# Dub — Jamaican one drop, rockers and steppers # Reference: Sly Dunbar (Sly & Robbie), Carlton Barrett (The Wailers), # Style Scott (Roots Radics), Horsemouth Wallace, # King Tubby and Lee "Scratch" Perry mixes. # The one drop is the defining move: beat 1 is deliberately empty. Kick and # snare land together on beat 3, and the hole where the downbeat should be is # what the bass fills. Play it late — the whole style sits behind the click. # GM notes: 36=kick, 38=snare, 37=side stick (cross-stick), 42=closed HH, # 46=open HH, 51=ride, 48=hi tom, 41=floor tom, 49=crash # # ── Step grid notation ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────── # Each character in a step grid represents one subdivision of the bar. # Resolution controls how many steps per bar (16 = 16th notes in 4/4). # # X Strong accent — velocity = base_velocity × 1.00 (full hit / downbeat) # x Medium accent — velocity = base_velocity × 0.75 (firm stroke / upbeat) # o Soft hit — velocity = base_velocity × 0.55 (brush / light touch) # g Ghost note — velocity = base_velocity × 0.28 (barely audible, mostly felt) # . Rest — no note fired at this step # # Beat positions — 4/4 at resolution 16 (one char per 16th note): # pos 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 # 1 e1 +1 a1 2 e2 +2 a2 3 e3 +3 a3 4 e4 +4 a4 # (1/+/2/+/3/+/4/+ = quarter beats; e = "e of"; a = "and-a of") # # Swing / feel: the 'feel' field shifts odd-indexed steps (1,3,5,7…) forward in time. # straight — no shift (all steps exactly on the grid) # laid_back — same grid, slower humanisation envelope: the reggae pocket # ───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── name: Dub family: reggae bpm_range: [60, 95] time_signature: [4, 4] resolution: 16 feel: laid_back instruments: kick: { note: 36, base_velocity: 108, velocity_range: 8, timing_jitter: 0.016, duration_beats: 0.20 } snare: { note: 38, base_velocity: 104, velocity_range: 12, timing_jitter: 0.020, duration_beats: 0.14 } rim: { note: 37, base_velocity: 84, velocity_range: 10, timing_jitter: 0.018, duration_beats: 0.06 } hihat: { note: 42, base_velocity: 68, velocity_range: 12, timing_jitter: 0.016, duration_beats: 0.06 } hihat_open: { note: 46, base_velocity: 78, velocity_range: 10, timing_jitter: 0.016, duration_beats: 0.16 } ride: { note: 51, base_velocity: 70, velocity_range: 10, timing_jitter: 0.016, duration_beats: 0.12 } tom_hi: { note: 48, base_velocity: 92, velocity_range: 12, timing_jitter: 0.018, duration_beats: 0.14 } tom_lo: { note: 41, base_velocity: 94, velocity_range: 12, timing_jitter: 0.018, duration_beats: 0.18 } crash: { note: 49, base_velocity: 96, velocity_range: 8, timing_jitter: 0.014, duration_beats: 0.28 } # Reggae breathes more than most grid music: the jitter here is deliberately # on the high side so the pocket drags rather than clicks. humanization: timing_jitter: 0.020 velocity_jitter: 14 velocity_drift: 0.06 sections: intro: type: count_in hits: 4 note: 37 groove: bars: 1 variations: - name: one_drop weight: 4 # Carlton Barrett's one drop. Beat 1 (pos 0) is silent on both kick and # snare — the "drop". Everything lands together on beat 3 (pos 8). # The hi-hat plays straight 8ths so the listener still knows where 1 is. kick: "........X......." snare: "........X......." hihat: "x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x." - name: rockers weight: 3 # Sly Dunbar's rockers: the kick returns to all four quarters and pushes # the tune forward, but the snare stays on 3 alone so it is still reggae # and not rock. The open hat on the last offbeat pulls into the next bar. kick: "X...X...X...X..." snare: "........X......." hihat: "x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x." hihat_open: "..............x." - name: steppers weight: 2 # Steppers: four-on-the-floor kick, ghosted 16th hats, ride doubling the # quarters. The militant end of roots — Burning Spear, Black Uhuru. kick: "X...X...X...X..." snare: "........X......." hihat: "xgxgxgxgxgxgxgxg" ride: "X...X...X...X..." - name: crosstick weight: 3 # The dub texture proper: cross-stick instead of a full snare and a hat # only on the offbeats. Sparse on purpose — in a dub mix the space is # where the delay throws and spring reverb live. kick: "........X......." rim: "........X......." hihat: "..x...x...x...x." hihat_open: "......x........." - name: flying_cymbal weight: 1 # Bunny Lee's "flyers" sound: open hi-hat on every offbeat 8th, washing # over the whole bar. Rockers underneath so the wash has a floor. kick: "X...X...X...X..." snare: "........X......." hihat_open: "..x...x...x...x." fill: bars: 1 variations: - name: tom_drop # Two toms falling into the next one drop. Short, never busy. kick: "........X......." tom_hi: "........X.X....." tom_lo: "............X.X." - name: snare_echo # Snare triplet-ish cluster on beat 4 — the hit a dub engineer catches # in the tape delay and lets repeat over the next bar. kick: "........X......." snare: "........X...X.X." hihat: "x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x." - name: rimshot_space # The restrained fill: one cross-stick, one kick, and silence. kick: "X.......X......." rim: "........X......." hihat: "..x...x...x...x." break: bars: 2 variations: - name: dub_drop # Everything out except the one drop itself — the moment the mix falls # away to bass and echo before the band comes back in. kick: "........X......." crash: bars: 1 variations: - name: standard crash: "X..............." kick: "X...X...X...X..." snare: "........X......." hihat: "x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x." structure: fill_every: 8 break_every: 0 break_length: 2 crash_after_fill: true dynamic_build: false