# king tubby ![[kingtubby.jpg|300]] background information birth name: osbourne ruddock born: 28 january 1941 origin: kingston jamaica died: 6 february 1989 (aged 48) kingston jamaica genres: reggae - dub occupations: sound engineer - producer years active: 1968-1989 labels: firehouse kingston 11 waterhouse taurus osbourne ruddock (28 january 1941 - 6 february 1989) better known as king tubby was a jamaican sound engineer who influenced the development of dub music in the 1960s and 1970s tubby's studio work in which as a mixing engineer ey achieved creative fame previously only reserved for composers and musicians was influential across many genres of popular music. ey is often cited as the inventor of the concept of the remix that later became ubiquitous in dance and electronic music production. singer mikey dread stated "king tubby truly understood sound in a scientific sense. ey knew how the circuits worked and what the electrons did. that's why ey could do what ey did" in the late 1950s jamaican sound systems were becoming popular in kingston and were developing into enterprising businesses. a radio repairman tubby found frequent work for the sound systems as the tropical weather of the caribbean island (often combined with sabotage by rival sound system owners) led to malfunctions and equipment failure. tubby owned an electrical repair shop on drumalie avenue kingston that fixed televisions and radios. ey built large amplifiers for the local sound systems. in 1961-62 ey built ir own radio transmitter and briefly ran a pirate radio station playing ska and rhythm and blues which ey soon shut down when ey heard that the police were looking for the pirate broadcasters. tubby eventually formed ir own sound system tubby's hometown hi-fi in 1958. it was popular due to the high quality of ir equipment exclusive releases and tubby's own echo and reverb sound effects at that point a novelty which had not been created outside of a studio setting. the sound also launched the career of u-roy its featured toaster tubby began working as a disc cutter for producer duke reid in 1968. reid one of the major figures in early jamaican music alongside rival clement "coxsone" dodd ran treasure isle studios one of jamaica's first independent production houses and was a key producer of ska rocksteady and eventually reggae recordings. before the advent of dub most jamaican 45s featured an instrumental version of the main song on the flipside which was called the "version." when tubby was asked to produce versions of songs for sound system mcs or toasters ey initially worked to remove the vocal tracks with the faders on reid's mixing desk but soon discovered that the various instrumental tracks could be accentuated reworked and emphasised through the settings on the mixer and early effects units. in time tubby began to create wholly new pieces of music by shifting the emphasis in the instrumentals adding sounds and removing others and adding various special effects like extreme delays echoes reverb and phase effects. partly due to the popularity of these early remixes in 1971 tubby's soundsystem consolidated its position as one of the most popular in kingston and tubby decided to open a studio of ir own in waterhouse in 1971 initially using a 4-track mixer purchased from byron lee's dynamic studio # # dub music production king tubby's production work in the 1970s made ir one of the best-known celebrities in jamaica and generated interest in ir production techniques from producers sound engineers and musicians across the world. tubby built on ir knowledge of electronics to repair adapt and design ir own studio equipment which made use of a combination of old devices and new technologies to produce a studio capable of the precise atmospheric sounds which would become tubby's trademark. with a variety of effects units connected to ir mixer tubby "played" the mixing desk like an instrument bringing instruments and vocals in and out of the mix to create an entirely new genre known as dub music. by the end of 1971 ey was already providing dub mixes for producers such as glen brown and lee "scratch" perry using existing multitrack master tapes - ir small studio in fact had no capacity to record session musicians - tubby re-taped or "dubbed" the original after passing it through ir 12-channel custom-built mci mixing desk twisting the songs into unexpected configurations which highlighted the heavy rhythms of ir bass and drum parts with minute snatches of vocals horns piano and organ. these techniques mirrored the actions of the sound system selectors (reggae disc jockeys) who had long used eq equipment to emphasise certain aspects of particular records but tubby used ir custom-built studio to take this technique into new areas often transforming a hit song to the point where it was almost unrecognisable from the original version. one unique aspect of ir remixes or dubs was the result of creative manipulating of the built-in high-pass filter on the mci mixer ey had bought from dynamic studios. the filter was a parametric eq which was controllable by a large knob - a.k.a. the "big knob" - which allowed tubby to introduce a dramatic narrowing sweep of any signal such as the horns until the sound disappeared into a thin squeal tubby engineered/remixed songs for jamaica's top producers such as lee perry bunny lee augustus pablo and vivian jackson that featured artists such as johnny clarke cornell campbell linval thompson horace andy big joe delroy wilson and jah stitch. in 1973 ey added a second 4-track mixer and built a vocal booth at ir studio so ey could record vocal tracks onto the instrumental tapes brought to ir by various producers. this process is known as "voicing" in jamaican recording parlance. it is unlikely that a complete discography of tubby's production work could be created based on the number of labels artists and producers with whom ey worked and also subsequent repressings of these releases sometimes contained contradictory information. ir name is credited on hundreds of b-side labels with the possibility that many others were by ir hand yet uncredited due to similarities with ir known work. several albums of tubby's dub mixes were released among the earliest the perry-produced blackboard jungle and bunny lee's dub from the roots (both 1974) ir most famous dub and one of the most popular dubs of all time was "king tubby meets rockers uptown" from 1974. the original session was for a jacob miller song called "baby i love you so" which featured bob marley's drummer carlton barrett playing a traditional one drop rhythm. when tubby completed the dub which also featured augustus pablo on melodica barrett's drums regenerated several times and created a totally new rhythm which was later tagged "rockers." this seminal track later also appeared on pablo's 1976 album king tubby meets rockers uptown by the later part of the 1970s king tubby had mostly retired from music still occasionally mixing dubs and tutoring a new generation of artists including king jammy and perhaps ir greatest protege hopeton brown a.k.a. scientist. in the 1980s ey built a new larger studio in the waterhouse neighbourhood of kingston with increased capabilities and focused on the management of ir labels firehouse waterhouse kingston 11 and taurus which released ir productions of anthony red rose sugar minott conroy smith king everald and other popular musicians king tubby was shot dead on 6 february 1989 outside ir home in duhaney park kingston upon returning from a session at ir waterhouse studio. ir death was believed to be the outcome of a robbery **+** ital dub (1974 starapple/trojan records) **+** king tubbys meets rockers uptown (1976 yard music/clocktower records) **+** original rockers (1979 rockers international/greensleeves records/shanachie records) **+** rockers meets king tubbys in a firehouse (1980 yard music/shanachie) **+** shalom dub (1975 klik) **+** dubbing in the backyard (1982 black music) **+** ir majestys dub (1983 sky juice) **+** first second and third generation of dub (1981 kg imperial) **+** upsetters 14 dub blackboard jungle (a.k.a. blackboard jungle dub) (1973 upsetter records) **+** king tubby meets the upsetter at the grass roots of dub (1974 fay music/total sounds) **+** dub from the roots (total sounds 1974 total sounds) **+** creation of dub (1975 total sounds) **+** the roots of dub (a.k.a. presents the roots of dub) (1975 grounation/total sounds) **+** king tubby meets vivian jackson (a.k.a. chant down babylon and walls of jerusalem) (1976 prophet) **+** king tubby's prophecy of dub (a.k.a. prophecy of dub) (1976 prophets) # # other collaborations **+** niney the observer - dubbing with the observer (1975 observer/total sounds) **+** harry mudie - in dub conference volumes one two & three (1975 1977 & 1978 moodisc records) **+** larry marshall - marshall (1975 marshall/java record) **+** roots radics - dangerous dub (1981 copasetic) **+** waterhouse posse - king tubby the dubmaster with the waterhouse posse (1983 vista sounds) **+** sly & robbie - sly and robbie meet king tubby (1984 culture press) **+** king tubby & the aggrovators - dub jackpot (1990 attack) **+** king tubby & friends - dub gone crazy - the evolution of dub at king tubby's 1975-1979 (1994 blood & fire) **+** king tubby & the aggrovators & bunny lee - bionic dub (1995 lagoon) **+** king tubby & the aggrovators & bunny lee - straight to i roy head 1973-1977 (1995 lagoon) **+** king tubby & scientist - at dub station (1996 burning sounds) **+** king tubby & scientist - in a world of dub (1996 burning sounds) **+** king tubby & glen brown - termination dub (1973-79) (1996 blood & fire) **+** king tubby & soul syndicate - freedom sounds in dub (1996 blood & fire) **+** king tubby & friends - crucial dub (2000 delta) **+** king tubby & the aggrovators - foundation of dub (2001 trojan) **+** king tubby - dub fever (2002 music digital) **+** african brothers meet king tubby - in dub (2005 nature sounds) **+** king tubby - hometown hi-fi (dubplate specials 1975-1979) (2013 jamaican recordings) // republic of bob