Carnage’s 808 tutorial for Razer Music is cringe-worthy
Gaming tech and accessory brand Razer recently unveiled a brand new content platform geared towards music producers called Razer Music. To assist in the launch, Razer teamed up with artists like Feed Me, Dyro, Deadmau5, and Carnage to provide tutorials for the site.
All was well and fine until Carnage’s video went public causing fans everywhere to scratch their heads in disbelief. How can a producer this successful be so clueless as to what he’s doing?
The tutorial offers a detailed view of how Carnage creates his 808s. The first thing to notice — aside from the semi-ridiculous slow motion intro of him opening his laptop and inserting his USB — is Carnage’s cracked version of LennarDigital’s popular soft synth, Sylenth1. You would think by this point in his career he would have gotten around to acquiring a legitimate version rather than this one licensed to “DONTKNOWWHO.”
Next, he showcases his knowledge of gain staging by turning up the volume at every point in the chain. As his signal begins to clip, he remarks: “I don’t know what it does it just makes everything super louder…”
In many ways, this becomes the ethos of the tutorial. Through a series of radical EQ boosting and more volume adjustment, he continues to distort the signal. When his melody comes in, it’s a sore sight. Aside from being out of key with his 808, it follows a sort of confusing, off-kilter thread. The resulting combination with his drums is awkward and a tad unsettling – even by his standards.
It’s a bit baffling to think he could have gotten this far in his career with these techniques, but then again, the music industry doesn’t always quite make sense. Perhaps, hidden within Carnage’s extreme gain staging and teetering melodic combinations, there’s a method to his madness. Or perhaps he excels in other areas of his career, such as being a public persona.
Either way, one shouldn’t let this tutorial deter them from music production, or Razer Music’s new site, which recently featured this awesome video from Feed Me on how to create a bass patch in Serum.
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