Dub
The instrumental remix of reggae — rebuilt with reverb, delay and bass
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Dub is the instrumental remix of reggae: the producer removes or fragments the vocal, pushes drums and bass forward, and rebuilds the space with reverb, delay, filtering and sudden silences. It grew out of 1970s Jamaican sound-system culture.
It differs from a mixdown: dub is not "mixing the song properly" but treating an existing recording as material for a new composition. The usual mistake is to think dub is just lots of reverb — its core is subtraction and the choreography of space; reverb is only one tool.
Read deeper → reggae
Sources
- dub 的录音室手法与牙买加传统，参 The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, "Dub"；本文为原创表述
Used for fact-checking only; all prose is original.