How does deadmau5 make music?
The gearDeadmau5 makes music in his studio where he has a lot of gear like synthetizers and drum machines wich are connected to a Digital Audio Workstation (DAW). The DAW is the core of the studio, where every sound coming from external sources (hardware synthetizers and effects) and from software plugins are glued together to form tracks, and it's the only thing he really needs to make music. Software plugins can emulate analog synthetizers, compressors, limiters (etc...) but are often way more capable in term of sounds.Here's some interesting links :List of deadmau5's studio gear with imagesDeadmau5 uses Ableton Live as a daw to make his music.Here's popular virtual instruments you can use in Ableton :Sylenth1, Nexus2, U-he Zebra2, Massive, OmnisphereLinks :The 10 greatest Harware Synthetizers of all time, MusicRadarThe SOS Guide To Choosing A Modular Synth, SoundonSoundThe processI couldn't tell you exactly how he makes music but I could give you an example :Melody writing - He writes a melody or a chord progression.Bass - He writes the bassline.Drums - He adds a drum sequence.Arrangment - He takes all the clips and create an arrangment (intro, break, verse, etc... ) to add variation and structure to the song.Mixing and Mastering - It's the final touch, he adjusts the volume of each track to make them sound better together (mixing) and he works on the final details like compression or stereo-imaging on the whole track (mastering).Of course this is very suggestive and it depends highly on the track.If you want to make music like him, here is some good tutorials to get started :