A look into the history and evolution of dub music with Hopeton ‘Scientist’ Brown

Scientist was introduced to electronics by his father, a television and radio repair technician. At an early age, he begins to build his amplifiers and buy transformers from Tubby. While at his studio, he asked for a chance to mix a track, so he became Tubby's assistant. His name is connected, once again, to the studio. While in a session, Tubby told Bunny Lee: Damn, this little boy must be a scientist - referring to Scientist's technical proficiency. And this is how a legendary name was born.

The end of the 1970s saw Scientist as the main engineer for Channel One, working on a 16-track mixing desk, rather than the four tracks of Tubby's fame. His name started to get attention in the early 1980s. He released a series of albums on Greensleeves Records with titles themed around Scientist's fictional achievements: fighting Space Invaders, Pac-Men, and Vampires, but also winning the World Cup. His music was played by Roots Radics, his most frequent collaborators.

Not only did his releases put him on a map, but also his unique engineering skills, which became a trademark. He was the favorite engineer of many producers, for whom he mixed albums featuring session musicians such as the Roots Radics and Sly & Robbie.

In 1982 he left Channel One to work at Tuff Gong studio , and starting in 1985, he began working as an engineer in recording studios in the Washington, D.C. area.

Following the interview, you will get to know the musical genius and the prolific artist behind the name of The Scientist. From mixing techniques to LP visual covers and King Tubby’s legacy, our conversation took a tour of this impressive engineer and artist work.

I became these guys teacher. There is a lot of piracy going on, after Tubby's death, there were a lot of albums coming out under his name when it was my work, with my mixes. For example, King Tubby's vs Channel One in Dub is a complete fraud, and we've debunked that. Tubby had a four-track machine, and when you listen to the reverb, you can hear it is the mixing desk from Channel One. The reverb sound is unique to each studio in this world. Channel One has a very distinct reverb, and so did Tubby.

When you have a four-track recording like King Tubby's did, it is impossible to separate for example the kick drum from the drum track, or the organ from the rest of the rhythm section. So if you take out the rhythm track, you take out the piano and everything within the rhythm section such as the piano, organ, rhythm guitar, the same for the drums you can't take out the drums without taking out the percussion wish was grouped with the drums at the time of the recording. It is impossible to do that from a four-track recorder. But on the pirate Tubby album, which was mixed by Peter Chemist, you can hear the organ track separately. What happens with these producers is that they run out of ideas, so they resorted to piracy. Also, the mixes are so embarrassing they sound like my next-door neighbor or some drunken guy mixed that album.

Every engineer and producer and mixer out there in music history has a unique signature. People love them for their signature. On that record, nothing sounds like Tubby, and again the same thing happened with the Dangerous Dub album, where supposedly King Tubby Meets the Roots Radics. That is a fantasy. Tubby never mixed any songs with the Radics. What these record companies do is invent and release their crazy ideas. The worst part about it is selling these records under Tubby's name and keeping all the money for themselves. It is a disgrace and a shame when they should be held responsible for what they are doing.

Disasters happen in the music industry. I have seen musicians ending up being paupers and homeless, while the record companies, with their poor morals, keep all the finances for themselves. When they have the opportunity to take advantage, they do it. You may consider it a fairy tale when you hear those stories of how a lot of jazz and blues artists were compensated in drinks by the record labels. But it happened in Jamaica too. Artists have signed papers they don't understand. The lawyers working for the record labels were doing these immoral contracts. And I doubt that someone would sign away their rights for a few drinks or a couple of hundred dollars.

This situation has been a disgrace and things are slowly getting better. It can happen again tomorrow unless the government changes the law, so when you go in to sign a contract with any of these record labels, you must have an outside independent counsel. If the money is substantial, very generous, a couple of 500 million dollars, then you could understand why someone would just give up their royalties. I don't think anybody in their conscious minds would sign their rights for a donut! But the law is too vague now, and artists need more protection. When you go against these record companies they have these big type criminal lawyers. A lawyer always aims to be greedy and see how much they can get from the artist for their clients. That is what counts as a good lawyer in this business. You can hear them brag:

Hey, I got the Wailers to sign away their rights for a hundred dollars.

That's a crappy crooked lawyer! Jamaicans in those early days had no idea what work for hire means. They just saw people coming at them with papers to sign. In the seventies, 500 dollars seemed like a bunch of money. They came to me with the same papers, and I refused it. From my perspective, in the music business there is a need to be more protective for the artists and the people who put all the effort and who are doing the hard work.

Even if you sell apples, the corporation comes to you with a deal. And it seems like you always get the type of people who take the helicopter to travel two blocks to their house, while some people work and slave. We are talking about someone who wouldn't even miss 10 000 dollars from his pocket, but who wouldn't pay an artist or worker properly.