What contributes to the overall tonality / vibe in this trak

[Plyphon]

Heya,


Alright the title isn't quite right, but I couldn't think of another way to put it.

Simply put this track sounds super crunchy and mid heavy, but still has a rumble down there.

Is this is EQ/tone choices or is there other technique or hardware involved to go to this aesthetic?

Warning: bouncy house content
youtu.be/_CQCJdKPP7g

Thanks!

[kostas]

Hi Plyphon,
it sounds like the kick is doing the rumble you re mentioning
I think multi-band saturation
try raising the decay of the kick not too much though otherwise you going into 808 land. just about
so you have some rumble to work on.
now saturate the low part of the kick with a tape saturation or an amp emulation and control it accordingly
to your overall mix with a compressor that adds no colour. you want to preserve the saturation as is. place
the crossover point to taste. process the higher part of the kick so you have a more snappy sound, with a transient
shaper for example to bring the click more upfront. keep the bass away from the lower spectrum so when the kick
hits it is making the effects psychoacoustically more obvious. and as always experiment this is not something that fit all occasions ))
Hope that helps

[Lost to the Void]

Jesus, fuck all dynamics in this either, it`s terrible.
That kick is really.... hmmm

It sounds like digital trying to sound lofi analog
Or it could just be really badly recorded analog.
I imagine the only reason it holds together in the lows is good mastering.

My guess is that a lot of this is samples, nothing as complex as Kostas is suggesting anyway.

Kick could be either reverb rumble, or I think 2 kicks, one with some throb in the lows, it`s really hard to tell as the dynamics are so flat.

No special techniques to do this though, lots of samples, maybe some bit reduction if it wasn`t done with an old MPC, some drive, but the low lows are just kept relatively clean underneath it all.
The hats are totally flat too, but also quite crunchy, again, bit reduction or drive or waveshaping. It`s a really weird mix.

[sergiobR1]

sounds like the chord it's layering the bass.

Try a 808 Kick with attack as bassline

[Plyphon]

Thanks all - yes the track is very "2017 lofi house", but it has a great groove so I can't fault it.

Bit reduction is an interesting point I've not tried before. Might give that a go ey.

[Mattias]

Sounds like someone who came from the clinical digital minimal world and are applying those ideas and rules to the music but trying to follow the current low-fi house trend.

[terly]

Sounds like someone who came from the clinical digital minimal world and are applying those ideas and rules to the music but trying to follow the current low-fi house trend.

damn, that sounds like me - no wonder I make such shit

honestly that track sounds pretty bad to me. some of the character comes from being so squashed, but that stuff always sounds terrible in the club. the main synth sounds like some sort of analog modelling synth, could be any number of things. I don't find this track to be "bouncy" at all ... the bass is basically a quiet mush. The hihats and shakers are pretty good though, more to my taste - I think the hissy, soft, lo-fi shaker gives this track a lot more vibe than it would have without it, it's subtle things like that I find are important.

[Lost to the Void]

I would also add this has virtually no stereo information, so the mix is quite constricted on these terms too.

Definitely sounds to me like someone desperately trying to make their track sound "old".

[Plyphon]

Yeah, "Faux lofi" is a big trend in house right now, I think it'll subside early into next year as it's getting a bit cliche, but some interesting stuff has come out of it, and some of the stuff is real vibey. A lot of it is quite wanky though and follows the same formula. I think it's a response to tech-house basically creeping into the "generic club music" bill when you go to house nights these days. A bit similar to how there is the "generic techno track" type tracks that people use to fill gaps in their DJ sets.

[Southpaw]

Yeah, "Faux lofi" is a big trend in house right now, I think it'll subside early into next year as it's getting a bit cliche, but some interesting stuff has come out of it, and some of the stuff is real vibey. A lot of it is quite wanky though and follows the same formula. I think it's a response to tech-house basically creeping into the "generic club music" bill when you go to house nights these days. A bit similar to how there is the "generic techno track" type tracks that people use to fill gaps in their DJ sets.

It's been around a fair while now but yeah, it's 'fashionable' for some it seems until some new thing comes along and then they'll all be doing that. You can understand people wanting to get some character into the music but I don't get the lo-fi House thing. I don't get shiny/new either though so I guess you gotta find what character/sound best appeals to you and go with it regardless. In fact, this doesn't even sound that lo-fi. There's some stuff about which just sounds like they cut everything above 10k with a steep filter and slamming it through some saturation.

Annoyingly, some stuff I'm doing on some newly acquired gear has to be mono out from the source ( samplers ) and through a not too clean signal path and I'm having to make a concentrated effort to not fall into the Lo-fi'ism thing as it seems a little unavoidable to some degree. I do like a 'worn' Akai/E-mu sound as I find those samplers really musical and dont mind a bit of dirt but I have no desire to follow sonic trends, I think it's a wasted journey.