deadmau5 unveils how he codes his Cube v3 tour

If you’re a Deadmau5 (Joel Zimmerman) fan – or just someone who keeps up to date with the industry – you’ll know how impressive the cube stage design is. Going through three versions of it, each bigger and somehow better than the one before, Joel outdoes himself every time and gives fans a true spectacle when they flock to see his Cube shows. One thing that fans may not know is all the technicalities behind what makes it work, but Joel has finally revealed how he does it.

With the help of Derivative TouchDesigner – a visual development programme – which he has customised to suit his needs for the tour, he uses this programme to write lines of codes that come together to form the Cube.  Although it isn’t exactly AI, it does have a big intelligence aspect to it that allows a Deadmau5 show to be fully creative. With other things like GPU systems (graphics processing unit), IDE tools (integrated development environment) and data-handling digitalization suites all coming into play, the Cube v3 tour is arguably his most technologically advanced and complicated set-up yet.

Teaming up with Chris Schroeder Productions and Collyns Stenzel (who is a lighting and technical designer who has previously worked with the likes of Grammy award winner Cedric Gervais) for this tour, he has  carefully chose some of the best people in the business to execute his vision perfectly. Another big aspect of his live shows is his wacky visuals, and this has a technical point to it too, of course. His visuals are created on a computer beforehand, but during the show he cues these visuals up in real time which adds an exciting element of spontaneity and allowing no two shows to be the same.

“The show has developed in such a way that we literally start the server up with all the TouchDesigner applications, hit F1, minimize it and then we never look at it again.” – Deadmau5 speaking about the technical process of the show

Watch the video below to see some of the tech in action. Connect with us on messenger and get updates about new music and festivals here.