8 ms·

Why Lo-Fi Music Draws Listeners In

70 points by susam 5y ago

maltenuhn 5y ago
The last bit (about people listening to hip hop because they "respond to the beat" vs the talent & popularity of 50 Cent) is intriguing and I wish they'd explored more.
- blondin 5y ago
  it's not that deep. j. dilla is a hip hop producer, i expect him to say that much. i personally think that we owe lo-fi to the anime community. they popularized it with nujabes of samurai champloo and the like. but since the root is in hip hop, the hip hop community as a whole will claim ownership ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
math-dev 5y ago
I started listening to Lo-Fi maybe six months ago. I don’t recall how exactly I uncovered the genre, but it was on YouTube, and likely a result of me searching for soothing relaxing music. The visual aesthetics of lo fi really drew me in. Surprised it is popular to HN too! YouTube has really taken off for Music, a lot of share our joy of particular music within the comments section, and now people live chat in channels that continuously run music “live”. Lo Fi channels do this a lot. All that said, I got bored of Lo Fi pretty quickly. For those interested, melodic house (downtempo trance) is really good these days, for example the below were some of my favourite sets recently https://youtu.be/v2dSpsuBJGI https://youtu.be/v2dSpsuBJGI https://youtu.be/eSsgODhHBI0 https://youtu.be/eSsgODhHBI0
- weird-eye-issue 5y ago
  I get bored of trance wayy faster than lofi. Maybe you just need to check out a different lofi genre? There are huge variations
- hsbauauvhabzb 5y ago
  Also deep house, Anjunadeep radio show is well worth a listen. It’s a shame the content because repedative, which I attribute mostly to the relatively small group of producers in the genre
  - marliechiller 5y ago
    Anjunadeep is a fantastic recommendation. I regularly listen to their playlists both during work and outside of it now. Very versatile
    - vsnf 5y ago
      If you like Anjunadeep then I’d recommend looking into the weekly Above and Beyond Group Therapy (abgt) mixes, and also possibly Monstercat Silk Showcase, another weekly music music
      - calny 5y ago
        These are great. Other good weekly deep house radio shows that I code to: Nora En Pure Purified Radio, https://soundcloud.com/noraenpure/tracks https://soundcloud.com/noraenpure/tracks The Boom Room Selected, https://soundcloud.com/theboomroomofficial https://soundcloud.com/theboomroomofficial Oliver Heldens Heldeep Radio, https://soundcloud.com/heldeepradio https://soundcloud.com/heldeepradio
        hsbauauvhabzb 5y ago
        Thanks, always on the lookout for new stuff! I didn’t mind hardwell off the record sets, but the show has ended now.
      - hsbauauvhabzb 5y ago
        I do listen to abgt, Tony from the group also has some good deep house sets on YouTube
- luigi23 5y ago
  I highly recommend Cercle channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h96MGcsi7GQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h96MGcsi7GQ Great view, nice music.
  - wlamartin 5y ago
    Maybe a little deeper but VSNZ has the same kind of idea. I went nuts for weeks on this Adriatique set: https://youtu.be/mIv_HcNun-w https://youtu.be/mIv_HcNun-w
  - fb03 5y ago
    Can't recommend Cercle enough. My favorite Cercle video is the one at the pyramid's of Giza. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SD6GDiyHmbE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SD6GDiyHmbE
- acomjean 5y ago
  YouTube really is great for music. They have a lot of stuff and live stuff. (including Praxis a band rediscovered: https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=agPnQb9CntY&feature=share https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=agPnQb9CntY&feature=share I can’t listen to the same things day after day. So a mix of classical /rock / punk / synthwave (80s sounding instrumentals). I still listen to colega radio, which provides is a mix of structured shows by former students and random stuff.(each show is archived) https://wmbr.org https://wmbr.org Some of my regulars: “breakfast of champions, late risers club, jd deathcar experience, lost and found, paradox box, radio ninja, nonstop ecstatic screaming)
vladvasiliu 5y ago
> "It's background music you can enjoy," Blackman says. Listeners can focus on what they're hearing, or they can let it fade. This is pretty much why I listen to this while working. I find that the "random noise generators" are too distracting or tiring. It's not a genre of music I'd reach for in any other setting, but for work it does a great job of drowning out ambient distractions while also being enjoyable.
- blitzar 5y ago
  beats to <inset thing> to is a meme now. I expect the gateway Lo-Fi for many was "beats to relax/study to" on youtube. Or for the brits: "lo fi boriswave beats to relax/get brexit done to" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cre0in5n-1E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cre0in5n-1E
  - junon 5y ago
    For the Germans, Lo-Fi Merkelwave Beats to Relax/Study to. Timely, if you ask me. https://youtu.be/reCMB81A70k https://youtu.be/reCMB81A70k
    - blitzar 5y ago
      The vape clouds make it for me.
  - lelandfe 5y ago
    Wow, that is the actual conservative party's channel. I thought Will Smith[0] joining the meme was as sold out as this was going to get, and I was wrong. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rA56B4JyTgI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rA56B4JyTgI
    - blitzar 5y ago
      Impressive from Conservative Party HQ is all I can say.
- throw0101a 5y ago
PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
TFA: " Analyses show that between 1960 and 2010, the US Billboard Hot 100 songs with the most profound influences on pop music were hip hop." The last several words link to: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.150081#d3e907 https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.150081#d... which says: "The rise of rap and related genres appears, then, to be the single most important event that has shaped the musical structure of the American charts in the period that we studied." This is an entirely different claim from the one in the TFA, even assuming that the RSP paper is taken at face value, which is hard to do given its own list of limitations.
- samplenoise 5y ago
  I don’t remember if the paper lists it among its limitations but it’s worth noting there is a pretty sharp continuity in Billboard’s methodology around 1991 (they didn’t really include any rap before that) that will warp this kind of analysis if you don’t control for it. This is sort of known among musicologists of pop music and often glossed over by this kind of research
  - contravariant 5y ago
    Did you mean 'discontinuity'? Sharp and continuous are somewhat contradictory.
tastysandwich 5y ago
This article associates lo-fi music strongly with hip-hop, and kind of implies it's a fairly new phenomenon. But just look to the indie scene and you'll see it dates back to the 80s, with bands like Beat Happenings and Guided By Voices. And much before then, too, I'm sure, but I feel like these bands popularised it. I'm a huge fan of instrumental hip hop, like J Dilla, DJ Shadow (Entroducing...), Madlib, DJ/Rupture etc. I've never listened to these new YT channels the article mentions, though. To be honest, I never really thought of these artists "lo-fi". The term I hear a lot is "crate digging". These guys scour music stores for old records to find songs and sounds they can repurpose in their own music, creating something completely fresh. Are they recording much new sounds though? Kind related, but I love early thrash metal. Slayer, Dark Angel, Morbid Angel, etc. In particular, I love that really raw production quality. Don't ask me why, there's just something about a lot of newer thrash albums, where everything is so clean and crystal clear, I just don't connect with it as much. I guess the rawness lends it that aggression which is so integral to thrash.
- djrockstar1 5y ago
  > kind of implies it's a fairly new phenomenon Does it? The "Beyond Youtube" section articulates the exact opposite.
- zwirbl 5y ago
  Not just early thrash metal, I have a fondness of early hardcore punk like Minor Threat, early Raised Fist EPs etc I think I find the raw energy just more credible than the hyper produced new stuff. Also in that vein, oftentimes when I discover bands I slowly gravitate towards their older releases. Not always, but really most of the time
- Cthulhu_ 5y ago
  I mean IIRC the first distorted guitar sound was someone kicking in a speaker to make it sound shitty; low-fi and electric guitars are closely linked.
  - i_am_proteus 5y ago
    I can't speak to the first distorted guitar sound, but classic overdrive/distortion is just pushing the voltage of vacuum tube amplifiers out of the region where they amplify linearly ("over driving" them) to where the soft clipping introduces 2nd and 3rd and... nth order harmonics (harmonic "distortion") into the signal. And that's why it's called distortion and overdrive.
PostThisTooFast 5y ago
This sounds like more ignorant rejection of the real problem in today's music: dynamic compression. Everything mastered or "remastered" since the late '90s has been destroyed with dynamic compression, turning it into a wall of noise to make it "louder." All of the oversampling, fake vinyl noise, or losslessness in the world can't fix it. I have 45s that sound far better than digital "remasters," and it's because they're less compressed. And that's pathetic.
raptorraver 5y ago
I started doing lo-fi music (folk) for practical reasons when I was a teenager. I didn't have any other device to record than a cheap webcam. I started loving the sound and didn't bother to update my equipment for many years.
ruchin_k 5y ago
Interestingly I played lo-fi music for a week at our 12 member startup and productivity rose significantly :)
Pentamerous 5y ago
Relevant quote from Brian Eno (1996) > Whatever you now find weird, ugly, uncomfortable and nasty about a new medium will surely become its signature. CD distortion, the jitteriness of digital video, the crap sound of 8-bit - all of these will be cherished and emulated as soon as they can be avoided. It’s the sound of failure: so much modern art is the sound of things going out of control, of a medium pushing to its limits and breaking apart. The distorted guitar sound is the sound of something too loud for the medium supposed to carry it. The blues singer with the cracked voice is the sound of an emotional cry too powerful for the throat that releases it. The excitement of grainy film, of bleached-out black and white, is the excitement of witnessing events too momentous for the medium assigned to record them.
- poisonarena 5y ago
  this is very true, coming from a guy who collects thousand dollar modern drum machines/samplers designed to emulate 'crappier' ones from 2 decades ago..
- motohagiography 5y ago
  This Eno quote is the best part of the post, and better than the article. :) As someone who makes some lo-fi electronic music, it really is an expression of limits, where you create and release tension against those limits, and this is what makes it evocative. Two tracks in particular I created use that sense of old familiarity to draw out memories, using melodic tools from minimalism (Part/Glass), reproducing 1970s blade runner synth sounds, and samples that will only be familiar to a very 'leet few ("requiem for a hacker"), and another that uses sub-bass harmonics just at the edge of what headphones will take to get into the listeners chest register ("sleeping dogs"). Not linking my stuff directly because it feels a bit opportunistic (they're on soundcloud), but lo-fi music is not just technical production mistakes, it's intended to share a direct experience of the moment.
- rchaud 5y ago
  This applies perfectly to every HN discussion about "the old web". The gaudy artifacts of that time are now iconic landmarks of a more innocent era that we can never experience again. - visitor counters - "under construction" banners - marquee scrolling text banners - Sign my guestbook / View my guestbook - "this site uses frames" / "best viewed on Netscape 4.0"
jimmySixDOF 5y ago
I got into it through ChilledCow which is now Lofi Girl, but I think it has roots back into Trip Hop and Acid Jazz. I also hear some lounge music influence along the lines of Cafe Del Mar and the Buddha Bar series. Good to focus, good to relax.
octatrack 5y ago
I reach for lo-fi when I'd like to set the mood chill and relax. Typically, for evening spent with my girlfriend or for a bunch on a weekday. For work, I prefer more dynamic instrumental music. Specifically, hypnotic, minimalistic, psychedelic techno. An artist I really like these days is Luigi Tozzi[0] and the label Hypnus Record. [0] https://soundcloud.com/hypnus-memoirs/1-luigi-tozzi https://soundcloud.com/hypnus-memoirs/1-luigi-tozzi
bambax 5y ago
I have been making algorithmic music recently; it works surprisingly well in that you can listen to it for a long time without experiencing any feeling of repetition. But platforms have limits on the length of a piece (I think for Spotify it's around 7 minutes?) which makes it difficult to distribute while emphasizing its specific strengths. I hadn't thought about streaming, and especially YT streaming! Will look into it. If anyone has pointers to get started with streaming, that would be great. (Is it possible to stream from a simple device like a Pi that would be always on and be dedicated to the task? -- Edit: yes, it is; just found a tutorial.)
- ryankrage77 5y ago
  If Spotify does have a length limit on songs, it's much higher than 7 minutes. Just looking through my recently played collection, I found a 14 minute track from the Mirror's Edge OST - https://open.spotify.com/track/5E3q9mLEXXaLNPc1AWf4lu?si=c2e6da241ffa4750 https://open.spotify.com/track/5E3q9mLEXXaLNPc1AWf4lu?si=c2e... Streaming to YouTube is also great for long-running projects, as they don't appear to have an upper limit on stream length (for example, NASA TV has been streaming since 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21X5lGlDOfg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21X5lGlDOfg) although I think YouTube won't save the stream if it's longer than 24 hours.
  - officeplant 5y ago
    Yeah given Sleep's Dopesmoker is on spotify and clocks in over 58 minutes I'm not sure where this 7 minute limit comes from.
- criddell 5y ago
  If you search for "white noise 3 hour long" you will find a track from an artist named "White Noise Therapy" and it is, unsurprisingly, just over 180 minutes. It's also been streamed 30 million times which is impressive.
  - bambax 5y ago
    Well maybe it depends on who you are? Or maybe on what you use to get to Spotify (I use DistroKid). Not sure.
im3w1l 5y ago
I used to listen to "lofi hip hop radio - beats to relax/study to" a lot because it was just very... inoffensive I guess? Like, I could listen to it for hours and hours passively without being annoyed in any way by it. It didn't have any particular thing I liked either, but it didn't need to.
- joeberon 5y ago
  I honestly used to get quite annoyed at repetitions, especially if they had annoying vocal samples
joeberon 5y ago
I used to listen to a lot of lofi hip hop but nowadays I've switched more to some Techno mixes from people local in Hamburg
fb03 5y ago
To everyone that grew tired of "Lofi Beats to Study/Relax to", I present you Mr. Dom Whiting with his exquisite techno and drum and bass mixes that he plays while cycling on the streets. Great music to work/code to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_weZX8rEoio https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_weZX8rEoio
- christophilus 5y ago
  I can't believe he didn't get hit by a car or flip over a curb. That dude is way more coordinated / better at multitasking than I am.
NoGravitas 5y ago
I've heard Lo-Fi Hip-Hop described as "easy listening for Millennials", and IMO, they're not wrong.
squack 5y ago
If anyone else really enjoys finding new background music to study/work to. I would highly recommend checking out the South African deep house genre. To try describe it to anyone who hasn't heard it before, basically its a house blend of minimal techno, melodic pads and soulful cord progression. If anyone is interested, here's a list of some sets from YouTube & SoundCloud that I'd recommend listening to: Pierre Johnson: Pure Ibiza Radio, Resident Mix [#002] (https://youtu.be/HZV_ridyGPg https://youtu.be/HZV_ridyGPg) Kat La Kat: Deep Vibes #73 (https://soundcloud.com/kat-la-kat/deep-vibes-73 https://soundcloud.com/kat-la-kat/deep-vibes-73) DJ Buhle: LIVE at #KLK12 (https://youtu.be/5S_nqwf4_eI https://youtu.be/5S_nqwf4_eI) DJ Buhle: DJ Buhle LIVE at The 11th Annual Kat La Kat Party in Pretoria, SA #KLK11 (https://youtu.be/cYxWMYuY1DA https://youtu.be/cYxWMYuY1DA) 2lani The Warrior: Super smooth house set in The Lab Johannesburg (https://youtu.be/Ht9x3ZDNXkg?t=54 https://youtu.be/Ht9x3ZDNXkg?t=54) Ady flemming: Sultry Sounds Sessions #26 (https://youtu.be/MQ-F8uw0Lfc?t=74 https://youtu.be/MQ-F8uw0Lfc?t=74) God Fathers of Deep House: DAY 1 OF 21 LOCKDOWN WITH MASIA THE GODFATHER (https://youtu.be/HQhkUOpOIWU https://youtu.be/HQhkUOpOIWU)
- rawoke083600 5y ago
  Mzansi ! ;)
- acallaha 5y ago
  Thank you for the links - fantastic recommendations :-)
taylodl 5y ago
Lo-Fi dates back to the mid-70's when Punk music hit the scene. They were reacting to what they perceived to be over-engineered prog music such as Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon. Nowadays it's a reaction to DAWs (Digital Audio Workstations, e.g. ProTools, GarageBand, etc.) and playing perfectly "on the grid." There's an emphasis on going back and recording "live" (everyone playing together rather than tracking separately), letting the tempo vary naturally, and not trying to make everything perfect. The upshot? People like it better.
kruxigt 5y ago
To be fair Lo-Fi is often more Hi-Fi because it's not ruined with horrible mastering which actually destroys the audio quality of most things it touches.

70 points by susam 5y ago

The last bit (about people listening to hip hop because they "respond to the beat" vs the talent & popularity of 50 Cent) is intriguing and I wish they'd explored more.

blondin 5y ago
it's not that deep. j. dilla is a hip hop producer, i expect him to say that much. i personally think that we owe lo-fi to the anime community. they popularized it with nujabes of samurai champloo and the like. but since the root is in hip hop, the hip hop community as a whole will claim ownership ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

math-dev 5y ago

I started listening to Lo-Fi maybe six months ago. I don’t recall how exactly I uncovered the genre, but it was on YouTube, and likely a result of me searching for soothing relaxing music. The visual aesthetics of lo fi really drew me in. Surprised it is popular to HN too! YouTube has really taken off for Music, a lot of share our joy of particular music within the comments section, and now people live chat in channels that continuously run music “live”. Lo Fi channels do this a lot. All that said, I got bored of Lo Fi pretty quickly. For those interested, melodic house (downtempo trance) is really good these days, for example the below were some of my favourite sets recently https://youtu.be/v2dSpsuBJGI https://youtu.be/v2dSpsuBJGI https://youtu.be/eSsgODhHBI0 https://youtu.be/eSsgODhHBI0

weird-eye-issue 5y ago
I get bored of trance wayy faster than lofi. Maybe you just need to check out a different lofi genre? There are huge variations
hsbauauvhabzb 5y ago
Also deep house, Anjunadeep radio show is well worth a listen. It’s a shame the content because repedative, which I attribute mostly to the relatively small group of producers in the genre
- marliechiller 5y ago
  Anjunadeep is a fantastic recommendation. I regularly listen to their playlists both during work and outside of it now. Very versatile
  - vsnf 5y ago
    If you like Anjunadeep then I’d recommend looking into the weekly Above and Beyond Group Therapy (abgt) mixes, and also possibly Monstercat Silk Showcase, another weekly music music
    - calny 5y ago
      These are great. Other good weekly deep house radio shows that I code to: Nora En Pure Purified Radio, https://soundcloud.com/noraenpure/tracks https://soundcloud.com/noraenpure/tracks The Boom Room Selected, https://soundcloud.com/theboomroomofficial https://soundcloud.com/theboomroomofficial Oliver Heldens Heldeep Radio, https://soundcloud.com/heldeepradio https://soundcloud.com/heldeepradio
      - hsbauauvhabzb 5y ago
        Thanks, always on the lookout for new stuff! I didn’t mind hardwell off the record sets, but the show has ended now.
    - hsbauauvhabzb 5y ago
      I do listen to abgt, Tony from the group also has some good deep house sets on YouTube
luigi23 5y ago
I highly recommend Cercle channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h96MGcsi7GQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h96MGcsi7GQ Great view, nice music.
- wlamartin 5y ago
  Maybe a little deeper but VSNZ has the same kind of idea. I went nuts for weeks on this Adriatique set: https://youtu.be/mIv_HcNun-w https://youtu.be/mIv_HcNun-w
- fb03 5y ago
  Can't recommend Cercle enough. My favorite Cercle video is the one at the pyramid's of Giza. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SD6GDiyHmbE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SD6GDiyHmbE
acomjean 5y ago
YouTube really is great for music. They have a lot of stuff and live stuff. (including Praxis a band rediscovered: https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=agPnQb9CntY&feature=share https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=agPnQb9CntY&feature=share I can’t listen to the same things day after day. So a mix of classical /rock / punk / synthwave (80s sounding instrumentals). I still listen to colega radio, which provides is a mix of structured shows by former students and random stuff.(each show is archived) https://wmbr.org https://wmbr.org Some of my regulars: “breakfast of champions, late risers club, jd deathcar experience, lost and found, paradox box, radio ninja, nonstop ecstatic screaming)

vladvasiliu 5y ago

> "It's background music you can enjoy," Blackman says. Listeners can focus on what they're hearing, or they can let it fade. This is pretty much why I listen to this while working. I find that the "random noise generators" are too distracting or tiring. It's not a genre of music I'd reach for in any other setting, but for work it does a great job of drowning out ambient distractions while also being enjoyable.

blitzar 5y ago
beats to <inset thing> to is a meme now. I expect the gateway Lo-Fi for many was "beats to relax/study to" on youtube. Or for the brits: "lo fi boriswave beats to relax/get brexit done to" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cre0in5n-1E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cre0in5n-1E
- junon 5y ago
  For the Germans, Lo-Fi Merkelwave Beats to Relax/Study to. Timely, if you ask me. https://youtu.be/reCMB81A70k https://youtu.be/reCMB81A70k
  - blitzar 5y ago
    The vape clouds make it for me.
- lelandfe 5y ago
  Wow, that is the actual conservative party's channel. I thought Will Smith[0] joining the meme was as sold out as this was going to get, and I was wrong. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rA56B4JyTgI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rA56B4JyTgI
  - blitzar 5y ago
    Impressive from Conservative Party HQ is all I can say.
throw0101a 5y ago

PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago

TFA: " Analyses show that between 1960 and 2010, the US Billboard Hot 100 songs with the most profound influences on pop music were hip hop." The last several words link to: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.150081#d3e907 https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.150081#d... which says: "The rise of rap and related genres appears, then, to be the single most important event that has shaped the musical structure of the American charts in the period that we studied." This is an entirely different claim from the one in the TFA, even assuming that the RSP paper is taken at face value, which is hard to do given its own list of limitations.

samplenoise 5y ago
I don’t remember if the paper lists it among its limitations but it’s worth noting there is a pretty sharp continuity in Billboard’s methodology around 1991 (they didn’t really include any rap before that) that will warp this kind of analysis if you don’t control for it. This is sort of known among musicologists of pop music and often glossed over by this kind of research
- contravariant 5y ago
  Did you mean 'discontinuity'? Sharp and continuous are somewhat contradictory.

tastysandwich 5y ago

This article associates lo-fi music strongly with hip-hop, and kind of implies it's a fairly new phenomenon. But just look to the indie scene and you'll see it dates back to the 80s, with bands like Beat Happenings and Guided By Voices. And much before then, too, I'm sure, but I feel like these bands popularised it. I'm a huge fan of instrumental hip hop, like J Dilla, DJ Shadow (Entroducing...), Madlib, DJ/Rupture etc. I've never listened to these new YT channels the article mentions, though. To be honest, I never really thought of these artists "lo-fi". The term I hear a lot is "crate digging". These guys scour music stores for old records to find songs and sounds they can repurpose in their own music, creating something completely fresh. Are they recording much new sounds though? Kind related, but I love early thrash metal. Slayer, Dark Angel, Morbid Angel, etc. In particular, I love that really raw production quality. Don't ask me why, there's just something about a lot of newer thrash albums, where everything is so clean and crystal clear, I just don't connect with it as much. I guess the rawness lends it that aggression which is so integral to thrash.

djrockstar1 5y ago
> kind of implies it's a fairly new phenomenon Does it? The "Beyond Youtube" section articulates the exact opposite.
zwirbl 5y ago
Not just early thrash metal, I have a fondness of early hardcore punk like Minor Threat, early Raised Fist EPs etc I think I find the raw energy just more credible than the hyper produced new stuff. Also in that vein, oftentimes when I discover bands I slowly gravitate towards their older releases. Not always, but really most of the time
Cthulhu_ 5y ago
I mean IIRC the first distorted guitar sound was someone kicking in a speaker to make it sound shitty; low-fi and electric guitars are closely linked.
- i_am_proteus 5y ago
  I can't speak to the first distorted guitar sound, but classic overdrive/distortion is just pushing the voltage of vacuum tube amplifiers out of the region where they amplify linearly ("over driving" them) to where the soft clipping introduces 2nd and 3rd and... nth order harmonics (harmonic "distortion") into the signal. And that's why it's called distortion and overdrive.

PostThisTooFast 5y ago

This sounds like more ignorant rejection of the real problem in today's music: dynamic compression. Everything mastered or "remastered" since the late '90s has been destroyed with dynamic compression, turning it into a wall of noise to make it "louder." All of the oversampling, fake vinyl noise, or losslessness in the world can't fix it. I have 45s that sound far better than digital "remasters," and it's because they're less compressed. And that's pathetic.

raptorraver 5y ago

I started doing lo-fi music (folk) for practical reasons when I was a teenager. I didn't have any other device to record than a cheap webcam. I started loving the sound and didn't bother to update my equipment for many years.

ruchin_k 5y ago

Interestingly I played lo-fi music for a week at our 12 member startup and productivity rose significantly :)

Pentamerous 5y ago

Relevant quote from Brian Eno (1996) > Whatever you now find weird, ugly, uncomfortable and nasty about a new medium will surely become its signature. CD distortion, the jitteriness of digital video, the crap sound of 8-bit - all of these will be cherished and emulated as soon as they can be avoided. It’s the sound of failure: so much modern art is the sound of things going out of control, of a medium pushing to its limits and breaking apart. The distorted guitar sound is the sound of something too loud for the medium supposed to carry it. The blues singer with the cracked voice is the sound of an emotional cry too powerful for the throat that releases it. The excitement of grainy film, of bleached-out black and white, is the excitement of witnessing events too momentous for the medium assigned to record them.

poisonarena 5y ago
this is very true, coming from a guy who collects thousand dollar modern drum machines/samplers designed to emulate 'crappier' ones from 2 decades ago..
motohagiography 5y ago
This Eno quote is the best part of the post, and better than the article. :) As someone who makes some lo-fi electronic music, it really is an expression of limits, where you create and release tension against those limits, and this is what makes it evocative. Two tracks in particular I created use that sense of old familiarity to draw out memories, using melodic tools from minimalism (Part/Glass), reproducing 1970s blade runner synth sounds, and samples that will only be familiar to a very 'leet few ("requiem for a hacker"), and another that uses sub-bass harmonics just at the edge of what headphones will take to get into the listeners chest register ("sleeping dogs"). Not linking my stuff directly because it feels a bit opportunistic (they're on soundcloud), but lo-fi music is not just technical production mistakes, it's intended to share a direct experience of the moment.
rchaud 5y ago
This applies perfectly to every HN discussion about "the old web". The gaudy artifacts of that time are now iconic landmarks of a more innocent era that we can never experience again. - visitor counters - "under construction" banners - marquee scrolling text banners - Sign my guestbook / View my guestbook - "this site uses frames" / "best viewed on Netscape 4.0"

jimmySixDOF 5y ago

I got into it through ChilledCow which is now Lofi Girl, but I think it has roots back into Trip Hop and Acid Jazz. I also hear some lounge music influence along the lines of Cafe Del Mar and the Buddha Bar series. Good to focus, good to relax.

octatrack 5y ago

I reach for lo-fi when I'd like to set the mood chill and relax. Typically, for evening spent with my girlfriend or for a bunch on a weekday. For work, I prefer more dynamic instrumental music. Specifically, hypnotic, minimalistic, psychedelic techno. An artist I really like these days is Luigi Tozzi[0] and the label Hypnus Record. [0] https://soundcloud.com/hypnus-memoirs/1-luigi-tozzi https://soundcloud.com/hypnus-memoirs/1-luigi-tozzi

bambax 5y ago

I have been making algorithmic music recently; it works surprisingly well in that you can listen to it for a long time without experiencing any feeling of repetition. But platforms have limits on the length of a piece (I think for Spotify it's around 7 minutes?) which makes it difficult to distribute while emphasizing its specific strengths. I hadn't thought about streaming, and especially YT streaming! Will look into it. If anyone has pointers to get started with streaming, that would be great. (Is it possible to stream from a simple device like a Pi that would be always on and be dedicated to the task? -- Edit: yes, it is; just found a tutorial.)

ryankrage77 5y ago
If Spotify does have a length limit on songs, it's much higher than 7 minutes. Just looking through my recently played collection, I found a 14 minute track from the Mirror's Edge OST - https://open.spotify.com/track/5E3q9mLEXXaLNPc1AWf4lu?si=c2e6da241ffa4750 https://open.spotify.com/track/5E3q9mLEXXaLNPc1AWf4lu?si=c2e... Streaming to YouTube is also great for long-running projects, as they don't appear to have an upper limit on stream length (for example, NASA TV has been streaming since 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21X5lGlDOfg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21X5lGlDOfg) although I think YouTube won't save the stream if it's longer than 24 hours.
- officeplant 5y ago
  Yeah given Sleep's Dopesmoker is on spotify and clocks in over 58 minutes I'm not sure where this 7 minute limit comes from.
criddell 5y ago
If you search for "white noise 3 hour long" you will find a track from an artist named "White Noise Therapy" and it is, unsurprisingly, just over 180 minutes. It's also been streamed 30 million times which is impressive.
- bambax 5y ago
  Well maybe it depends on who you are? Or maybe on what you use to get to Spotify (I use DistroKid). Not sure.

im3w1l 5y ago

I used to listen to "lofi hip hop radio - beats to relax/study to" a lot because it was just very... inoffensive I guess? Like, I could listen to it for hours and hours passively without being annoyed in any way by it. It didn't have any particular thing I liked either, but it didn't need to.

joeberon 5y ago
I honestly used to get quite annoyed at repetitions, especially if they had annoying vocal samples

joeberon 5y ago

I used to listen to a lot of lofi hip hop but nowadays I've switched more to some Techno mixes from people local in Hamburg

fb03 5y ago

To everyone that grew tired of "Lofi Beats to Study/Relax to", I present you Mr. Dom Whiting with his exquisite techno and drum and bass mixes that he plays while cycling on the streets. Great music to work/code to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_weZX8rEoio https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_weZX8rEoio

christophilus 5y ago
I can't believe he didn't get hit by a car or flip over a curb. That dude is way more coordinated / better at multitasking than I am.

NoGravitas 5y ago

I've heard Lo-Fi Hip-Hop described as "easy listening for Millennials", and IMO, they're not wrong.

squack 5y ago

If anyone else really enjoys finding new background music to study/work to. I would highly recommend checking out the South African deep house genre. To try describe it to anyone who hasn't heard it before, basically its a house blend of minimal techno, melodic pads and soulful cord progression. If anyone is interested, here's a list of some sets from YouTube & SoundCloud that I'd recommend listening to: Pierre Johnson: Pure Ibiza Radio, Resident Mix [#002] (https://youtu.be/HZV_ridyGPg https://youtu.be/HZV_ridyGPg) Kat La Kat: Deep Vibes #73 (https://soundcloud.com/kat-la-kat/deep-vibes-73 https://soundcloud.com/kat-la-kat/deep-vibes-73) DJ Buhle: LIVE at #KLK12 (https://youtu.be/5S_nqwf4_eI https://youtu.be/5S_nqwf4_eI) DJ Buhle: DJ Buhle LIVE at The 11th Annual Kat La Kat Party in Pretoria, SA #KLK11 (https://youtu.be/cYxWMYuY1DA https://youtu.be/cYxWMYuY1DA) 2lani The Warrior: Super smooth house set in The Lab Johannesburg (https://youtu.be/Ht9x3ZDNXkg?t=54 https://youtu.be/Ht9x3ZDNXkg?t=54) Ady flemming: Sultry Sounds Sessions #26 (https://youtu.be/MQ-F8uw0Lfc?t=74 https://youtu.be/MQ-F8uw0Lfc?t=74) God Fathers of Deep House: DAY 1 OF 21 LOCKDOWN WITH MASIA THE GODFATHER (https://youtu.be/HQhkUOpOIWU https://youtu.be/HQhkUOpOIWU)

rawoke083600 5y ago
Mzansi ! ;)
acallaha 5y ago
Thank you for the links - fantastic recommendations :-)

taylodl 5y ago

Lo-Fi dates back to the mid-70's when Punk music hit the scene. They were reacting to what they perceived to be over-engineered prog music such as Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon. Nowadays it's a reaction to DAWs (Digital Audio Workstations, e.g. ProTools, GarageBand, etc.) and playing perfectly "on the grid." There's an emphasis on going back and recording "live" (everyone playing together rather than tracking separately), letting the tempo vary naturally, and not trying to make everything perfect. The upshot? People like it better.

kruxigt 5y ago

To be fair Lo-Fi is often more Hi-Fi because it's not ruined with horrible mastering which actually destroys the audio quality of most things it touches.