Dub is a music genre, evolved from reggae, that involves revisions of existing songs. The dub sound consists predominantly of instrumental remixes of existing recordings and is achieved by significantly manipulating and reshaping the recordings, usually by removing the vocals from an existing music piece, emphasizing the drum and bass frequenciesor 'riddim', adding extensive echo and reverb effects, panoramic LR delay, and dubbing occasional snippets of lyrics or instruments from the original version.
It is widely accepted that Jamaican producers Osbourne "King Tubby" Ruddock, and Lee "Scratch" Perry pioneered the style in the 1960s and early 1970s. Similar experiments with recordings at the mixing desk were also done by producersClive Chin and Herman Chin Loy. These producers, especially Ruddock and Perry, looked upon the mixing desk as an instrument, manipulating tracks to come up with something new and different. 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. The use of the Melodica by Augustus Pablo in Dub music has made it a key part of the genre, appearing in many recordings since its first use.