Released in 1997, Wu-Tang Clan’s second album Wu-Tang Forever is a hip-hop classic. The same could be said of the E-MU SP-1200 sampler that RZA used to produce the record, and now that exact machine is up for auction.
The Wu-Tang Forever album was praised for its innovative use of sampling, with a diverse range of sounds being chopped up, repitched and mashed together. It becomes an even more impressive achievement when you consider the SP-1200’s limited specs - 12-bit/26.040kHz quality and eight voices of polyphony - but the machine’s gritty sound remains much sought-after in hip-hop circles. Released in 1987, It’s been emulated in several plugins - most recently Inphonik’s RX1200 - and original creator Dave Rossum announced an enhanced reissue in 2021.
