sound system

A sound system is a group of DJs and engineers contributing and working together, often playing and producing one particular kind of music.

The sound system concept originated in the 1950s in the ghettos of Kingston,in Jamaica. DJs would load up a truck with a generator, turntables, and huge speakers to set up street parties. The sound system scene is generally regarded as an important part of Jamaican cultural history and as being responsible for the rise of different style of Jamaican music such as ska, rocksteady, reggae and dub. When Jamaicans emigrated to the United Kingdom, the sound system culture followed and became firmly rooted there in the 1970s. It is still strongly linked with those Jamaican-originated music genres, and some bands or producers still call themselves sound systems, such as Dub Narcotic Sound System and the On-U Sound System. The term also has also become connected with sound reinforcement systems by DJs.

Today, a sound system generally refers to dub music, free party, rave, reggae, rocksteady, ska, sound system (Jamaican), or teknival.

Dub

This week, I want to present you a style of music which I love: The Dub Music!

Dub is a form of music which evolved out of reggae in the 1960s. At the beginning, the dub sound consists of instrumental remixes of existing recordings and is achieved by significantly manipulating and reshaping the recordings, with a lot of effects, 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.

There are Jamaican musicians King Tubby and Lee "Scratch" Perry pioneered the style in the 1960s and early 1970s. King Tubby and Lee 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. French groups are very famous, as Zenzile, High Tone, or Ez3kiel.