

Stems are like loops, but they can be complete multi-track recordings from start to stop, including vocals and others as well. Stems can actually be seen as what used to be the multi-track recordings in studios like Channel one. 

The big difference between creating your own musical track and using pre-recorded material lies in the contents of the audio, obviously. Personally I use loops that were recorded in Mad Professor's studio, for example. Drums, horns, riddim section... I combine it with my own musical ideas but it is a great joy, help and improvement for my sound that I'm able to use material recorded with not just crucial soundware but also with the experience of Mad Professor and the musicians themselves. I use much more than Ariwa material, but I'm sure you get the point.

When I started writing this tutorial back in the days, even using one-shots was quite a thing. Processing loops was like: give a command to your computer, take a trip around town and see if it was anything when you came back. Fortunately, processing audio can be done in real-time so even without any musicological background but with just an ear for the right thing, "everybody" can now make Dub. Even when they didn't make (all) of the music themselves. 

<<<PREVIOUS CHAPTER<<< - MAKING DUB WITH COMPUTERS - >>>NEXT CHAPTER>>>