What does RZA use to make beats?

RZA's two books the Wu-Tang Manual and the Tao of Wu are two of the best sources for reading RZA's history with various gear.

The majority of RZA's current work is done on the Roland MV-8000, as explained in this interview snippet found on uhh4d blog:

Q: "How did you get into the Roland MV-8000?"

RZA: Man, how I got into it is kinda crazy. I was working on the movie Blade Trinity. See, every time I’m working on a new project, I strive to get a new machine. So I was in the store. I’d seen the Roland MV-8000 a few times, played with it, but I never went for it. I own the Roland MC-909, and I like it so much … it has one of the best time-compressors made for digital audio. I thought, "Let me try the Roland MV-8000 and see if it’s up to standards with the 909." So I bought it, took it home, and … I couldn’t make a beat! I was p---ed off. So I called the guy at the store, he called somebody at Roland, and he figured out what the problem was: I had the old software. So he put the new software in, spent about five minutes showing me a few things, and after that I was hooked on the MV. So I started out with a bad attitude about it, but it turned out that the MV is one of the most friendly drum-machine-type samplers out there. Unlike the MPC, access to your sounds and editing features is at the [snaps fingers] snap of a button."

To find out what RZA used on classic Wu joints, we had to dig deeper. RZA told Kotori Magazine about his early days:

RZA: "In 1991-1992, Ensoniq put out the [Ensoniq] ASR-10, and when they did that, that's when I became a master producer. The whole first 100 Wu-Tang songs were made on the ASR-10."

But this is a very simplistic history. More detail can be found in these excerpts posted on phatmass phorum from Rap Pages:

RZA: "Back in '89...all I had was a four-track, some turntables, and a drum machine. I had neighborhood tapes booming...Melquan hooked me up with a few producers, one named Dice, one named Tony Moore (Arts N Crafts) from Queens and Back Spin. Tony had the Studio 440. It's like a [E-mu] SP1200 , but it has more sample time, like 32 seconds. Dice hand an Ensoniq EPS. So those were the first machines that I became familiar with. I had a four-track and a 909. Then I ran into my man RNS, who produced Shyheim's album. He was going through financial problems, and I was making a little street money. So he had to go away for a while, so I lent him some money and he let me hold his EPS. Boom! Deck, Meth, U-Got used to come over the lab all the time. Ghostface used to live with me at the time, and you know that Ol' Dirty and GZA are my cousins, so we all were making tapes...RNS left it there about 90 days. Everyday I was making beats, all kinds of stuff, then he's taking it back because it was his stuff. Then I got an SP1200 on some scandal stuff that me and Melquan pulled. "Bring the Pain" was made back then. Then I started getting money. Then I bought the EPS 16 Plus, sticking to the same brand because I was always around the Ensoniq products. I eventually got the ASR. I made the Wu-Tang and Method Man albums with that and a SP1200...We did Dirty's album on the SSL.."

By the time Wu-Tang Forever came out, RZA had settled on the ASR and MPC3000 as seen in this quote found on skulltheft blog quoting EQ magazine:

RZA: "On the song "Reunited" you can hear this. It sounds like a live drummer because we did have a live drummer play and we recorded it to tape to get the thickness. Then I sampled it from tape, used the sequencer to loop it, and played music to it...(on samplers) The Ensoniq ASR-10 and the [Akai] MPC3000. The MPC3000 is a standard right now--if you don't have one of those you ain't working right."

RZA Info
RZA
RZA Gear
Akai MPC3000
E-mu SP-1200
Ensoniq ASR-10
Roland MC-909

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