A major component of Big Black's music was the drum machine. Rather than attempt to make it emulate the sound of a normal drum kit, the band chose to exploit the idiosyncrasies of its synthetic sounds. On many songs Albini programmed it to accent the first and third beats of the bar, rather than the second and fourth beats typically accented in rock music. "The effect was a monolithic pummeling, an attack", says Michael Azerrad, "their groove, normally the most human aspect of a rock band, became its most inhuman; it only made them sound more insidious, its relentlessness downright tyrannical." On tour, the sound engineers at many rock clubs were befuddled by the drum machine, afraid that it would not work with their sound system or would blow out their speakers, and the band would have to coerce the club owner or threaten to cancel the show in order to get them to put the drum machine through the monitors.