The birth of the soundsystem came around with
big soundsystems like Veejay Rocket or [Tom]
the Great Sebastian or even as far back as
Lord Koos.
And these guys would entertain the Jamaican
public with their music, whether they might
be playing it from a mobile car or they might
be playing out of a dancehall.
We would probably look at it in the old days
like a mobile disco, but for us in the Caribbean
that was our television, it was our radio,
that's where you heard what was going on in
your community.
You’d have stories from back home from all
the DJs.
The soundsystems are in the streets.
So once you’re in the streets, you’re
going to be influenced by the soundsystem
whether directly or indirectly.
And it’s either going to disturb the life
out of you, or you’re going to enjoy.
And we more or less enjoy.
It’s kinda just always there.
In the beginning soundsystems were prejudiced
against reggae that was not Jamaican-made.
If it wasn’t made in Jamaica, it was inferior.
In fact a lot of guys would grab the microphone
and say, “We don’t play non-Jamaican reggae,”
and put it down.
We didn’t have the money to just go out
and per se... go to a Sam Ash or whatever
these stores are and pay the high prices.
So you know what I would do?
Hit the lumberyard, buy a couple of sheets
of plywood, go to the stores with my tape
measurer, measure all the cabinets, come back
home, hit the table saw.
We’d be down in the basement for weeks,
come out, next thing you know we’d have
a soundsystem.
We were trying to design music for sound systems,
which is a big difference than just making
music because it sounds good in your ears.
We were experiencing some of the best soundsystems
in the world, at least we thought between
New York and London.
We would go back and we would almost draw
out what we wanted to hear coming out of these
speakers.
That’s how we ended up developing our sound.
Your duty as a DJ is to learn about sound.
You may not have to be the expert that he
is but learn how it all works.
Unfortunately, most DJs don’t seem to really
care.
They are pushing up the gains, pushing up
the master, putting the EQs all the way up
and distorting the signal before it even gets
to the amplifier.
So the signal on the front end is already
distorted.
And then they are wondering why it sounds
horrible, why they’re blowing speakers out.
It’s always just trial and error, it’s
always completely different.
The only thing that’s consistent is I tend
to play similar producers' records, producers
that I know their dubplates will test the
system.
If the system can deal with that you know,
everything else is okay.
[Goldie] said, “Well, I took the dubplate
to him to play and then tried to take it back,
like a soundsystem, right?
You take it back…”
I said, “And what did Grooverider say to
you?”
He said, like that on the dubplate, “That’s
mine now.
I played it.
That’s mine now.
You go and cut another one, young man.”
“Yeah, but I haven’t got much money.”
“Well, that’s your fault.”
We were like, “Oh Goldie, you’re mortifying…”
Grooverider's just...
But he thought that’s what you did…
The purpose of a sound reproduction system
is to tell the truth, is to reproduce it the
way it really is.
And the only way to make a fair test is you
have to have an original, you have to have
the actual source, you have to know what it
sounds like, really.
