Dub Side Project: Update

Listen to the rough scratch track I've made so far

(yeah it sounds a tad distorted, whoops.)

Just a quick update on the dub side project I'm working on!

So last week, I booked time in the MIDI studio and created a Pro Tools session. I also hired out the Yamaha bass guitar from the tech office so that I could record some rough bass tracks. I was going to work with Ableton but since I'll be recording some acoustic instruments such as the bass, electric guitar (and maybe percussion? don't know yet), I thought I'd be better off using Pro Tools.

I went through my reference tracks and settled down with two tracks. They were "555 Crown Street" by Augustus Pablo and "Cool Down Version" by King Tubby. I chose these two different tracks because they both differ from hi-hat rhythms. "555 Crown Street" has a more fast syncopated rhythm whereas "Cool Down Version" had a hi-hat rhythm that struck on every beat and on the fourth, had an open hat hit. You can listen to the different hi-hat rhythms below.

Cool Down Version - King Tubby

555 Crown Street - Augustus Pablo

I wanted to record the beat first so I had a kick track and a hi-hat track to start the session off. I decided to set the tempo for the song to 130BPM as most dub tracks have that similar tempo. I recorded a kick and had it hit on every third beat, and both reference tracks (as well as most dub tracks) have this element as well. Then I recorded the hi-hats. I created two tracks (Hi-hat 1 and Hi-Hat 2) so that I was able to replicate both hi-hats rhythms from my reference tracks. This resulted in me having to choose between two different rhythms, but first, I wanted to have a bass melody recorded so then I'll be able to choose which rhythm suited the bass better to then make my final decision.

So I created a track for the bass. I went through my reference tracks and other dub tracks as well to listen for how the bass was played. Majority of them were recorded for only 2-bars and then looped for the entire song so I stuck with that method. I played around for a bit and finally got down a bass melody. I transposed the key up a few semitones to see which key I'd like the track to be in, which then I decided to go with B minor. But I might change my mind as I progress through the project.

I went home and started mucking around with reverbs and that and just set rough reverb settings that I thought sounded okay for now. I also got down some guitar tracks, and stuck with minor chords as I prefer minor chord dub tracks compared to major chords. Major chords in my opinion are too, idk, fluffy and happy. I like my shit moody.

I didn't go into delay yet as I wanted to wait until I recorded the final guitar tracks and got vocal samples in.

I booked another MIDI session yesterday and yeah it went alright, but I didn't really get as much shit done as I wanted to. I brought in my electric guitar (Fender Tele if you're wonderin) and yeah, maybe I got carried away by the full version of the Guitar Rig that the MIDI Studio had. I managed to find some Jamaican vocal samples which I think would be great to have in the intro and have it appear in and out of the mix. I'll be adding them hopefully by next week? We'll see but it'll be very soon as I'm like halfway from finishing I think.

My current work progress

Over the coming days, I want to add in more melodies from the guitar and perhaps another instrument. My reference track "555 Crown Street" has made me want to add other instruments and the melodica that Augustus Pablo is famous for; I'd love to get that sound in. So yeah, a bit more work to do but yeah it's been good so far. I'll post another update sometime next week on my work progress and hopefully will be closer to finishing this.