Recently, I was mixing an upcoming album, Raindance, for the artist Odelet. Though the music was not reggae, the producer (who goes by "Everlasting Tape") had a long history of working in that genre and also using dub mixes at times. (I've only dabbled in dub mixing, but I've been researching the techniques for decades, practicing performing with analog effects live in the studio, and sneaking in little dub tricks in mixes when it made sense to me.) We'd booked plenty of time for our mixing, and as we finished the main mixes the producer wondered if I'd like to try doing some whacked-out dub-style mixes of the tracks. "Let's see what happens," I replied.
Over the next couple of hours, we ran down one or two mixes per song, and I went (super) ape on the effects. Smashing snare hits into spring reverbs, regenerating tape delays into oblivion, drenching keyboards in giant reverbs, and taking instruments and the lone vocal in and out of the mixes. I have to admit that it was nerve-wracking, but it was also fun, and some of the moments that almost randomly seemed to happen would make us laugh or gasp. My client went home with these mixes, and I assumed maybe they'd see the light of day online at some point.