The Gear Behind Wu-Tang Clan’s Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)

With 2023 marking the 50th anniversary of hip-hop, endless debate over which works deserve to bear the label of “staple” is inevitable. Still, it’s impossible to deny the enduring influence of Wu-Tang Clan’s groundbreaking 1993 debut, Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers). Whether it’s the carefully balanced flow across multiple emcees, the distinct aural flavor of the studio’s well-loved gear, or RZA’s indelible beat crafting and sampling, it’s clear this album has earned its spot amidst the pantheon of hip-hop’s all-star offerings.

As MTV’s halcyon glow faded and hip-hop became increasingly recognized as a mainstream genre, it’s shocking that a nine-member crew would redefine the genre’s landscape when smaller cliques and solo acts were ubiquitous. A cursory glance at each member’s lyrical chops quickly illustrates how Wu-Tang Clan is more than the sum of its parts — a carefully woven tapestry of self-mythology, innovative production defined by the boundaries of hardware limitations, and reverence for artistic identity.

Enter the Wu-Tang subverted genre norms and expectations as the group reinvented and defied them, taking a holistic approach to make their mark on all five pillars of hip-hop: emceeing, DJing, breakdance, graffiti, and knowledge. New York’s Harlem Gallery of Science defines these as the craft’s oral, aural, physical, visual, and mental elements, as KRS-One’s oft-cited definition speaks to the “old” NYC era Wu-Tang upended. So, what went into making one of hip-hop’s most revered albums? We’re diving into the gear behind Wu-Tang Clan’s Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers).

Beat Production: “Make It Louder!”E-mu Systems SP-1200 Sampling PercussionEnsoniq EPS-16+ Sampler WorkstationEnsoniq ASR-10Roland SBX-80 Sync BoxMixing, Money & a Menagerie of MediumsPeavey Production Series 2400 ConsoleRecording with Ampex, Sony, TASCAM & (Maybe) Prince’s BlessingSignal Processing: Sounding Like NYCSound Shaping: PreampsSound Shaping: EQSound Shaping: Filters & DynamicsShape Shifting: Compression, Limiting & Noise GatesRecording Redux: Vocals, Sampling, Effects & Aural AestheticsEffects: Reverbs (Digital Domains, Premium Plates & More)Effects: Delays, Multi-effects Processors & Spatial Harmonies

Beat Production: “Make It Louder!”

RZA united the group in 1992 to begin work on what would become Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers). Budget limitations confined the crew to a smaller studio, with tensions heightened between the tight quarters and limited resources. RZA’s multidisciplinary direction prevailed, the result of the differences he’d observed in their work between West Coast G-funk and the East Coast’s then-current scene.

Mika Väisänen, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Among the 23-member cast of emcees, artists, and engineers who brought the album to life is Carlos “C12” Bess. In 2009, he provided a detailed account on Gearspace.com of everything used in the making of the record. He and fellow engineer Ethan Ryman were the creative and conceptual guardrails ensuring RZA’s vision for a new flavor of hard-core hip-hop was realized. Having ruminated upon the sociocultural variables that birthed the Los Angeles–centered G-funk, RZA aimed to contrast its slower, smooth grooves with a raw sound representing New York’s love of the low end. According to RZA’s book, The Wu-Tang Manual, he’d aimed from the outset for “that really gritty bass,” with one directive: “[M]ake it louder!”

E-mu Systems SP-1200 Sampling Percussion

2xUeL, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Sampling sits at the core of hip-hop, and RZA’s sample weaving defined the new wave of NYC production. The lauded grit found throughout Enter the Wu-Tang is a deliberate result of the gear used, starting with the SP-1200.

Released in 1987, the E-mu Systems sampler became a hip-hop staple thanks to near-complete track building from a single, portable instrument, like the Akai MPC60 of the following year. Dave Rossum designed the E-mu Systems SP-1200 to succeed the SP-12, ditching ROM-based samples for volatile RAM and floppy disk compatibility to manage audio samples flexibly. Its 8-voice polyphony, velocity sensitivity, and massive storage made it a veritable choice as a phrase sampler. Using 12-bit AD/DA converters, a 26.04kHz sampling rate, and SSM2044 filter chips resulted in the aural distortions that kept the SP-1200 in high regard for decades.

Its sonic patina was championed for preserving the analog warmth of vinyl records. Individual samples were capped at 2-1/2 seconds, yet producers of the era found a clever workaround: sampling 33-1/3 rpm records at 45 rpm with the turntable’s pitch control maxed out, replaying samples off the SP-1200 at a slower speed via its Multipitch or tuning/decay functions. Doing so further decreased the sampling resolution while increasing the unit’s total sampling time.

By the mid-1990s, this practice was adopted by virtually every hip-hop producer using an SP-1200. How much RZA implemented this is another tale for the deep Wu-Tang lore. Listening to “Method Man” and “Can It Be All So Simple/Intermission” — both made with the SP-1200 — it’s inevitable that some version of this was deployed.

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Ensoniq EPS-16+ Sampler Workstation

nourogg, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The EPS-16+ marks the first step in RZA’s Ensoniq evolution. Unlike the SP-1200, the EPS-16+ was a comprehensive workstation with a 61-note keyboard, 16-bit sample resolution, and variable sampling rate. Flexible sound-shaping tools included a 7-shape LFO, 8-track sequencer, multimode filters, and a suite of effects that could be resampled. Despite being released in 1990, the EPS-16+ could normalize, merge, phase switch, splice, auto-loop, and auto-truncate samples with fully adjustable sample-rate conversion. MIDI implementation and polyphonic aftertouch gave this powerful machine deep interoperative potential — a must-have feature for the nuanced production of Enter the Wu-Tang.

The workstation introduced an inspiring caliber of musicality to sampling. Its prototypical ’90s crunch perfectly complemented the rugged NYC ethos RZA sought: an audio-visual tapestry where beat crafting and lyrical narratives were equally important. RZA utilized the EPS-16+ on five of the album’s 12 tracks, including the iconic “Protect Ya Neck” and “C.R.E.A.M.”

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Ensoniq ASR-10

Though the EPS-16+ had served RZA well, C12 noted he “graduated” to Ensoniq’s flagship follow-up, the ASR-10. This Advanced Sampling Recorder wasn’t so much a step up but a new plane of possibilities. This spiritual successor to the EPS series was completely digital and engineered for autonomy as both a one-stop production studio and performance powerhouse.

Beatsbytoksik, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The ASR-10 sat at the cutting edge of artistic possibilities, porting over the effects and editing possibilities of the EPS-16+, expanding them while introducing even more. The 16-track sequencer was capable of a 999-measure limit to each of its 80 patterns. A newly introduced vocoder was one of 62 total effects built on Ensoniq’s DP/4 digital effects processor, supplemented by a flexible MIDI sequencer. Sample-editing capabilities were enriched with volume smoothing, crossfading, and both time-based compression and expansion.

Ensoniq’s unprecedented approach to designing the ASR-10 was its synthesizer architecture. Drawing from the armature found in the company’s SD-1 and ESQ-1 synths, the ASR-10 stored and managed 127 samples via Ensoniq’s WaveSample system. Samples could be individually manipulated through countless avenues, including a 15-source modulation matrix. To quote Vintage Synth Explorer, “Up to eight layers of WaveSamples can be combined to create your final sound. In this light, the ASR-10 basically looks like an advanced TranseWave [sic] (waveform modulation) synthesizer in which YOU create its WaveSamples!”

Pretty impressive stuff, eh? It’s no wonder the ASR-10 became RZA’s go-to workstation and was kept in heavy rotation for many years following. It holds the honor of being used on the most tracks (six), including “Da Mystery of Chessboxin'” and both parts of “Wu-Tang: 7th Chamber,” with C12 providing live drums for Part II.

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Roland SBX-80 Sync Box

In a 2018 Red Bull Music Academy piece titled “Engineering the Wu-Tang Clan,” Phillip Mlynar gathered several engineers, alongside the Firehouse studio founder/owner Yoram Vazan, for an oral history of making the record. In it, fellow 36 Chambers session engineers Dennis Mitchell and Ethan Ryman recounted the arduous process of printing RZA’s beats onto tape. Amidst the medley of machines was a Roland SBX-80 Sync Box. Inauspicious title aside, the SBX-80 was an impressively adaptable machine, touted as “A Programmable Tempo Controller That Reads and Generates SMPTE Time Code” in a May 1985 Roland Home & Studio Recording ad. MIDI had been formalized as a technology standard only two years before the SBX-80’s release, leading to two dedicated sets of 5-pin connectors: MIDI and the Roland-introduced DIN sync. It’s unclear how often MIDI or DIN sync were used, but a 2-track Sony APR 5003 tape recorder (with 1/4-inch tape) was synchronized with SMPTE.

Mixing, Money & a Menagerie of Mediums

While it’s not fair to say that Enter the Wu-Tang‘s era-defining work was the result of money, it’s not not about money. When the Firehouse relocated to Manhattan, Vazan recalls that RZA and crew could not come up with the $300 for studio time, noting that they sometimes paid in quarters. Vazan believed in them, however, periodically peeking in on the recording, telling RZA to pay him back when he had it.

Mitchell humorously identified that the Firehouse was designed by an engineer, “not investors,” attributing to Vazan’s engineering career. Ryman felt that the Firehouse “punched above its weight,” thanks to Vazan’s eye for finding cheap, older gear and restoring it, resulting in a distinct collage of vintage character contrasting the digital tools employed throughout the record.

Peavey Production Series 2400 Console

This console was the central nervous system of RZA’s oft-idiosyncratic process. It ran with an Apple Mac SE/30 to utilize the 24 channels of Megamix Automation. Nolan “Dr. No” Moffitte, another engineer at the Firehouse, remembers the Peavey as ”... probably the weakest link in the studio... But it was very functional. We did a lot of hip-hop stuff there and it was definitely one of the early hip-hop mecca studios.” RZA familiarized himself with the high-mileage console through routine tape dumps. He formed a peculiar creative partnership with Ryman, who connected the patch bay to the sampler, allowing anything from the board to be fair game for sampling.

Recording with Ampex, Sony, TASCAM & (Maybe) Prince’s Blessing

Vazan’s pension for killer deals on gear led him to an Ampex MM-1200 24-channel tape recorder. These multichannel machines could monitor previously recorded tracks while recording additional tracks. Versatility aside, this MM-1200 bore a secret: it was purportedly owned by Prince. At least, that’s how C12 tells it, stating it was used on “Purple Rain” — it’s unclear if he meant the song or the album. Ryman and Mitchell jokingly ponder the tale in their Red Bull Music Academy piece. Did Prince ever own it? Maybe it came from one of his studios but wasn’t used on his records? Vazan insists it was once in Prince’s employ, but the truth is another entry in the Wu-Tang mythos.

Nearly everything was recorded on 2-inch tape with the MM-1200, save for “Protect Ya Neck,” which was done on a 1-inch reel with a TASCAM MS-16 sans Dolby noise reduction. Two more TASCAM pieces were integral to the record: a DA-30 DAT recorder and a 244 Portastudio. Surprisingly, they would use the Portastudio to bounce final mixes from DAT to high-speed 4-track cassette using Maxell MX-60 cassettes. With feet on either side of the digital divide, Wu-Tang Clan and its engineers found their unorthodox process evoked the desired grit.

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Signal Processing: Sounding Like NYC

Even without all nine Wu-Tang members on one track, this group was a commercial and creative gamble. Hip-hop was maturing, but the sole difficulty wasn’t differentiating the production from G-funk or trending jazz-fueled arrangements. The hurdle to clear was one about flow, a problem that risked becoming more pronounced with more voices present.

Simoncromptonreid, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

RZA, GZA, and ODB had cut a few records in the preceding years, but they were hardly studio scholars, and the rest of the crew was just as fresh to the space. In fact, most of the engineers were up-and-comers just eager for the experience. Nobody could’ve predicted it would become a bona fide staple of the industry, ultimately selected by the United States Library of Congress to be immortalized in the National Recording Registry. Still, the Firehouse crew found them to be naturals in the studio. Blaise Dupuy notes there was seldom more than one take, saying “they were ready.” Ryman remembers them writing in the studio, planning around more than the immediate scope of whichever track was at bat. Speaking on this and RZA’s vision, Ryman notes in the RBMA piece:

I got the impression they were dealing with a much larger plan than just making this record. They were planning many records, so if something didn’t work for this, it could be part of another record or another track. RZA seemed to work very fluidly but always had a very focused eye on the big picture.

And to think that the only mic used was an AKG C414 EB to capture the distinctive flows of every member. We’ll get back to that in a bit.

Signal processing was happening in the mixing stage. Ryman “was no Jedi engineer,” he said of himself in the RBMA article, and “was never comfortable EQing things on the front.” This granted RZA and himself greater flexibility in crafting each part and track, with one exception: the initial printing of RZA’s beats meant connecting the ASR-10 to an API 550A, with some occasional compression.

Much of the gear used on the album has endured to this day in some updated fashion or another, which is as much a testament to its own value as it is to the sounds of Enter the Wu-Tang. Compressors, preamps, filters, and noise gates were used to carefully refine the sonic landscape without compromising the raw edge.

Sound Shaping: Preamps

Microphone preamps include an Ampex 350, API 3124, and a Focusrite ISA 215. The Ampex 350 doubled as a tape recorder, initially released in 1953. Its unique capacity for independent recording and playback made it a common choice for studios, blending functional benefits with the capacity for sonic flavoring. The API 3124 was a 4-channel mic pre, known for its intuitive interface, premium appointments, and versatile use. Today, API’s 3124V offers the same distinctive sonic coloring, alongside a 3:1 output transformer for instant harmonic enhancement of its impressive 65dB gain range. The Firehouse’s Focusrite ISA 215 employed the reveredcircuit designs of the Rupert Neve Focusrite Studio Console, with two channels of the legendary ISA preamp and more nuanced EQ.

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Sound Shaping: EQ

Pultec EQs show up in both Ryman’s and C12’s recollections. Though it’s unclear which models were used, C12 describes them as “custom 2 eqs,” likely an early EQH-2 Program Equalizer, which was a compact, 2-space alternative to Pultec’s 3-space EQP-1. Despite similar low-frequency boosting/attenuation curves, high-frequency boost, and fixed HF attenuation, the EQH-2 was preferred for its more transparent sound, which was perfect for unobtrusively refining the diverse flow of the nine emcees. Another classic API 500 Series module used on the album is the 550A 3-band EQ — still available today! Its indelible tone has been a studio essential since its 1971 debut, thanks to carefully selected peak points, overlapping frequency ranges, and flexible, dual-concentric controls — an optimal choice for sculpting RZA’s nascent production.

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Sound Shaping: Filters & Dynamics

RZA’s innovative sampling was methodically shaped, even using a UREI 565 filter set for its notch filter alone. With abundant tape formats being used to record, it’s no surprise that a pair of dbx 563X units were used. Aptly named “The Silencer,” this dbx dynamics processor was used for de-essing, but its capacity for selective frequency elimination of 1.6kHz and above made it a premium tool for noise reduction with tape and digital samples.

The Silencer is a single-channel, mono-only unit, but the Firehouse’s duo of half-rack hiss-reduction devices could be linked together for true stereo operation. Contrast this with the Barcus-Berry Electronics Model 802 used throughout the album, referred to as an “aural exciter” (like the Aphex processor), similarly operating as a psychoacoustic enhancement tool that bolstered harmonic clarity and spatial presence.

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Sound Shaping: Compression, Limiting & Noise Gates

With such a frenetic blend of sampling, track printing, multiple tape formats and recorders, and a complex blend of minimal front-end EQing with maximum back-end modularity, numerous compressors abound. And what studio would be complete without the most frequently emulated compressor? That’s right — of course, the Firehouse had a pair of UREI/Universal Audio 1176s, but these weren’t the only UA devices driving the album. Enter two LA-4 Compressor/Limiter modules. These LED-based electro-optical mono compressors could be linked for stereo use. Their mileage varies across studios and styles, but engineers have observed the LA-4 to be especially useful for distorted instruments like guitars or volatile vocal deliveries. Its “dark” aural signature, combined with the rough aesthetics pursued by RZA and company, preserved the harsher sampling and production techniques.

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Several dbx models handled a swath of compression, limiting, and noise gating: a 160X, a pair of 166 2-channel dynamics processors, and twin 266 compressor/gate units. An Alesis 3630 compressor also appears, popularized for its vast dynamics processing capabilities and dual peak/RMS modes, alongside limiter and gate functions. Flexible dual-channel operation meant parallel use with two distinct sound sources. Two Valley People units were also used: a Dyna-mite limiter for its high-speed transient responses and auto-release circuit and the Gatex for simultaneous 4-channel expansion and noise-gate operation, streamlining multisource recording while augmenting creative potential.

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Recording Redux: Vocals, Sampling, Effects & Aural Aesthetics

A single pass reveals that the rugged profile of Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) is intentional and beyond any coincidental correlation between the gear and the “unpolished” aesthetic of an underground debut. After consulting the deep lore of gear forums, it’s clear that the AKG C414 EB — initially released in 1976 — is lauded for the naturality of its capture and multi-pattern design, earning it a four-figure asking price on the secondhand market today. Its vaunted vocal flavor results from the iconic brass CK-12 capsule (later replaced by a nylon ring to ease assembly and reduce costs). These variants were limited to the first production run, elevating their collectible status.

Regardless of the mic’s distinguished character, it’s less critical to the record’s sound than you might think. Arguably, the consistency of using only one microphone is more significant than the mic itself. C12 explains that the uniformity of vocal aesthetics was engineered through a poetically fitting sampling process. That’s right. Using an Akai S1000 stereo sampler, C12 and crew would fly in vocals to take advantage of its signal processing. A lead vocal would be sampled on the left with a kick or snare on the right for reference, ultimately flying in verses to take their places. This allowed them to tweak the character of the vocals to fit the aggressive atmosphere of the beats without impacting the delivery of each part.

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Effects: Reverbs (Digital Domains, Premium Plates & More)

Ambience and spatial design augment the enormity of the record’s in-your-face vibe. Vocals, samples, instrumentals, drums — everything resulted from meticulously applied choices to enhance the presence of each part. This gave a sense of immediacy akin to the pressing demands of everyday life in the underground. Consider another one of Mlynar’s earlier entries in his ongoing cataloging of the Wu-Tang fables: a 2013 piece for Rolling Stone. In it, RZA’s younger brother, 9th Prince, is quoted telling The Village Voice about Ghostface Killah lifting canned foods from bodegas to fuel the crew. Put simply, Wu-Tang Clan lived the precarious lifestyle the album depicts, and dialing that into its sound required a delicate touch.

Reverb tools deployed throughout the 36 Chambers comprised two distinct varieties: digital and plate. Roland’s enduring and highly coveted 1989 R-880 Digital Reverb was accompanied by a GC-8 Graphic Controller to manage deeply detailed sound design. Across its flexible array of multimode effects, its internal architecture utilized modules for endless reconfiguration of pathways, never degrading in quality as their digital linkages eschewed analog conversion until the final output.

Equally lauded, the Yamaha REV-1 reverb was respected for the level of nuance available in attenuating space, including parameters for early reflections and tails. Unfortunately, it became a source of frustration: the crew had the REV-1 but no RCR-1 remote controller. Even with these hurdles, its use throughout the album speaks to the importance of the creative possibilities it afforded the crew, despite being a decade old by the album’s release.

The final digital denizen is Lexicon’s PCM 40 Digital Reverberator. Unlike the REV-1 or the R-880, the PCM 40 wasn’t designed for complex, detail-heavy, controller-driven sound design. Instead, the rackmounted unit featured a straightforward interface with two program modes: plate and room. The remaining controls comprised basic contour, size, and level adjustment, but its early digital aesthetics proved to be a valuable complement to the rest of the album’s sonic idiosyncrasies. Plate reverbs also had their place in the mix: an Echoplate III from Studio Technologies, Inc., and an RX 4000A from Stocktronics. Both are incredibly rare by modern standards.

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Effects: Delays, Multi-effects Processors & Spatial Harmonies

Digital delays from the 1980s are known for their quirky charm, from then-untested interfacing options to the unexplored extremes of pushing into exclusively digital frontiers. Lexicon’s lauded PCM Digital Delay Processor units were used at the Firehouse — the PCM 41 and PCM 42, released in 1980 and 1982, respectively. Their namesake pulse-code-modulation encoding resulted in rich, faithfully preserved, and highly malleable audio, thus illustrating how far an all-digital delay could go. Engineers at the Firehouse also employed a pair of DeltaLab ADM 1024 Effectron units, the products being renowned for their straightforward, flexible interface as well as their chorus and flanger effects.

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Analog heft is felt throughout the album’s imaginary cityscape of Shaolin, China, to New York, trading flexibility in sonic customization for time-hardened aural flavor. An early ’80s Ibanez AD202 Analog Delay supplied two channels of delay with multimodal diversity, including stereo chorus, flanger, and doubling effects. While its texturizing qualities weren’t as pronounced as might be expected today, its clean bucket brigade circuitry keeps it high on prospective collector