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Lo-fi (from the term "low fidelity") is lower quality of sound recordings than the usual standard for music. The qualities of lo-fi are usually achieved by either degrading the quality of the recorded audio, or using certain equipment. Recent uses of the phrase have led to it becoming a genre, although it still remains as an aesthetic in music recording practice. Many lo-fi artists use inexpensive cassette tape recorders. The term was adopted by WFMU DJ William Berger who dedicated a half hour segment of his program to home recorded music throughout the late '80s under the name lo-fi.

Pre-1980s[link]

Lo-fi's roots can be dated as far back as a set of live cylinder recordings created in 1900–04 by Lionel Mapleson from a catwalk 40 ft (12 m) above the stage of the Metropolitan Opera. The sound quality of these "Mapleson Cylinders" is very poor (more so since they are one-of-a-kind artifacts that have been further worn down by being played over the last century); the aesthetic quality, though, partakes in the electric, authentic feeling of an unedited event being captured in real time.^{[citation needed]} In the same historical period, commercial field recordings of folk music had begun to be created in many nations of the world, recorded catch-as-catch-can by early record producers such as Fred Gaisberg of HMV. The description of "lo-fi", however, would be slightly amiss, since the recordists used the best available equipment of the era in order to capture and reproduce the sound as faithfully as possible. With technology being what it was however, the resulting recordings would be considered quite crude, or "low-fidelity", by today's standards.

A later era, Buddy Holly recorded some songs in a converted garage. Some posthumous Hank Williams demos were also overdubbed for commercial release. However, it was not until Bob Dylan decided in 1975 to officially release a set of The Basement Tapes, first recorded as music publisher demos in 1967, that the first lo-fi pop music milestone was reached. The music was really not originally intended for general release, the recordings, made on a consumer-quality Ampex quarter-track machine with two microphones set up for "dual mono", made a virtue of their flaws; with their asides, laughter and unselfconscious looseness, they defined the authenticity of the lo-fi experience. As a historical matter, in the years between the production and the official release, the popularity of these particular recordings also created the first market for pop bootleg records, which as a listening experience came to include seemingly every scrap of certain rock artists' off-the-cuff and unreleased work, including home recordings. Seminal early examples of this were the 1976 home-made debut album Phonography by pioneer DIY popster R. Stevie Moore and the 1976 debut album Carcass by lo-fi pioneer Sean Terrington Wright. Also, famed songwriter Lou Reed produced a version of the self-titled 3rd album by his band, The Velvet Underground. Its lo-fi, cramped sound became known as the closet mix. It was highly influential to up-and-coming indie lo-fi groups.

Lo-fi recordings became more commonly heard in the late seventies to early eighties with many electronic acts. In Monte A. Melnick's biographical book, On the Road with the Ramones, Thomas Erdelyi considers the band's first record to be a "great lo-fi album". Suicide's debut album is a large collection of lo-fi classics, which Bruce Springsteen took inspiration from on his 1982 lo-fi album Nebraska. Other classic lo-fi's to appear around this time include Throbbing Gristle's "United", Thomas Leer's "Private Plane", The Normal's "TVOD/Warm Leatherette" single, and The Human League's "Being Boiled". Another UK classic lo-fi band is the Young Marble Giants.

1980s onwards[link]

Pavement singer/guitarist and lo-fi music innovator Steve Malkmus

As a term to describe a musical genre, lo-fi is mainly associated with recordings from the 1980s onwards, when cassette technology such as Tascam's four-track Portastudio became widely available. Prime early exponents included Daniel Johnston, New Zealand band the Tall Dwarfs who recorded on Chris Knox's 4-track and released on Flying Nun Records, The Bilders (period 1978-81), who recorded in a bedroom, Beat Happening and the Olympia, Washington label K Records. In the early-mid 1990s (1991–1998), lo-fi found a wider audience with the success of such acts as Beck, Blur, Sebadoh, Guided by Voices, Smog, Spookey Ruben, Mercury Rev, Pavement, Modest Mouse, Neutral Milk Hotel, Operation Ivy, Liz Phair, Will Oldham, Yo La Tengo, Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, Ween, David Kilgour and later (1999–2003) Elliott Smith, The Apples in Stereo, Dr. Dog, The Olivia Tremor Control, Elf Power, Beulah, Of Montreal, Mike Rifone, Sufjan Stevens, Iron & Wine, and The Shins.

Often lo-fi artists will record on old or poor recording equipment, ostensibly out of financial necessity but also due to the unique aural association such technologies have with "authenticity", an association created in listeners by exposure to years of demo, bootleg, and field recordings, as well as to older pop studio recordings produced more simply. The growth in lo-fi coincided with the growth of extreme slickness and polish associated with the multitrack pop recording techniques of the 1980s. Lo-fi can therefore been seen as a counterculture movement, though exponents rarely identify themselves with any political persuasion.

Many artists associated with the lo-fi movement, such as Bill Callahan, or Bob Log III, have frequently rejected the use of finer recording equipment, trying to keep their sound raw instead, whereas others such as Guided by Voices and The Mountain Goats slowly moved to using professional studios.

The black metal genre embraced the lo-fi idea during the late 1980s and early 1990s as it strived to distance itself from pop music. Most bands recorded their albums on extremely low budgets, using four-track recorders and any other equipment they could use. The greatest example is the Darkthrone album Transilvanian Hunger, though almost all of their albums have an intentionally "lo-fi" sound quality. The band started as a clean, well produced technical death metal band before evolving their style and almost singlehandedly producing the low quality production style that would become common place in the black metal scene. Varg Vikernes of black metal band Burzum was also known to purposely use extremely lo-fi recording techniques on his albums. On the album Filosofem, Varg was said to have intentionally asked a local store for the cheapest microphone they had, and they sold him a headset, which he used to record vocals on the album. For guitar he was said to have used a distortion pedal to drive a stereo receiver, which made the extremely fuzzy, buzzing guitar tone found on the album. The term "raw" is generally preferred to "lo-fi" in black metal circles.

Currently, there is a growing scene of lo-fi bands in the United States and Canada. Notable bands and solo artists include Two Gallants, Wavves, No Age, Times New Viking, Rogue Wave, Best Coast, Ty Segall, Gonjasufi, Vivian Girls, Former Ghosts, Zola Jesus and Glass Graves.

There is also an even newer trend of lo-fi goth bands, which incorporate influence from noise music, deathrock, new wave, and hardcore punk. This scene grew out of an influx of ex-deathrock revivalists into the indie music scene.

Digital lo-fi[link]

Lo-fi music can also refer to low fidelity music created with low end synths, 8-bit computers, and circuit bending.

See also[link]

• Cassette culture
• Indie rock
• List of lo-fi bands
• High fidelity
• No-fi
• DIY culture

References[link]

External links[link]

• Allmusic entry for lo-fi
• Lo-Fi: In Search of an Honest Aesthetic by Jonathan Maier
• Lo-Fi music group at last.fm
• GetLoFi.com
• Low Fidelity Living - Free Online Lo-Fi/Noise Compilation
• Lo-fi on Avant-Avant

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Low fidelity or lo-fi describes a sound recording which contains technical flaws such as distortion, hum, or background noise, or limited frequency response. The term "low-fidelity" is used in contrast to the audiophile term high fidelity or "hi-fi", which refers to stereo equipment that very accurately reproduces music without harmonic distortion or unwanted frequency emphasis or resonance. The ideas of lo-fi are taken to extremes by the genre or "scene" of no fidelity, or no-fi. Some lower-budget recordings from the 1970s and 1980s have a "lo-fi" sound due to the limitations of the analog recording and processing techniques, which introduced unwanted artifacts such as distortion and phase problems. In some recordings, however, high fidelity recording is purposely avoided, or the artifacts such as simulated vinyl record crackles are deliberately retained or added in for aesthetic reasons.

Some unique aural qualities are available only with "low-tech" recording methods, such as recording on tape decks, or using analog sound processors (e.g., analog compressors or reverb units). The lo-fi aesthetic has even contributed to musical subgenres, such as the "lo-fi" subgenre of indie rock and a great deal of punk rock.^[1] Lo-fi techniques are espoused by some genres outside the indie rock world, particularly by certain heavy metal bands (especially within the sludge and black metal scenes), where the very low-quality of the recording has become a desirable quality, as it is associated with authenticity, as well as a "darker" sound or a "rebellion" against good production.

In digital audio, the term "lo-fi" usually refers to an audio file with a lower bit rate or sampling rate, and thus a lower sound quality. Such audio files may be offered on the internet because of their smaller file sizes and hence shorter download times. The term "lo-fi" has come to be used figuratively in other contexts, by analogy with lo-fi audio, usually to mean "low-tech", such as websites with very simple architecture or designed for users with low bandwidth connections; or the unauthorized use of Wi-fi wireless connections.

Lo-fi audio[link]

In general, "lo-fi" audio is any process that fails to achieve the accuracy and "transparency" that is the goal of hi-fi audio. The meaning of the term "lo-fi" has changed over time; in the 1970s vacuum tube equipment was considered the lower fidelity alternative to the new semiconductor solid state equipment, although some still consider valves the only "pure" way of listening to music. Low fidelity is often associated with cassette tape, although in reality many people simply do not notice the difference between this and CD quality, particularly with the advent of low-quality (lower quality than cassette) mp3 files. Some lower-budget recordings from the 1970s and 1980s have a "lo-fi" sound despite the best efforts of the musicians and the producers, due to the limitations of the analog recording and processing techniques, which introduced unwanted artifacts such as distortion and phase problems. In some recordings, high fidelity recording is avoided, or the artifacts are deliberately retained or added to all or part of the recording for artistic reasons. This decision is usually made by the record producer, but in some cases, band members are advocates of the "lo-fi" sound.

Some unique aural qualities are available only with "low-tech" recording methods, such as recording on tape decks, or using analog sound processors (e.g., analog compressors or reverb units). Some producers argue that the sound of an overdriven, high gain analog signal has a more pleasing sound than a high gain digital signal. Also, even though digital effects such as digital reverb may be a more accurate recreation of the reverb that occurs in a cathedral or large space, analog reverb has a distinctive sound that is associated with 1970s and 1980s recordings. Examples of deliberately lo-fi-type sounds in pop music can be traced to at least 1968, when the Monkees included sounds intended to mimic a 78-rpm record on the song "Magnolia Simms," contained in their album The Birds, The Bees & The Monkees; later that same year a portion of The Beatles' song "Honey Pie" included similar mimicry. More recent examples include vinyl crackles on compact discs, as on Portishead's album Dummy, and telephonic vocals on Craig David's track "Fill Me In" (though these two are not regarded as "lo-fi" bands). Several prominent Hip-Hop producers, such as DJ Premier,and RjD2 also favour retaining the Lo-Fidelity characteristics of the records they sample in order to achieve a hard, unpolished and "uncut" sound in their own music. The lo-fi aesthetic has even contributed to musical subgenres, such as the "lo-fi" subgenre of indie rock and punky styles such as digital hardcore.

Lo-fi techniques are espoused by some genres outside the indie rock world, particularly by black metal artists, where the very low-quality of the recording has become a desirable quality, said by fans to convey a rawness and depth of feeling otherwise unattainable. Some fans deliberately seek out extremely lo-fi concert bootlegs, such as the Dawn of the Black Hearts, which are of very low quality. DIY punk is also well noted for its trend toward lo-fi sound, produced for the most part on inexpensive four-track machines such as the Tascam, and copied from tape to tape on home recording equipment, degrading the quality still further. In DIY punk lo-fi is prized mainly because it indicates a rejection of the values of commercialism. No-fi takes the lo-fi and DIY aesthetic to extremes, or at least a different location on the sound spectrum. Fusing the disheveled, DIY and loose playing punk sound and the lo-fi recording style with unconventional playing and tuning of instruments, to not only create lo-fi recordings but also "lo-fi" playing and song structures.

Other meanings[link]

Website or web forum[link]

A "lo-fi" website can also be a website with very simple architecture or a website designed for users with low bandwidth connections. In general, it is a copy of the main website and often designed for people who have an old computer with/or a slower Internet connection (notably 56K connections). Users can often access the main website from a link at the bottom of the page. Usually advanced features and background images (e.g. Flash, ActiveX Objects, Images, Videos) are turned off or are replaced with textual representation. This allows the page to be loaded faster with less connection made to the server to load additional items on the page.

Wireless connectivity[link]

A "Lo-fi" wireless connection also refers to the process by which unprotected wireless (802.11) access points (AP's) are mapped and labeled for unrestricted use by anyone. A "lo-fi" site is first logged, then labeled or mapped so that another person with a (laptop) computer and a wireless network adapter can get onto the internet to retrieve websites, email, or otherwise use the provided internet connection without advance or prior authorization, and without any trace or fees. In general, access point wireless networking hardware come configured with "default" settings, and therefore are not protected against unauthorized use.

Many people install their new access points or wireless routers to their internet service provider modem, without changing these default security settings, making it possible for anyone with a properly configured system to connect to and use the provider's internet connectivity, with or without prior authorization. The name "Lo-Fi" is symbolic as an independent and "Low cost" (free except for the price of equipment) version of the "Wi-Fi" system, which was promulgated by the Wi-Fi Alliance [1], a non-profit organization with the goal of driving the adoption of a single worldwide-accepted standard for high-speed wireless local area networking.

See also[link]

• List of lo-fi bands
• Lo-fi photography

References[link]