A question for lo-fi artists

[istealhotelsoap]

I am a poor, poor, poor 19 year old artist doing my own semi lo-fi chamber pop solo project at home recording with Logic Studio, a few shitty cardioid condenser mics, an SM57, a Vox AC30, my guitars, a bass, a bunch of random folk instruments, Reason 5, and a massive array of plug-ins. It seems like to get your albums to have a more organic sound nowadays, you need to either spend thousands of dollars on analog tape or do some unholy, unnatural tweaking with izotope Vinyl that doesn't quite sound like the real thing. I was wondering if any of you were aware of a way, with the tools that I have been given, to re-create certain organic analog sounding atmosphere. If this isn't feasible, what can I buy on a $1,500 budget that would enable me to

Here's a couple examples:

"Here Comes the Sun Again" by M. Ward
"Marathon" by Tennis

Both can be found on youtube. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks so much.

 

[Track Rat]

Sounds to me like you already have most of what you need for that lofi vibe. You have to understand that the whole lofi thing came about because they had NO GEAR. What you need to do is approach digital recording with an analog mindset. Resist recording direct like from a bass. Mic a cabinet instead. Things like that. And if you have everything recorded and mixed and it still isn't "organic" enough, record the two track on to a cassette and then back into the computer. Experiment. You'll get WAY more mileage out of playing with mic positions and such than any plugin.