It’s something of a cliché to state that an artist needs no introduction, but with deadmau5, this may in fact be true. His big-eared mouse helmet might possibly be the most recognisable brand in electronic music

Finding globe-sweeping success in the late ’00s, deadmau5 played a pivotal role in pushing electronic sounds into the US mainstream, becoming one of the world’s highest-played and highest-paid electronic artists in the process. Grammy nominations, platinum records and world tours soon followed, as the producer courted adoration and controversy in equal measure over the next decade.

Fast forward to 2022, and deadmau5 remains as influential as ever, and no less exploratory: continuing to produce electrifying singles that reimagine progressive house with each release, he’s nurtured the careers of like-minded artists through his label, mau5trap, and entered into the software world with the development of OSC/PILOT, an innovative performance tool for electronic artists.

For a man who’s notoriously averse to interviews, we find mouse-headed superproducer deadmau5 in a relatively good mood. Speaking to us, sans headgear and cigarette in hand, from his home in Ontario, Joel Zimmerman seemed content to spend an expletive-sprinkled time talking shop, painting a picture of an artist equally excited by the technology used to create and perform music as the music itself.

cm: Could you tell us about some of your favourite software tools?

D: “I don’t know, man. I guess everyone was like ‘fuck it’ during the pandemic. Nothing really crazy has really advanced that far. To be honest, I feel like we’ve kind of ceilinged on music software. There’s a lot more of the same that’s come out, like… oh hey, it’s a new reverb. Nothing’s really stood out. But then again, I hadn’t really been looking.”

cm: So you think we’ve hit a wall in terms of advancements in music software?

D: “Well, you can always do better, faster, more efficient. But in the realm of DSP, I almost feel like we’ve hit it all. It’s just a lot of the same. And I’m just like, waiting for a lot of things to get overhauled and done a different way. I’m seeing some new DAWs come out, and stuff like that. The ones that I’m liking the most are the ones that have a lot of really cool protocol control inside of them.

“Ableton’s been cool, just because it’s 18 years in development, it’s nice and stable and all that stuff. And it’s shell-ready. But it really lacks in protocol modularity. It’s just like, oh, here’s MIDI. Here’s an antiquated 60-year-old protocol you guys can still use… like what? Just have OSC. And they do, but you have to do it in Python or use Max for Live, and there’s no native OSC stuff. So actually, a lot of the time I’ve spent during the pandemic was developing a VST that will allow for the interchange of different protocols in and out of any DAW.”

cm: What DAW do you find you’re using the most these days?

D: “I switch between all sorts of things depending on what it is that I’m trying to do. For MIDI-deep stuff, I tend to go to Cubase for better control. Because Ableton is not so great for that, it’s good for quick and dirty. So if I just need something quick and dirty, I’ll just go in there and do some quick edits. It just depends on what it’s called for. Because a lot of the mixing I’ll do on my desk, and neither Cubase or Ableton supports SwiftMix for my Neve console, but Pro Tools does. So I gotta use that for that, so I can recall faders and stuff like that on my desk. It’s a big mess of different DAWs for different things.”