MAKING DUB WITH COMPUTERS - CHAPTER 11: MIDI (2) - WHY MAKE A RIDDIM?

The above could be a small description of a day in a Reggae Studio. The musicians enter the building, where the sound engineer has allready set up the microphones and thing, so that everything can be recorded into the multitrack recorder.

It can also be a description of your computer. As said before, the computer merely simulates real situations, and even expands on these situations. You could see the sequencer and midi technology in this context as well.

It's time to create a riddim, and midi is the way to do it!

We allready spoke about the different ways of Reggae Drumming, several ways to look on the rhythm et cetera. All of this information will now be neccesary as we will construct a basic track.

Our purpose is to create DUB. But DUB is basically a way of remixing (Reggae) Music. DUB can also be seen as "the art of removing", so we have to make something before we can re-mix or remove it.

In reggae, a basic track is an absolute must. These tracks are called "riddims". It's what the Jamaican Studio Musicians do for a living: they enter the studio and start playing riddims.

After the riddim is recorded, singers and Dub engineers take these recordings and do their thing with it.

In order to make DUB, it is kind of important that this particular situation is more or less simulated in the computer. Just like the Studio Band doesn't "play Dub", your original riddim shouldn't be a Dub either. It should be an instrumental Reggae tune.

So let's make a riddim, now we know why.

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