King tubbys console

marchingband · Post by **marchingband** » Wed Jan 09, 2008 12:51 am

I wanted to start a new thread about tubby's mixer
I gather it was mCi, pre-400 series, custom. I gather that it had an altec-Lansing hp filter that was tied to the patchbay. From the youtube videos of scientist using it, it looked like it only had one aux send, as crazy as that seems.
that's as much as I have been able to figure out online, note, everything I've shared so far is hearsay.
anyone know more?

Is it tube?
does it have preamps at all?
what are all those knobs on the right?

Is anyone else as obsesed with this as I am?

Post by **interruptor** » Thu Jan 10, 2008 12:04 am

Which Scientist video do you mean? (link please)

The Scientist Video which I linked in the other thread does not show him do anything on the board:
(KING TUBBY'S STUDIO - Scientist on da mix! : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXPnO3vm ... re=related)

However the Jammy Video also gives me the impression that there was only one aux send. It's the row of black pots between the vertical channel volume faders and the three rows of red pots:
(King Jammy - Jailhouse Rock : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-KsWcv6 ... re=related)
I just watched this video a few dozen times and it's pretty clear that they used that aux send for the reverb effect. (At 00:30 he adds reverb to the snare hits on the drum track)
You can also see that they used four channels strips on the right side of the board for drums, bass, organ&guitar, vocals (4 channels from right to left)

Apart from the reverb there is one more effect to be heard which is the echo unit. Missing another aux send they came up with the solution to connect the direct out (post fade) of each of the 4 channel strips mentioned above to an empty channel strip on the left side of the board. Thus they could use the vertical channel faders of these strips as aux sends for the echo unit! You can see at 00:15 how he opens the "aux send" on the drum track with his left hand (vertical fader) and closes the volume of the drum track with the right hand a split second later. Result: The drum track is echoed and disappears. He does the same thing with the vocal track a few seconds later (00:22)

Regarding the mci desks: I looked around on the web a bit and found quite a lot of pics of mci desks but none of these looks similar to the Tubby one. Given the fact that mci desks were among the most popular in the seventies it surprises me how little information can be found about them on the web today..

Well, in case you find out additional info be sure to post it here. I'd be interested to know

Daniel/Interruptor

KoCha · Post by **KoCha** » Thu Jan 10, 2008 7:35 am

After watching lot time this move, I must agree with your statement Interruptor... Only one aux send for reverb.

Agree about the post-fade trick for delay, but I wonder how scientist used the phaser... ???

Radic · Post by **Radic** » Sat Jan 12, 2008 6:45 am

Greetnz

yes i
very interisting clipz
I tink dey are from de film the story of Bunny Lee. who worked in tubbys studio at dis time
i hafe ponder dees tings too
Did he have a sub mixer patched to dat lonely aux
dat would be a workaround
a patch bay could control insert FX
I can na see what is he printing to????
so maybe he is still in pre-production
he could layer FX in a few diferent passes
building de mix wid his vibez
he seamed to wroking pon certain tingz in de mix
cause he did not rewinde all the way back to the beginning of the tune
for the second take
Crucial tingz a gwaan ina dat secc.... fireal
thanx for de linkz
irey to check inside dee legandary studioz
gotta love dat

guidance
Radic

marchingband · Post by **marchingband** » Mon Jan 14, 2008 6:58 am

KING JAMMY seems to do one other thing in http://youtube.com/watch?v=QhDtlFmiS2U .

at 1:24 he's tweaking the next knob's up (where it would be eq pots) but it seems to affect the delay (if you can hear behind the narrator), almost sounds like a multi-head type delay. could he be controlling the feedback-loop for a few heads with those red knobs?

marchingband · Post by **marchingband** » Mon Jan 14, 2008 7:00 am

sorry thats http://youtube.com/watch?v=QhDtlFmiS2U

Post by **interruptor** » Mon Jan 14, 2008 9:40 pm

@ Radic:
I never heard that they were recording dubs in several "layers". So far I always thought that each dub from the tubby studio was a mixing board performance done in one take. Also listening to all the dubs done in that era I never had the feeling that they were doing things that couldn't be accomplished in one go. I imagine that they were doing a special session for the camera team to demonstrate their dub skills. so it wouldn't mean much that Jammy didn't rewind all the way back.
Anyway this is not in the clip linked above and I don't know the rest of the movie. So you may know better than me as you seem to have seen more of it

Post by **interruptor** » Mon Jan 14, 2008 9:50 pm

@marchingband:
Yes you are right I also wondered what happened there at 1:24. It seems to me single echoes without repetitions can be heard. The delay time is shorter than at the beginning of the track. Like you I also thought that he may be controlling parameters of the echo unit on those red knobs.

Radic · Post by **Radic** » Tue Jan 15, 2008 2:08 pm

atru
most of the creative vibe of the mix was 1 pass
how ever preproduction is still in der
i hav giged (support act) wid Mad Prof and he is such a irey vibe
he had pre produced 8 trax not totally dry but pre-ed ready for dub mixing
so live on stage he would mix and Makka B controled the mike
wicked show
back stage i could watch his movez
he is very friendly and open
loves to check studios new tek
he's on twit crucial style
ok Tubby same
no 8 trax in the kings time
jah Tubby was a great inovator
had a electronic repair shop and built his own amps
his studio was full of his own modz
both Jammy and Scientist worked in his other shops to
wooow musta been some studio in its time
remember to Tubbys studio was strictly for dub mix down and vocal production called Voiceing.
no tracking of the band.
dat was all recorded and mixed to 4 trax at other studios by other engineers and producers
so most of the pre is delivered to his door
still pushing de limites leads to yah kno where
so alikkle pre is well with in King Tubbys caperbillities
why not?????

KoCha · Post by **KoCha** » Wed Jan 16, 2008 1:09 pm

interruptor wrote:@ Radic:
I never heard that they were recording dubs in several "layers". So far I always thought that each dub from the tubby studio was a mixing board performance done in one take.

It's just sure and certain... it's the root of the art of mixing that King Tubby created !

@Radic
The fact is that you can find in some itw that Tubby (and other dub-master) has done too some dub in LIVE in bigger studio (not in Tubby's one of course, cause no instrument recording room)... so impossible to do layer when doing live mix !!!!

Just look to some LSP video, you can see it mixing the band in live.

Radic · Post by **Radic** » Thu Jan 17, 2008 1:00 am

yes you could be right
i man am not so convinced
why wouldnt he do it
he was the cutting edge inorvator of his day
a likkle pre is well within his capabilites
cut and past wid real tape is an other skillfull 'trick' fe trade
there are pattens and formulars he used, exploited and crafted
for the local for his own and other sound systems dance hall gigs
he would catter his mixes to the local dance market
hey
nobody expected dub to move off the B side and stand in it own rite
so at first it was all experemental fun n gamez to lively up the dance
seen
Yo
in dat movie the story of Bunny Lee
there is a couple of frams of the 2track they were printing to
and 1 or 2 asistants who were helping too
so dat could be 4 or 6 handz in de mix
they could reherse tingz and record many passes to 2track or even mono
(the dance halls broadcast every ting in mono anyway)
dema pick de best bitz, cut and splice it altogether ready to master

well i could be totally wrong
granted some tunez were so vibey they may well hav made it tru in 1 pass
and they are most likely in de top 10 to 20% of his entire works which is the tunez we love de most so you could well be right
seen

atrue
i man can still na rule out Pre production fe de master dropper King Tubby

Radic

KoCha · Post by **KoCha** » Thu Jan 17, 2008 7:03 am

Yes Radic, we are bother right...

Cause at the begin of dub experimentation 4track mixer doesn't exist, there was only 2-track (or perhaps mono) recorder and I had read that King Tubby used bouncing (the technic you describe) to mix first bass/drum and then bounce shank/vocal/lead melody... over it in a kind of overdub.

But King Tubby have build his 4 track mixer to do all this process live in one pass, it's the aim of this custom 'home-made' mixing desk, I'm praticly sure.

So I agree that some old King Tubby record was done using bouncing, but near all record (I think all) done after the build of the custom 4track board was done live in 1pass.

Nice talk,

Radic · Post by **Radic** » Thu Jan 17, 2008 9:12 am

His dubz sound real everytime
seen

i hav always been very interested in his desk since the time
i read in a Beat mag that he design and added mods to each chanel to fine tune the desk for Reggae and Dub
wooow
MCI dub wired
ch1 drumz
ch2 bass
ch3 skanks
ch4 Vox
gotta love dat
Nuff Raspect
also from the same Beat mag artical, said that he hand picked the timber for his purpose built studio
which he said was his instrument of choise and that when mixing he would treat his whole studio as if it was 1 musical instrument
he use to run work shops for engeneers and provided scholaships for studients
if he was still with us
he'd be hear answering we questionz
lol
Guidance
Radic
www.earthreggae.com

marchingband · Post by **marchingband** » Thu Jan 17, 2008 6:43 pm

interruptor.
I think the reason you are not finding mCi consoles that look like tubbys is that its not technically an mCi desk. I understand there was an era in the 60's where the mCi guy was building only custom mixers, and that he later started the400 series as a standard design. Tubby's is an example of a pre-400 series desk, and I'm assuming its mostly, if not entirly unique

Post by **interruptor** » Thu Jan 17, 2008 9:39 pm

@Marchingband:
Ah.. I understand. That sounds sensible.
One thing about the mci desks that can be seen on the web looks in fact similar to tubby's desk: Those arced faders on the right side.

@Radic:
You also mention MCI. Did they write about MCI in that mixmag article you mentioned? You don't have access to that article anymore do you?? Would be a must-read..

marchingband · Post by **marchingband** » Thu Jan 17, 2008 10:11 pm

Is it the king studio console? Can you point me to those photos pleease

marchingband · Post by **marchingband** » Thu Jan 17, 2008 10:15 pm

does anyone know about those arched faders?
are they just a pot with a stick on the end?

Radic · Post by **Radic** » Fri Jan 18, 2008 6:40 am

couldnt find it
i will keep lookin tho

here is a excert from a scientist interview
from www.Niceup.com

After Dynamic had the (4-track) board for years, couldn't do anything with it, Tubby's got it and Dynamics sorry the day they sold it to him (laughs). That board - and I've worked on many boards - is the only board that I've worked on so far that has that type of high pass filter - yunno, sometimes you can hear like the frequency changin'? You 'ave other boards that 'ave high pass filters, but nothing (else) have that sort, and the way how he combined it to work, MCI - the people who made it - wasn't plannin' to ever use it that way. In today's recording technology, the console itself is (would be) primitive now, because we didn't really have all the sophisticated equalisation that we needed, that we have in today's technology, or the mutes. But what did give it the edge is because when you (are) mixin' dub, it's much more flexible mixin' it on 4-track than you can on 16-track. It's hard to manoeuvre all those instruments.

Check ---> http://niceup.com/writers/steve_barrow/ ... dition.rtf
for more

what blew me away was how natural and yet deliberate his motions were. the console was totally an instrument in his hands
awesome one aux send, and he is just riding up two returns with his left hand.... Crucial, so deep, yet tis just 6 faders.... Humbled in de persents of de king
just a couple years later, some of his studio musicians came up with the clasic tune 'Under Me Sleng Teng,' which is based pon a preset drum pattern on a Casio keyboard and dema wicked keyboard lines, .

The song was such a huge hit that it started off the 'digital' sound, and all the great live studio groups hafe golong so as keyboard-driven songs took over de dance halls. There's a DVD with Jammy saying how pissed he was that he had 50+ unreleased live group tracks that were suddenly out of fashion because the digital sound had taken over.

Must've been a blessing to learn the art of dubbing from Jah King Tubby.
Guidance
Radic
www.earthreggae.com

Post by **interruptor** » Sat Jan 19, 2008 1:29 am

Radic that's it!

If steve Barrow cites Scientist, that's a source I do trust. So we now know it was an mci desk.

@marchingband:
The following site has pictures of an mci desk with arced faders:
http://www.vintageconsoles.com/mci.htm
There are also close-ups like these two:
http://www.vintageconsoles.com/MCI1/DSC00803.JPG
http://www.vintageconsoles.com/MCI1/DSC00819.JPG

Radic · Post by **Radic** » Sat Jan 19, 2008 7:03 am

ireyness
kool MCI pix

check

Prince Jammy, Bunny Lee & Delroy Wilson - In A Dancing Mood

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_j7Yq3R ... re=related

from the film Deep Roots Music - Story of Bunny Lee

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjsuLEgW ... re=related

Deep roots is wicked too

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsGVDcdF ... re=related

hafe bun
hash oil rulrz
hehe
guidance
Radic
www.earthreggae.com