Looping Artists - Dub FX

Many people would have got their first taste of Live Looping by seeing one of Dub FX’s excellent performance video’s filmed by Ben Dowden. They give a pure and unadulterated view of one of his unforgettable street performances and at the time of writing this article, the clip posted below had racked up a staggering 13 Million views on YouTube alone.

Dub FX (real name Benjamin Stanford) hails from Melbourne, Australia, but it wasn’t until he made the move to Manchester in the UK that he really began to make a name for himself.

Finding himself in such a musically diverse environment was a revelation to him, as he began to absorb grime, dub step, jungle etc. and find his own musical voice for the first time.

Busking on the streets of Manchester gave him the chance to explore his ideas on live looping, developing an innovative and well rehearsed approach. In his own words; "One day busking on the street is like six months practicing in your bedroom".

His original songs incorporate elements of a variety of musical genres, notably hip hop, reggae, grime and dub step.


Dub uses a setup based on BOSS gear.

“I originally started out with the Akai Headrush pedal as my loop pedal with a GT-6 guitar pedal as my effects. I had been experimenting with the effects pedal for a few years in bands and one day stumbled across Mal Webb, who also uses the Headrush. He totally opened my brain to the possibility of looping and how powerful the voice alone can be. I knew that combining it with the GT-6 could be something different and cool. Eventually I found out about the BOSS RC-50 and the new GT-8 came out so I saved up and bought them both at once. This was awesome because it meant I could send the tempo between the pedals via MIDI, making my performance cleaner and tighter with all of the delays and oscillators. Nowadays, I have the GT-10 as my effects pedal... ...but the hardware isn't what makes the performer good. It just gives you a different set of boundaries to help you get a sound.”

More recently Dub has been involved in the setup of Convoy Unlimited, an independent artist collective, bringing together a collection of like minded creative individuals. You can score product from Dub FX there, as well as the other Convoy artists so why not drop on by and give them your support.
http://www.convoyunltd.com/

Posted in: Akai Headrush, Boss, Dub FX, GT-10, RC-50