Lo Fi

Does anyone else listen to Lo Fi (the music genre) and if so how do you deal with the irony?

Is there such a thing as a music genre of lo-fi? (As opposed to lo fi music replay systems.) If so, is it low quality sound, intended only for replay on lo fi equipment?

Certainly there is Lo-fi music - Wikipedia

Just search in Spotify or Tidal etc for lo fi playlists, there are many

Well, if you like it, simply donā€™t worry about the irony! I find many of the so-called genres attached by the record business quite meaningless, and assign my own broader ones as I only divide my music library by broad classifications. The inconsistency of genre assignment by record companies was brought home to me when I first looked at metadata on ripped CDs and downloads, and found the same classical piece or style assigned with a variety of different ā€œgenresā€ (e.g. the same thing might be under classical, orchestral, symphony, romantic. I renamed all simply to classical. Much the same with variants of rock music.

I donā€™t think there is an irony.
Some great music is recorded terribly, even if not purposefully soā€¦some bland, uninspiring music is recorded beautifully. The irony would be if hifi nuts like us only used our Ā£Ā£Ā£ stereos to listen to the latter (and some do I guess).

The opposite I think of what a company like Naim intends.

I believe many very expensive modern recording facilities can have apps and plug ins that recreate LoFi artefacts - such as wobbly tape echos, valve heads that break up easily, dodgy synths,even very cheap patch cables.
We all know how the engineer wasnā€™t happy with the drums, so put him and the kit in the stairwell with a simple old microphone.
Many of our favourite hifi recordings are just a symphony of collected lofi bits and pieces.

Not just expensive modern studios, either: my 20-year old Korg Triton has an ā€œAnalog Recordā€ effect where you can overlay your beautiful piano sound or even an entire sequenced song with varying amounts of surface noise, clicks and pops. You can even choose whether you want the effect at 33, 45 or 78rpm. Itā€™s surprisingly realistic!

Mark

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I suspect much of my aging record collection could fall into the Lo Fi descritptor albeit unintentionally. Some Lo Fi is beautifully produced but done so without worrying about some of the things studio engineers and producers have striven to erradicate in most recording, other Lo Fi recordings are not so well produced. Sometimes it is lovely to listen to a extremely well produced song where unwanted distortion etc has been banished, other times listening to a song or piece of music you really like that is presented warts and all is what hits the spot for me. A place for both and I must admit not something I really think about when choosing what to listen to.

I have a Trinity, and it cas something similar - and Iā€™ve always assumed it is intended for, say, creating music for a film aiming to seem as if it was made in older times. For music it is complete anathema to me!

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Yes, itā€™s obviously meant to be evocative or ambient. One of the presets that uses it is ā€˜RnB Electric Pianoā€™, so you can play, say, a soul or funk groove and sound like youā€™re coming off an authentic piece of gritty 70s vinyl.

It is amusing to see how musicians, producers and audio engineers have done this for artistic reasons for many generations. The granddaddy of examples, of course, is distorted electric guitar which we now spend thousands trying to reproduce accurately on our systems. Thatā€™s irony for you.

Mark

Except that with electric guitar the the amp and speaker combine with the guitar itself to become the musical instrument, with characteristics tailorable electronically so making a far more versatile instrument than a purely acoustic one. The ā€œanalogue recordingā€ noise on the other hand is simply that, added noise, to create the atmosphere of a past time / poor medium, which whilst it has a place is (to me) not musical.

Add a Leslie box to an organ and people change from organ-haters to organ-lovers.

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