Probably the coolest thing to come from Razer’s foray into the music community is their series of producer tutorials. Though the Razer tutorial series has thus far gained the most publicity for inadvertantly exposing that the emperor Carnage has no clothes in his hilariously notorious guest spot last fall, the majority of their videos have yielded insightful, engaging mechanical breakdowns from highly skilled producers.
In April, deadmau5 and Steve Duda demonstrated Joel Zimmerman’s creative process with a deconstruction of his track “Imaginary Friends.” Razer’s newest video sees the pair return to the studio, this time to share tips for aspiring producers based upon their personal experiences and work ethics, rather than through a technical tutorial. Duda opens the video saying that the pair are “back to rap about being creative, making music, and kind of what that’s like.” Or, as Zimmerman eloquently puts it, “It’s like my Twitter feed, but with less swearing.”
Though the video doesn’t really contain much less swearing than deadmau5′s Twitter feed, Zimmerman does provide a more even-keeled stance regarding the validity of different approaches to the creative process. Perhaps the main takeaway from Zimmerman’s anecdotes is that while experimentation is of utmost importance, meeting deadlines and churning out remixes are also legitimate ways to develop a skill set and gain momentum as a professional musician.
Deadmau5 notes that deadlines aren’t for him, and laments that only three out of ten remixes wherein a deadline imposed met his personal quality standard, but also recognizes their value, citing majorly successful composers like Hans Zimmer, for whom such impositions and constraints are key. Zimmerman goes on to discuss the value of experimentation by urging producers to “try and do some whack shit” and espousing the value of creating “Mr. Potato-Head EDM” while in the pursuit of developing new styles.
Though deadmau5 hilariously calls out Kygo and Martin Garrix for discovering their signature sound and then lazily saying “This is what I do,” he also acknowledges that he’s also churned out hits through similarly formulaic means in the past — a moment of self reflection and understanding that is indeed largely absence from his colorful Twitter feed.
Watch the full video above.
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