New Side Project: Making a Lo-Fi Chill Track

So as I've already discussed in my previous side project post, I'm going to create a lo-fi track for a side project which I'm really keen about. I've been really intrigued by the lo-fi genre lately as I created a track in the holidays and follow alot of artists that produce this kind of music, so I want to give it a go.

Listen to my previous lo-fi track here

I also find it's a genre that suits me well because I find it's quite simple to produce and I can get creative with chords, which helps me learn more unique chord progressions and improvisations as well. The lo-fi genre to me sounds really nice and calming to listen to as the textures are bit rough and lo-fi tracks typically sound like a demo, but still sounds like something you could fall asleep to. Listening to a lot of tracks in this genre has made me find that hi-fi music sounds a bit too clean for my liking and isn't something I'd like to produce and that I now prefer to make tracks that sound raw or rough around the edges. The extra noise that lo-fi adds to a mix somehow sounds soothing as well. I started making a track a couple weeks ago but it just wasn't matching what was in scope as it was shaping to be a sort of lo-fi hip-hop study kind of track, so I decided to just create another session and work on that track next time.

For my lo-fi track, I also want to have psychedelic elements incorporated into it, which together will end up becoming a lo-fi psychedelic chill track kinda thing. If you're not sure about what I'm going for, here are a few tracks that I'll be using as references and that definitely fit the scope of what I'm aiming to produce. (Click the links below)

Jarimuana - SOFTJOSH

who knows? - SOFTJOSH

you#re so right - SOFTJOSH

Self Healing - Dogland

The guitars of these reference tracks are what appeal to me the most as they use psychedelic effects and the way that they're played is very laid-back and sometimes off-beat as well, which then makes the entire track have a laid-back, chill kind of feeling. Some of the most common effects that I hear from these songs are chorus, a lot of reverb, and a bit of pitch-bending stuff as well. These songs also feature minor chords as well as jazz chords, which I'm both a huge fan of so it'd be interesting to play around with chord progressions and see what I can come up with by using jazz chords and minor chords. Most of these songs also sounded like the whole mix was recorded in some living room or something similar, which helps to give it that lo-fi aesthetic as well, alongside having the entire mix decrease in sample rate to give it that lo-fi sound.

The beats of these songs also adds to the laid-back aesthetic as the tempos are quite slow, and they are also not really on-beat, which gives it a chill swing to it. All of these songs tend to use just a kick, snare, some hi-hats, and a ride cymbal, and most of these songs just repeat a 2-bar beat for the entire song. I'm not a drummer and only started learning about them last year so I'm glad this genre uses really simple drum rhythms, as it'd help me learn how to make basic rhythms and that I'm able to improve from there. I'll be using midi drums for this track but for my next track, I want to record with real drums to see if it'd be a better alternative. Plus it'd be cool to start playing drums.

I won't be adding any vocals to my tracks as I'm really not a big fan of listening to myself sing and since this is going to be a chill track, I'd rather it be an instrumental and let the audience focus on the instruments. Definitely in the future, I'd like to have artists feature in my tracks. If I were to have vocals, I'd prefer male vocals because I think my music would suit the mid-low range and my reference tracks all feature male vocals. (If I could get SOFTJOSH or Dogland to feature on one of my tracks one day, I'd be over the moon!)

From the previous lo-fi track I made, I added background bar chatter to fill the mix and it worked really nicely with the whole track and gave the track a scene which was really interesting (The previous track, "Late Gig" has background bar chatter and I wanted to give the audience a feeling like they were at a bar and a small beginner-like band were playing around midnight). So I'll be definitely be adding some atmos/background noise but it'd be after I make the track, as I'd need to feel what vibe I'm getting to find a suitable atmos for it.

Anyway, these reference tracks will be helping me on this project to create a lo-fi chill track and I'm excited to hear what the end product will be like. I've been listening to a lot of tracks by these artists and more so I've kinda got an idea of what basic elements to use on my track that are crucial to the lo-fi genre. I'll also will be using Pro Tools which is what I'm most familiar with, and since I've made a lo-fi track using it before, I know what sort of plugins and settings I'd need and have learned from some of the mistakes I made making the previous track.

My next blog post will have the finished track and I'll be talking about my process on how I made the track and any other things that I've come across while making the track that's worth talking about, so stay tuuunneeddd