Roots Archives Forum

Anyone know? No credits on the album. I always assumed Tubby, but now someone is telling me Hudson himself mixed it, which doesn't sound right to me. Someone on B&F is suggesting partially Tubby, partially Sylvan Morris.
Anyone have the kind of ears that can actually identify who was mixing? I sure don't. But my general understanding is that producers rarely mix their own dub records.

The B&F info is correct - Tubby mixed most of the tracks, but some (3-4) were also done by Morris at Dynamics(?)
You can always recognize a mix done at Tubby's because of the sound of the reverb on the one-drop drum hit. Tubby's thunderous reverb effect was produced by a 'spring reverb' unit, just like those on built into Fender Guitar amplifiers and heard on surf-guitar rock instrumentals from the early 60's. It has has a distinctive modulating sound, which is very "vintage" sounding today. Tubby runs the whole drum kit through it as hits, making that BOOM sound. Jammy & Scientist made it even more prominent when they mixed at Tubbys.
Other studios during the 60's-70's (including Dynamics, apparently) didn't use spring reverb because it was considered cheap-sounding, and they used a "better" (more natural) sounding 'plate reverb' instead.
But Tubby's spring reverb on the one-drop sounds evil-icious! Like an explosion. Listen through loud headphones and it sounds much more distinctive.
Tubby's also employed a swirling, phase-shifted sound on the whole mix by twisting an equalisation knob back and forth, which also could make the bass sound thin for a moment, before becoming fat and deep again.

Thanks for the great reply. What you describe is how you can tell it was done at Tubby's but not so much how you can tell whose hands were at the controls.

back then it would have most likely been Tubby - Philip Smart was his first mixing apprentice, but i don't know if he would have been there when Pick A Dub was mixed.

the reverb unit was a Fisher Space Expander, which was at one time a fairly popular reverb unit. it was supposedly modified to some degree, but who really knows how true that is, or if it was, to the extent that it was modded?

the characteristic "phase shift" of King Tubbys was from "the big knob" - an Altec hi-pass filter that was part of the custom built MCI 12 input, 4 buss mixing console that was acquired from Dynamic Studios in 1972 (Dynamic had upgraded to 16 track to do The Rolling Stones "Goat's Head Soup" sessions in 1971)

Byron Lee and Andy Capp went to S. Florida in 1969 and bought the console, which was originally built in the mid 60's by MCI (located in S. Florida) for Atlantic Records in NYC. Byron Lee actually became the very first MCI dealer when MCI began commercial production of recording equipment.

It IS sometimes really hard to tell who at Tubby's actually mixed such-and-such track, especially during 77-79 because that was when Tubby, Jammy and Scientist were all mixing there. Their individual mixing styles changed over the years, and producers might request a certain specific style of dub mix for their tracks. Credits on records are not much help either. Singles almost never say who mixed the version. It seems Greensleeves was one label that made the effort to correctly ID the mixer, and some Trojan dub LPs are probably accurate. If a dub LP has only one mixer listed, and the tracks all sound similar it's probably safe to assume the credit is correct, so you can compare with other LPs.
It's pretty easy to ID the various other JA 70s dub mixers + the studio they mostly worked at. Studio One dub has its own dilapidated lo-fi sound which I never get enough of, with either Coxone or Sylvan Morris (Scientist too, for a few tunes in 1979-1980)... Errol Brown has his own brash style, he mixed the Duke Reid Treasure Dub LPs, and also dub for Sonia Pottinger's labels at the old half-abadoned Treasure Isle studio, (he used a spring reverb there too)... Sylvan Morris also mixed some subtle atmospheric dub at Harry J and those sound especially atmospheric and phasey with a really unique warm yet punchy sound perfect for roots...and of course Errol T & Joe Gibbs...I could go on & on...I love that dub!

Nice said Horizon Crawler As the engineers mentioned above more or less had(eventually)a homebasis studio (and producer) I would also add engineers like Sid Bucknor, a cousin on Coxsone Dodd's father's side, and Karl Pitterson, those two worked in many different studios and with a bunch of producers. Two respected engineers, although I think Sid Bucknor engineered allot more. Also in the 7 inch B side business.

One question I used to think that Coxsone Dodd didnt touch a mixing desk in his life and thought I also read so about it. But in forums sometimes pops up he did do some engineering. Is there a link of an interview or a name of a book that I missed, please let me know. Would be interesting to read.

Great posts above guys, really interesting stuff.

j j

Read it in Beth Lesser's new book about Dancehall over at Dancecrasher. It's in the first quote in the Studio 1 chapter, here you go:

http://www.dancecrasher.co.uk/features/ ... /chapter-4

Since the cited Mr. Kingston is on RA as well, he can probably tell us more?

I have 'dub chill out' and I must agree that none of the tracks attributed to Perry sound like Perry work at all. Indeed they sound much more typical of King Tubby productions. Indeed I have the track labelled "Lee Perry's Guiding Star Dub" on a King Tubby compilation Dub Like Dirt labelled as "Guidance Dub" (exact same version!). Great song by the way.

Dub Chill Out..? Oh yeah! I have it. It's a very good low-price compilation of all King Tubby dubs (or Jammy or Scientist mixes done at Tubby's) of tunes produced by Bunny Striker Lee in the 70's. There isn't a single bit of Lee Perry's work on it! But it's still one of the best Tubby dub selections on one disc. Guidance Dub is that awesome mid-70's flying cymbals version of Guiding Star by Horace Andy and the Aggrovators (orig recorded by the Heptones at S One about 1969) Another excellent version of 'Guiding Star' was also done later by Adrian Sherwood's Dub Syndicate/New Age Steppers/Singers & Players in 1979-ish on a dub LP called 'Threat to Creation'
Another good one-disc Tubby comp is Trojan's "King Tubby...at the Controls" with productions by mostly Bunny Lee, but also a couple by Niney, Carlton Patterson, and maybe one or two others.

Bunny Lee licenses his Tubby productions out to anybody that pays him, and after that he has little control over what they print on the cover. So there are all these Tubby releasesthat have the same hundred or so Bunny Lee produced Tubby dub tracks in various permutations, some with different credits & titles, which totally confuses the newcomer! This has been going on for decades in the reggae bizness. It took me years to sort it all out. Good labels like Blood & Fire, Soul Jazz, Pressure Sounds and a couple others seem to have the most honest dealings with producers, and they try to provide accurate info.
No one really knows who is responsible for putting "Featuring Lee Scratch Perry" on the cover of dub records that Lee Scratch Perry never worked on. Some people, like Lee Perry himself, accuse the producers like Bunny Lee of deliberately adding Scratch's name to the credits to boost sales, but I think it's probably the unscrupulous label operator who does it. Scratch doesn't get a penny of course.