What Does The Bomb Squad Use To Make Beats?
What Does The Bomb Squad Use To Make Beats?
The Bomb Squad is one of the greatest and most influential hip hop producers of all time. Born in Long Island, New York the Bomb Squad consisted of Hank Shocklee, Keith Shocklee, Chuck D, Eric "Vietnam" Sadler and Gary G-Wiz.
They helped introduce the world to the bombastic harsh, atonal sounds and samples of their productions. Hank and Keith Shocklee was the main producers in the Bomb Squad. The centerpiece of The Bomb Squad’s production setup was the SP 1200. In an interview with Red Bull Music Academy hank shocklee said "Then manufacturers started coming up with stuff, so we went out and purchased the [EMU] SP12 and that took the game to another level, because that was sampling drum/percussion machine. That only gave you ten seconds, but the ten seconds was divided amongst the pads. So you could get 2 and 1/2 seconds for four pads, or however you divided it." They used the 1200 in tandem with the AKAI S900. He talk about it in this interview where he said "So, you know, a [E-mu SP] 1200 is not the only drum machine, and you’ve seen a lot of articles that we’ve been quoted about using the 1200. No, the 1200 was one of them. The other one we would put drum sounds in the S-900 as well." The next drum machines that the Bomb Squad used is The AKAI MPC 60 and The Korg DDD-1. They also used the Ensoniq Mirage Sampler. Hank Shocklee speaks about it in this interview where he says "Drum machines to me are not like – you know, I have never used one drum machine. I think that’s just like, you know, why handcuff yourself? I think that each drum machine brings a different characteristic to the table. So, you know, a 1200 is not the only drum machine, and you’ve seen a lot of articles that we’ve been quoted about using the 1200. No, the 1200 was one of them. The other one we would put drum sounds in the S-900 as well. We would have drum sounds in the MPC-60 and use. We would have a DDD-1. You know, we would use the Mirage and get the Mirage Ensoniq. You know, it all depends upon what we was trying to get across at that particular moment." The MPC 60 came out in the late 1980s and still is being used until this day. It also helped kick off one of the greatest drum machine lines in the AKAI MPC line. The The DDD-1 is a programmable drum machine from Korg from the mid-eighties. It offered 18 electronic drum sounds with a sound that was typical of this era. Basic kicks, snares, toms, rimshot, closed hi hats, open hi hats, ride, crash, claps, cowbell, tambourine and cabasa. Additional sounds could have been added using ROM cards. The DDD-1 also featured a sampling option allowing very short and limited sampling for that extra edge of unique sounds to add to your drumkit (for up to 2 seconds). Drum sounds can be triggered from the 14 assignable velocity sensitive trigger-pads and there are some individual outputs. The Ensoniq Mirage was used to sample for the Bomb Squad. Last but not least, the Bomb Squad used the Roland Compurhythm 8000. In the Red Bull Music Academy interview, Hank Shocklee says “"So, what I did was we went in and we brought the tempo down to 92 beats per minute, made the beat on just like a Roland 8000. And I don’t know if you are familiar with the Roland 8000. It’s like you really can’t program those beats. They program it with some sort of step-sequence time, but the step sequence time you have no control over, so you just kind of like hit buttons as the lights going and then you listen to it and hope you got something funky. And if something funky is there, 'Alright fuck it, that shit is hot, I just use that.' And so we made a record called 'Check Out the Radio,' and that was my first time in the studio. But my real first time to be in the studio was when I went to Chung King Studios. And we just got our deal with Def Jam.”
The bomb Squad have produced some of the most critically acclaimed hip hop albums of all time and is one of the greatest Production team off all time. They’ve gone on to produce for some of the greatest artists like Public Enemy, Slick Rick, Bell Biv Divoe, and Ice Cube. Shoutouts to Eddie Def for the recommendation to cover The Bomb Squad. If you have a producer that I haven’t done yet put in the comment section below. If you are interested in any of the equipment I spoke about in this video I have included a link to it in the description below. Thanks for watching.