Just how lo-fi can lo-fi get?

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19 Dead

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I'm in the middle of recording a drone/sludgy one-man music project and whilst I want it to be fairly lo-fi sounding (think the early demos of some of the bigger black metal bands etc) I'm not sure that sometimes it's not 'lo-fi', just 'badly recorded/mixed'.

I'm open to all types of recorded music, but, in your humble opinions, is there a line between 'lo-fi' and 'unlistenable'?
 
19 Dead said:
I'm in the middle of recording a drone/sludgy one-man music project and whilst I want it to be fairly lo-fi sounding (think the early demos of some of the bigger black metal bands etc) I'm not sure that sometimes it's not 'lo-fi', just 'badly recorded/mixed'.

I'm open to all types of recorded music, but, in your humble opinions, is there a line between 'lo-fi' and 'unlistenable'?
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The way I look at it is this: There are many obstacles to achieving quality facing a home recorder. The signal path, the room, the equipment you can afford, the monitoring system; all these, unless you you have got yourself a whole mess of really good gear, will have their associated noise and quality quirks. Part of the art of home recording is working out ways of overcoming the limitations of your recording environment and gear. For me, this means aiming for the best quality you can possibly achieve with what you've got, knowing that it will fall short (in varying degrees) from the high quality result that you might otherwise like to achieve. This means that there is a high likelihood that you will end up with a lo-fi result anyway. So I wouldn't worry about deliberately trying to degrade the sound. Instead, I would concentrate on the best possible performance and the best possible mix of it.
 
19 Dead said:
in your humble opinions, is there a line between 'lo-fi' and 'unlistenable'?
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IMHO, the answer is yes, definitely, but that is a line that is constantly moving, and depends entirely upon the non-fidelity quality of the content. The more I like the music, the less I care about whether the fidelity is not up to technical snuff. There are plenty of 70 year old recordings of some kick-ass music and performances that I still listen to today even though they were originally recorded direct to 78 rpm clay pigeons.

That said, I personally have a pretty low tolerance for recordings that fake the low-fi sound purposely for "artistic" purposes. For me it's difficult for someone to pull off; not technically speaking, but artistically. We need yet another song that has a vocal with a fake AM radio sound or a rhythm track with fake vinyl pops and cracks like we need yet another movie or TV show about teenage vampires. :cool:

G.
 
Hah, I agree totally - I came across as a bit misleading in my original post, I don't mean to be putting pointless aesthetically 'lo-fi' stuff into the records, just the nature of the improvisation of my music and minimal resources often points to that lo-fi sound.
 
I have heard some of my younger sister-in-laws music and she claims one or two groups as "lo-fi". I had a listen and it's pretty much a mono mix, but a decent mix tracked with good mics and mic pre's.

There are so many angles you can look at to artistically "lo-fi". You could use a pawn shop electric guitar and a gorilla amp but use hi end mics/pre/converters to acurately capture that sound.

Something along the way has to make it audible. If not, its going to be total crap.
 
SouthSIDE Glen said:
We need yet another song that has a vocal with a fake AM radio sound or a rhythm track with fake vinyl pops and cracks like we need yet another movie or TV show about teenage vampires. :cool:
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While not technically a "lo-fi" effect...the one that's really annoying me is the OVERUSED "Cher/Believe" autotune "chirps" on just about every new R&B release!!!

ENOUGH!!! :mad:


I think the best approach for lo-fi is to just use some minimalist techniques with old-style "demo" grade equipment.
IOW...use that method, but then actually TRY to get a GOOD recording rather than introducing any lo-fi artifacts intentionally.
Most guys that ended up with lo-fi recordings in the early days...weren't actually doing it on purpose. ;)
 
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haha hopefully you're not planning to use any autotune on this sludge/drone project ;)

what are you using to record this guy? as others have stated thats pretty important. as far as the line between "lo fi" and "unlistenable", with music such as this you could go pretty far before hitting the unlistenable zone. the lo fi sound really suits this style of music most of the time, particularly with black metal and such. the only thing i would really try to avoid is a sound thats totally tinny and screechy. a good reference point for something borderline unlistenable (for me) would be some of the Bone Awl stuff if you've heard them. their album Meaningless Leaning Mess is mixed so high and distorted it can be paiful to listen to. keeping the upper frequencies tamed is crucial to success with this kind of thing.
 
haha hopefully you're not planning to use any autotune on this sludge/drone project ;)

what are you using to record this guy? as others have stated thats pretty important. as far as the line between "lo fi" and "unlistenable", with music such as this you could go pretty far before hitting the unlistenable zone. the lo fi sound really suits this style of music most of the time, particularly with black metal and such. the only thing i would really try to avoid is a sound thats totally tinny and screechy. a good reference point for something borderline unlistenable (for me) would be some of the Bone Awl stuff if you've heard them. their album Meaningless Leaning Mess is mixed so high and distorted it can be paiful to listen to. keeping the upper frequencies tamed is crucial to success with this kind of thing.
 
is your project more like Sunn0))) or The Melvins, or YOB? There are a lot of factors in play here. Id try to keep instrumentation as authentic and organic as possible. The natural limitations of the home recording will lend itself to the lo-fi sound. The charm of early black metal recordings, and even Bone Awl, is that the lo-fi production enhanced the atmosphere of the music. These types of productions, when used properly, act as an additional instrument.

JWW
 
Lo-fi

Take a listen this lo-fi sound.

WWW.MYSPACE.COM/SEROTONEBAND

It's a home recorded band, best that could be done with the equipment and recording engineer.

Sounds not too great but only cost around $500 for the full album excluding Mastering. :D

To me lo fi is usually a sound that is meant rather than happens via bad signal chains etc.

Eck
 
19 Dead said:
I'm open to all types of recorded music, but, in your humble opinions, is there a line between 'lo-fi' and 'unlistenable'?
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Artistically speaking, I think many people have the idea of "Lo-Fi" twisted a bit. As an engineer, I've always thought of Lo-Fi as "technically professional, but shaped to appear cheap". Cause think about it, there's punk-rock lo-fi that is is born out of shitty budgets, minimalistic attitudes and a good dose of A.D.D. On the other hand, there is mainstream Lo-Fi like The White Stripes. Recorded just like any professional album, however treated to achieve an "other than clean" sound.

If there's Lo-Fi out there that sounds shitty, it's really on the engineer at that point. Good Lo-Fi is still Hi-Fi in a matter of speaking.
 
I agree...some of my favorite recordings have lo-fi tracks blanketed by a fairly well done production...like "Space Oddity" ..."Mexican Radio" or ""Telephone line"...to communicate to the listner that the singer is on a cheap radio or phone or something.
 
Hi guys, thanks for all the replies!

The music is in the same vein as Sunn, Melvins, Yob, Electric Wizard etc, but I'm a fairly sloppy player and was just a bit anxious that the sloppy playing coupled with a less-than-good recording may just render it an ugly sound. I'm working on two new ones tonight so will try to get some rough mixes up later for your perusal!

Also, the problems I've found is that all the guitars used are tuned very low and so the end result is often a very muddy mess - it's difficult to get the sludginess and heaviness without compromising the pitch of the instruments.


It's also difficult to remain impartial when listening back to my stuff - when I think most of it has got that kind of cheap lo-fi sound, in my head it often crosses into unlistenable, but I don't know how much of that is due to my criticism of my own work.
 
Interesting point. I think low-fi production, as a technique or approach, has become synonomous with 'alternative' bands (alternative to what?) almost to the same extent that Rick Rubin has become associated with reduced arrangments, and sub-bass with drum and bass. It's a real shame, because if there's anything worse than these bad indie jaunts, it's these bad indie jaunts that sound like they were sung into a dictaphone.

You can make your production point but still sound good, it's not one or the other. Why are you tuning the guitars low, for instance? My friend was recording a song and he had tuned to DADGAD down a whole step. So CGCFGC. My Martin strung with 0.12s isn't supposed to be tuned that way. Muddy as hell, the strings were clacking on the fingerboard and it sounded awful. Moreover, he wasn't even sure why he was doing it as in the end he could sing well within his range with DADGAD but it still kept the drone effect. Another time, when I was recording a singer/songwriter duo, the guitarist told me he wanted a 'lo-fi' vibe. I wanted to tell the guy vthat I've spent the last 5 years trying to prevent my mixes from sounding like hammered shit. Talk about a step backwards.

Before you do anything unorthodox - especially when it comes to mixing - just ask yourself "Will this really give me a better sound?" If it doesn't, don't do it.
 
I agree that lo-fi can get too low. :)

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TelePaul said:
Interesting point. I think low-fi production, as a technique or approach, has become synonomous with 'alternative' bands (alternative to what?) almost to the same extent that Rick Rubin has become associated with reduced arrangments, and sub-bass with drum and bass. It's a real shame, because if there's anything worse than these bad indie jaunts, it's these bad indie jaunts that sound like they were sung into a dictaphone.
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Thanks for the input! The guitars are tuned low since that's the way we've always played live, and we've got the tone and FX just how we want them now.

I've already done the whole sing into a boombox, record guitars later blah blah 'classic' lo-fi approach.


It's difficult - I'm not purposely looking for a 'lo-fi' sound, but i've been able to record some songs that sound a little too clean for my purposes - no noise, very simple sounding, no 'oomph'. I want to get the dirtiness of the live sound recorded but when I've tried, that's when I find myself in the 'lo-fi' or 'unlistenable' dilemma. I think with the style of music, and the tuning of the guitars and the sound of the vocals - if it sounds too well-produced then it won't be how I want it to sound (it'll sound like Slipknot or Korn or something instead). With the muddiness and dirty and rawness, it'll be more like how I'd imaginied it and how it sounds live.



Got lots to think about from the ideas in this thread though, thanks very much for all your input everyone.
 
19 Dead said:
It's difficult - I'm not purposely looking for a 'lo-fi' sound, but i've been able to record some songs that sound a little too clean for my purposes - no noise, very simple sounding, no 'oomph'. I want to get the dirtiness of the live sound recorded but when I've tried, that's when I find myself in the 'lo-fi' or 'unlistenable' dilemma. I think with the style of music, and the tuning of the guitars and the sound of the vocals - if it sounds too well-produced then it won't be how I want it to sound (it'll sound like Slipknot or Korn or something instead). With the muddiness and dirty and rawness, it'll be more like how I'd imaginied it and how it sounds live.
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I think you have to be careful pre-emptively "going" for a lo-fi sound, at least while tracking. Capture the sound to tape as purely and as best YOU possibly can, if the band sounds lo-fi (stylistically speaking even) then your results will reflect that. Don't try and make it lo-fi while you're putting the tracks down. Lo-fi is in the performance/source sounds and maybe the mastering.

I think it's completely bizzare when people say they want to capture the live sound of their band - but record track by track. If you want to sound live, record live.

Try a stereo mic in your practice room, then you'll get a live sound, and master it accordingly. No "mixing", no editing. As little polishing as possible. Concentrate on a kickass performance, forget almost everything else. If you sound good, it will.

If you're on a budget you can make a binaural mic for about $15 or less and I think they work great.

http://www.linkwitzlab.com/sys_test.htm

microph2.gif
 
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