Rub-a-Dub

What it is

Around 1979 the Roots Radics replaced the Revolutionaries as the house band everyone used, and they changed two things. They dropped the tempo below what rockers had been running at, and they took most of the notes out. Style Scott played a heavier, slower one drop with a doubled kick and long silences between events, and Flabba Holt played basslines with more space in them than notes. Junjo Lawes produced it, Scientist mixed it at Channel One, and the point of all that emptiness was that a deejay had to fit inside it. Rub-a-dub is the sound of the sound system dance rather than the record shop: a riddim, a microphone, and someone toasting over the top for as long as the crowd holds.

What it sounds like

Slow, dry and very heavy at the bottom. The kit is close and damped with almost nothing above 6kHz. The bass is enormous, plays five or six notes a bar and lets the rest ring, and it is mixed loud enough to be the loudest thing. Guitar and keys skank on the offbeat but quietly and often only every other bar. Sound effects arrive from the desk: a laser, a thunderclap, a gunshot echoing off into nothing. The vocal is a deejay rather than a singer, riding the rhythm in a rhythmic chant, and the mix is arranged around leaving them a hole to sit in.

Key elements

• The doubled kickBeat 3 plus a second kick on the a of 3, close enough to read as one heavy landing with a stumble in it. Style Scott's signature and the fastest way to identify the style.
• Space for a deejayThe arrangement is built with a hole in it. Fewer instruments, longer gaps, and nothing competing with the middle of the vocal range.
• Bass with restsFive or six notes a bar with the rest left silent, so the low end pulses rather than drones. It is a more percussive bass part than a roots line.
• Quarter-note hatsThe hi-hat retreats to the beats only, which is far sparser than roots or rockers and opens up the whole midrange.
• Desk effects as instrumentsSirens, gunshots and lasers dropped in from the desk on the turnaround, treated as arrangement rather than as novelty.

How to get them

• KickProgram beat 3 at 116 and the a of 3 at 78. Use the same sample for both and let the second one clip the tail of the first rather than gating it clean.
• BassWrite the line with rests in it, then remove one more note. Low-pass at 400Hz, compress with a slow attack so the transient survives, and put it two decibels above where you think it belongs.
• HatsQuarters only, at 66 to 70, with the hat opened on the and of 4. That single open hat is doing the job the whole eighth-note lane does in rockers.
• Leave the midrange emptyHigh-pass the skank at 500Hz, notch the keys around 1.5kHz, and mix everything so a voice at conversational level cuts through without you touching a fader.
• EffectsOne or two per eight bars, always on the turnaround, always into the same tape echo. Restraint is what separates this from a sound effects record.
• Swing55 percent. Same lean as the one drop it descends from, played by a drummer working slower and hitting harder.

Reference points

Roots Radics, Style Scott, Flabba Holt, Henry Junjo Lawes, Scientist, Barrington Levy, Yellowman, Michigan and Smiley. Named as reference points for the sound, not as endorsements or as anyone to imitate.