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Dub is a form of music which evolved out of reggae in the late 1960s. The dub sound consists predominantly of instrumental remixes of existing recordings and is achieved by significantly manipulating and reshaping the recordings, usually by removing the vocals from an existing music piece, emphasizing the drum and bass frequencies or ‘riddim’, adding extensive echo and reverb effects, and dubbing occasional snippets of lyrics from the original version. It is widely accepted that Jamaican musicians Osbourne “King Tubby” Ruddock, and Lee “Scratch” Perry pioneered the style in the 1960s and early 1970s. Ruddock and Perry each called upon the mixing desk as an instrument, with the deejay or “selector” playing the role of the artist or performer. These early ‘dub’ examples can be looked upon as the prelude to many dance and pop music genres.
Today, the word ‘dub’ is used widely to describe the re-formatting of music of various genres into typically instrumental, rhythm-centric adaptations.


Character

Dub music is characterized as a “version” or “double” of an existing song, often instrumental, using B-sides of 45 RPM records and typically emphasizing the drums and bass for a sound popular in local sound systems. The instrumental tracks are typically drenched in sound processing effects such as echo, reverberation, part vocal and extra percussion, with most of the lead instruments and vocals dropping in and out of the mix. Another hallmark of the dub sound is the massive low-pitched bass guitar.