The Mau5’s productions tend to be derived from a broadly similar range of sounds and techniques. Most ideas are started in Fruity Loops, with mixing and additional production in an external DAW, but with the ability to run FL instruments as VSTis.

One Deadmau5 signature sound is the filtered synth chord that opens and closes throughout the track. Faxing Berlin shows it off.

Listen: Deadmau5 - Faxing Berlin

How to get the sound

At its heart lies a detuned sawtooth running into a low-pass filter with the envelope modulation set at fast attack and medium fast decay. We’ve opted to the use the freeware Juno-60-emulating VSTi TAL U-NO-62 for this one.

Due to its limitations, we’ve applied some pitch modulation from the LFO and a small amount of the Sub Osc, which adds a square wave tone one octave below. There is only one envelope and it controls both amplitude and filter cutoff. To open up the filter just push up the cutoff slider. The finishing touch is a bit of the onboard chorus effect and a sprinkling of warming reverb.