Sound Clash Jamaican sound systems often held competitions to determine who was the most proficient gauge of the audience’s tastes. Beating another sound was very important, to boost ego and to ensure bookings by promoters. To be beaten by another sound was to be 'flopped'.. When a sound was more powerful, it could often flop the competition with sheer volume. Having the best record selection was extremely important for the early Jamaican sound systems, more than one-upping a friend, it was necessary to have the most appealing records to attract patrons to the venues were the sounds played. Typically, it was the sounds’ selection of discs in the 1950s and early 60s that made the crowd dance more for one sound, the signature of a flop. To flop the other sounds it was necessary to excel at judging the mood of the dancers in the audience and providing them with the tunes they wanted. For the big three, it was absolutely crucial to travel to the U.S. in search of the latest 78s; get fresh, or get flopped. Often, labels were changed or scratched off to prevent the competition from stealing a sound system’s signature tune. The first ‘white label’ records (excepting Edison ’s of course) were the secret weapons of the sounds, used to thwart the competition in battle. Many records were identified with the sounds that played them, more often than with the artists that originally recorded them, an indication of the extent to which the original sound waves were being altered by these musicians. This in itself was a great leap forward for the art of sound; the Jamaican sounds shifted the focus off of the pre-recorded music and onto the live musicians who were actually controlling the output of their enormous cabinet speakers. At the time, no dedicated mixers were being manufactured for playing records live. If the sounds were not using large studio mixing boards, microphone mixers were improvised to control the flow of music. However, the integration of two sound streams from separate recordings simultaneously, 'juggling' as it was later called in Jamaica, was rare. Mixing was fully incorporated into the Jamaican repertoire only after its advent in the American disco. Although the selectors were only spinning one tune at a time, they cultivated the sound coming out of the speakers using high, low, and mid-range filters like Hedley Jones' amp. Increasing the bass and reducing the mid-range and treble levels, the sounds pumped out a specific flavor of noise. With jive-style introductions for the records and percussive vocal sound-effects provided through the microphone, Jamaican sound artists learned how to bend the sound on the record to meet the tastes of an audience. The effect created was a different taste from the original pressing, specifically aimed at the Jamaican ear. Heavy bass was the paramount part of the Jamaican sound aesthetic. The records played had deep bass lines to encourage the dancers. Nelson George captures the style well: The [. . .] style of these mobile DJs stripped away melody to give reggae’s deep, dark grooves throbbing prominence. Dancehall patrons preferred a harder R&B sound in comparison to the R&B style that gained prominence in 1950s America; and, in turn, R&B records containing deep rolling bass lines were highly sought after by the sounds. Little known artists such as Wynonie Harris and Sherman Williams kept patrons bouncin’ in the dancehalls. James Wayne, and groups from New Orleans , including a young Fats Domino and others such as Smiley Lewis, were also highly touted in the lawns and dancehalls where the sounds performed. Demand for this specific hard-hitting flavor eventually led Reid, Dodd, and Edwards to become producers. In 1957, the three began pressing acetates specifically for use in their sound systems’ live performances. Typically, it wasn’t until two years after these unique pressings hit the dancehall, that these records were made available to the general public. Incredibly, the big three had wrenched control of the recording process away from the foreign manufacturers’ tight grip, a process that would define Jamaican music as a whole. By judging the response to the tunes in the dancehalls, the early Jamaican sound artists were able to make the crossover to production with great success. Simply put, the best discs with the most bass determined supremacy amongst the sounds. Many sound systems were comprised of a mish-mash of amplifiers and loudspeakers hooked up directly to a record player or through a mixing board. The smaller sound systems were a preview of the thousands of bedroom dj and studio set-ups throughout the world today.