DUB DISCUSSION BOARD

Hello fellow steppas.

I am working on perfecting my skank and bubble technique and recently decided to go through the exercises in the book by keyboardist Jimmy Peart.

What I want to know is whether or not the examples on the accompaniment cd are of true reggae feel or if they are not. I have posted some examples of double chops, triplet chops, and bubble. Please take a listen and tell me what you think.

http://tinyurl.com/l6gss8



* copyright disclosure *
Dear megacorporation: I am aware that these are copyrighted tracks and will remove these within 30 days. I have posted only a couple samples for educational purposes only, with no intent to distribute.

The feel / timing of all those examples sounds right to me. I am surprised that all the skanks except those in the examples with bubble organ are double skanks. This style is often realised using a delay not playing it manually. I don't know if you just picked the examples with double skank. I just think that the majority of reggae tracks have single skanks.
Also it seems to me that there are more chord changes than in most reggae songs. However that's probably intentional so that you have more opportunity to practice different chords.

Thanks for the reply, Intteruptor.

Yes, there are other exercises / examples with single skank.

The double-skank exercises emphasize two approaches. First, a straight double-skank without any accent. Second, a double-skank with an accent on the first skank.

I realize that a well-timed delay can provide that second skank hit, but to me it's important for all players to be able to do it manually and not rely on the technology too heavily. You can always use it, sure, but it's important to be able to do it yourself too. I'm a bit of a purist.

A note to other readers of this thread: please continue to post your opinions.

Actually this double skank thing was invented by sound engineers as a mixing technique not by musicians. At least that's what Silvan Morris sound engineer at Coxsone Dodd's legendary Studio One tells in this documentary: Studio One Story
I agree that as a live player it's a good thing to be able to play this style without a echo unit.
In fact it's quite common for reggae bands to adapt styles that were initially dub techniques, like playing echoes manually or "muting instruments" (drum and bass only, bass cut, ...)

Nice, thanks for sharing that info.