King Tubby

King Tubby (born Osbourne Ruddock, January 28, 1941 ? February 6, 1989) was a Jamaican electronics and sound engineer, known primarily for his influence on the development of dub in the 1960s and 1970s. Tubby's innovative studio work, which saw him elevate the role of record producer to a creative height previously only reserved for composers and musicians, would prove to be highly influential across many genres of popular music. He is often cited as the inventor of the concept of the remix, and so may be seen as a direct antecedent of much dance and electronic music production.

Remixes

Tubby began working as a disc cutter for producer Duke Reid in 1968. Reid, one of the major figures in early Jamaican music alongside rival Clement 'Coxsone' Dodd, ran Treasure Isle studios, one of Jamaica's first independent production houses, and was a key producer of Ska, Rocksteady and eventually Reggae recordings. Asked to produce instrumental versions of songs for sound system MCs or toasters, Tubby initially worked to remove the vocal tracks with the sliders on Reid's mixing desk, but soon discovered that the various intrumental tracks could be accentuated, reworked and emphasised through the settings on the mixer and primitive early effects units. In time, Tubby (and others) began to create wholly new pieces of music by shifting the emphasis in the instrumentals, adding sounds and removing others and adding various special effects, like echoes, reverb and phase effects. Partly dues to the incredible popularity of these early remixes, 1971 (see 1971 in music) saw Tubby's soundsystem consolidate its position as one of the most popular in Kingston and so he decided to open a studio of his own.

Related Topics:
Duke Reid - 1968 - Clement 'Coxsone' Dodd - Treasure Isle - Ska - Rocksteady - Reggae - Toasters - Remixes - 1971 - 1971 in music

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