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jamaican dub / roots reggae · Bb minor — heavy root anchor · 76 bpm · 4 bars · 2 tracks

dub · lee scratch territory

76bpm. sparse 909 (kick 1, snare 3) + sustained moog sub on 1 of each bar. delay carries the song — that's the whole lesson. delay + plate on by default. drive optional for that ratty bbd character.

reference · Lee Scratch Perry · Black Ark dub session · 1976
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dub · lee scratch territory

76 bpm·4 bars·2 tracks·ref 1976

76bpm. sparse 909 (kick 1, snare 3) + sustained moog sub on 1 of each bar. delay carries the song — that's the whole lesson. delay + plate on by default. drive optional for that ratty bbd character.

● swap instruments · 2 tracks in this pattern▶
  • track 1 · 12 notes · default: TR-909
  • track 2 · 4 notes · default: Minimoog

swap a track's synth for your captured multisamples (e.g. minimoog → Moog Grandmother dubbass). preview to hear it through the real gear instead of the synthesis approximation.

the chain · toggle the signal path

chain order is fixed: drive → tape → delay → plate. matches nick's real signal flow.

what's happening
your midi is parsed in your browser. notes are routed through the selected synthesis engine (real circuit models, no samples). offline audio context renders the result. wav file lands in your downloads. nothing leaves your machine.
coming next
multisample instruments — actual recordings of nick's Mother / Wurli / MS-20 / SP-1200 patches from la burbuja, plus FX chain modeling his real signal path (tape · drive · delay · plate) + room IRs (la burbuja · the spacepit).
the story · the technique · the why

dub is what happens when you understand that the MIX is the instrument. lee scratch perry tracked his Black Ark sessions on a 4-track with reverbs and tape delays sent on aux returns, and the act of pulling faders + sending things to delay + cutting them out + bringing them back IS the song. the dancers came for the engineering.

the floor here is intentionally bare: kick on 1, snare on 3, a single hat lift on the "and of 4" so the bar has something to push off of. that's it. four bars, nothing more. the LACK of percussion is what makes the delay readable — every hit gets to bloom into the next bar via the echo.

the moog sub note holds the root for almost the entire bar. on a real session this would be the bass player playing one note and the engineer riding the fader. here we just sustain. the moog's filter is slightly open so you hear the harmonic content but not the high end — dub bass is felt, not heard.

delay + plate on by default. the delay carries the snare into the next bar (dotted-eighth feedback is the classic king tubby setting). the plate gives the kick + bass a ROOM. if you want to push to space-echo territory, also enable drive — that adds the slight BBD warble that's missing from a clean digital delay.

the common mistake

too many elements. dub is a subtraction game, not addition. every time you add something, ask 'can i mute this and run it through delay instead, then bring it back later as the surprise?' that's how king tubby and lee scratch perry thought.

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