Lo-Fi Emotions

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4tracker said:
That's correct.

Sound on sound wrote a great quip about all this.

In short, enjoyment of an artistic product (be it a sound recording, a photograph, a film or whatever) isn't necessarily about precision and accuracy: more often, it's about mood, character and subtle enhancements that make the end result more vivid and interesting than real life.

I don't read that to mean they're glorifying inaccuracy. But I think what they are saying is that there's another level to all this, and something that is "wrong" can be so right. Technical music has a place. Not to me, but to many people, and that's their prerogative to write it and listen to it. To me it just comes down to one simple concept: do I want to hit the PLAY button or STOP button when the music comes on. It's that simple.

Cmolena, are you sure you mean tape hiss sounds good? I'd say tape saturation sounds good, but not necessarily tape hiss. Hiss can be tolerable and maybe musical if very low, but if it gets anywhere near the levels of the performance it usually becomes a distraction. Even that is not always true, though, as many delta blues recordings had hiss, and they are definitely listenable (probably because it is authentic to the era and a bit eerie on the recordings). But in general, I'd say hiss isn't too great. Tape saturation sounds fantastic, though.
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No, IDK exactly if tape hiss is GOOD. There is some recordings that has tape hiss which are amazing, though.

I dont necessarily consider that tape hiss is a bad thing...I love Bruce Springsteen Nebraska and it has a lot of it.
 
CMolena said:
I love Bruce Springsteen Nebraska and it has a lot of it.
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Yeah that is probably the most famous 4 track record of all time. It was a Tascam 144, which is a really good machine, but I believe the mic inputs are unbalanced and require a transformer to get a proper impedance match. It wouldn't surprise me if that's a reason for the hiss, because I have a 244 and with a transformer the mics sound very good and clean. There's very very low level hiss, and you can even remove most of that by using an inline preamp on the mic. I'd love to hear Bruce talk about how he engineered it and if he took all that into consideration. Probably not, and I think in that case he was just so good a songwriter and performer he overrides any hiss 'problem'. The same is true of all those delta blues guys, but those were mostly done on field recorders, and I'm not really sure how they worked. Probably just 1 or 2 inputs with a guy standing around an omni mic. That was pretty typical back then. Do you listen to the Alan Lomax recordings? They are fantastic.
 
Yeah, Da Vinci's ability to dram the human anatomy is incredible - but so is Pollock's drip style, which conveys nothing concrete. Opposite ends of the artistic spectrum, but the power of the piece trumps all.

That being said - I follow this forum to improve my recording and mixing - and if I can eventually learn to get a clean recording and mix, I can also dirty it up if necessary. If an album track or two or all come across better with a lo-fi sound, I'll go for it.

Some office buildings pump "white noise" through the speakers to comfort employees. I think it's called sound masking. Maybe it's the same thing in music...or maybe that's one reason some think it covers up inefficiencies...which could indeed be true.

Daryl
 
4tracker said:
Yeah that is probably the most famous 4 track record of all time. It was a Tascam 144, which is a really good machine, but I believe the mic inputs are unbalanced and require a transformer to get a proper impedance match. It wouldn't surprise me if that's a reason for the hiss, because I have a 244 and with a transformer the mics sound very good and clean. There's very very low level hiss, and you can even remove most of that by using an inline preamp on the mic. I'd love to hear Bruce talk about how he engineered it and if he took all that into consideration. Probably not, and I think in that case he was just so good a songwriter and performer he overrides any hiss problem. The same is true of all those delta blues guys, but those were mostly done on field recorders, and I'm not really sure how they worked. Probably just 1 or 2 inputs with a guy standing around an omni mic. That was pretty typical back then. Do you listen to the Alan Lomax recordings? They are fantastic.
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I read that he recorded everything with a Tascam 144 and two shure sm57's. It was originally a demo session, but he ended up liking it more than the "pro" version of it. Gotta love Bruce, right?

And yeah, I read the book "Perfecting Sound Forever" and I've heard of this guy and I love his recordings with Son House (favorite blues player of all time).
 
CMolena said:
I read that he recorded everything with a Tascam 144 and two shure sm57's. It was originally a demo session, but he ended up liking it more than the "pro" version of it.
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I remember reading that, too. I wonder what the studio version sounded like. He should release it for comparison. That would be really interesting.
 
Just a thought, but it seems like Lo-Fi is almost like a cultural movement. A source of pride almost.

Its a lot like what punk started out as, a protest against mainstream homoginized music.

Lo-Fi is almost like punk in that aspect.

Today, there are an incredible amount of awesomely recorded shit songs.

Lo-Fi rebels against that.

I'm on the camp of do music however you can do music. Just make damn sure it's the best you are capable of.

Lo-Fi, Hi-Fi, analog, digital, Home studio, Pro Studio.......I don't care. Good music will shine through.

When the quest for technical perfection takes over the importance of the music itself, we are doomed.
:-)
 
RFR said:
Good music will shine through.
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I agree with this. Good music is not tied to technology. Good music will emerge through the hiss of a cassette, the scratches and clicks of a vinyl album, through the swishiness of an MP3 and through the clarity of a high-end recording.

RFR said:
When the quest for technical perfection takes over the importance of the music itself, we are doomed.
:-)
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Well, maybe. But good music will also shine through technical perfection. As you note, "do music however you can do music. Just make damn sure it's the best you are capable of." This does not preclude perfectionism.


I probably agree with the idea that lo-fi do is a cultural movement that is like the rebellion against homogenized music, but I note that simply going lo-fi doesn't necessarily result in good music. They are independent of each other. The means of reproducing the music is not the determinant of the goodness of the music. The latter is entirely in the eye of the beholder, or, more appropriately, the ear of the listener.
 
Gecko, I agree with what you are saying.

Let me clarify a bit. When one (technical perfection) takes over and becomes MORE important than the quality of the tune we are doomed.

And that is happening, both in pro and amateur recording.

Look at the shit in commercial music.
But its really recorded well.

Take a look at our own forum. Look at the action the mp3 clinic gets compared to the songwriting section. Mp3 forum 27,000 threads compared to 841 in the songwriting forum

More seem to care about the technical aspects.

I realize this site is for the most part a tech forum. But I think you get my drift.
:-)

I stand by my idea that the music should be recorded as best as one is capable of doing so.

Going Lo-Fi for the sake of some new "Hipster" rebellion movement seems to me to be kind of silly and a little phony.

Its like in the days when people were using the Beatles and Bruce as role models for a porta studio. I did it too. But then when I got an 8 track, i happily sold my 246 and moved on not looking back.

Whoops! I'm in trouble with the lo fi advocates now. lol

:-)
 
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Confusing a humble/sparse arrangement with budget gear for lo-fi is really the problem. It is not a matter of thinking oh, I am going to do this in lo-fi, verses, I want to try this with one mic and everyone in the room approach. I am always trying to figure out how to get a more "honest" sound, but I never refer to it as lo-fi.

I'm with many on the board, saying lo-fi sounds more like an effect, than an approach. Trying for an honest, sparse recording I could appreciate that approach.
 
RFR said:
I'm on the camp of do music however you can do music. Just make damn sure it's the best you are capable of.
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Same here. If the best you can do is a hissy recording to tape, then that's what you do. No problem. A good song will be a good song no matter how it's recorded. But if you can do better than a hissy noisy recording, then do it.
 
RFR said:
Just a thought, but it seems like Lo-Fi is almost like a cultural movement. A source of pride almost.

Its a lot like what punk started out as, a protest against mainstream homoginized music.

Lo-Fi is almost like punk in that aspect.

Today, there are an incredible amount of awesomely recorded shit songs.

Lo-Fi rebels against that.

I'm on the camp of do music however you can do music. Just make damn sure it's the best you are capable of.

Lo-Fi, Hi-Fi, analog, digital, Home studio, Pro Studio.......I don't care. Good music will shine through.

When the quest for technical perfection takes over the importance of the music itself, we are doomed.
:-)
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I agree a LOT with that. When people start pulling rules into music, that's already completely anti-punk...so in that case Lo-Fi can be almost a punk atitude.

There are some records out there from bands like...Guided By Voices, which are completely Lo-Fi and full of noise and yet...is one of the coolest things Ii've ever heard.
 
I had never heard of Guided by Voices so I went to Youtube. I listened to Scientist, which sounded a bit lo-fi-ish, and Glad Girls, which sounded anything but. Game of Pricks sounds like mono sixties. My Valuable Hunting Knife has an AM radio sounding start, which then transforms into contemporary clean. So I wonder if lo-fi is sometimes used more to describe the performance, rather than the means of reproduction.
 
I make hip hop and I've tracked my mixed drum group out of my 2i2 and into my old Tascam fourtrack and then re-recorded as a stereo pair a couple of times...
I keep thinking it'd be cool to pick up an old Tascam 688 and a soundcard with more outputs but I can't justify it right now... Those 688's are definitely overpriced on the used market.
 
Just another thought.

Jimi Hendrix described his music as "painting with sounds"

Well it's true. We are all painting with sounds.

Who the hell has the right or authority to determine what kind of sound the artist chooses to use.?
 
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