Lofi Patterns?

Hey, I was trying to make a lofi pattern, and couldn’t manage to get this low frequency vibe.

Anyone tried that with success?
What did you use for hats “tone” or “snare”?
Keen to share some patterns?

Thanks :pray:

Metal machine for typical hat sounds.

Lo-fi = low fidelity (not sure if that’s what you mean, like gritty, noisy, less pristine kinda sounds)

All of the machines can be morphed into quite different sounds which gives this box a lot of mileage. Try listening to some of the amazing music that peeps have made here and the demo patterns already within m:c to get an idea of what machines do what.

1 Like

I make ghetto house with Cycles. Traditional, low sample rate -esque hi hats, especially open hats are a little problematic with FM synthesis, since the high freq tingles don’t really disappear anywhere and you can’t just low pass filter them into that nice lo-fi soundscape. Some times they work and other times not. One thing I am considering is just hard panning hi hats right and everything else left, then just kill the highs with mixer eq.

Good factory presets for claps: ”golf”, ”plause”. Tweak them a bit.

On the other hand, the Chord machine and synth basses are right up the lo fi alley if you want them to be.

I am laughing at my own use of the Cycles, I use the reverb rarely and don’t do these springly heavenly high freq things at all that are all over Cycles demo videos. Everything is thumpy like a wool sock over the speaker :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:

6 Likes

That’s why the Digitone is so Magical. Its Subtractive Synthesis is so clever.

If you‘re not using the stereo field much, this is a great technique! Also great to run one channel into some saturation effects unit, with more distinct sound shaping than a straightforward eq.
The pan then acts as a dry/wet control. It’s good to have, just to very subtly layer some of the „hifi“ back over the „lofi“.
Some chorus pedals might even work to bring a bit of stereo back into the mix.

1 Like

anything you can share?

1 Like

While you can make the kick have a bit of crunch and tail end sizzle, and you can use distortion and punch on a few elements to get things a bit gnarlier, I’d say that Cycles on its own can’t really do genuine lofi music. That’s because lofi is all about bitcrushing, sample rate reduction and sampling techniques etc. I make lofi synthwave and hip hop stuff, but Cycles sounds too nice as a standalone unit, so I have to sample it and then grime it up with my Octatrack. Digitakt would do a similar job tho.

Edit: Sending the main outs into cheap distortion/saturation/bit crusher pedals or something like Strymon’s Deco would get you some of the way there.

1 Like

I would say the 3 tips I have for making more lofi crusty sounds with it are 1. turn up the distortion knob then lower the main level. 2. use the shape knob to select more complex waveforms on machines that have that function 3. use a very high rate lfo set to sample and hold and use a low depth, experiment with routing this to various settings but sweep on the chord machine can add some nice crackles.

2 Likes

Soon I hope!

1 Like

This is good stuff. I might add something: You can definitely muffle up the chord machine with Contour and Sweep. They just work like FM works, you have to find the right combination. One trick is to add some lfo to tuning/fine-tuning to get it drift in and out of tune. There are a few good presets to start from in the SY folder.

The reverb is a shiny shimmery spacious thing, but you can shorten it radically to a little more thumpy feeling. Then you can roll the reverb send up too without springling that reverb all around your loop.

I also always try if the compression/distortion aka Punch works or not with a sound. Chord stuff with quite fast decay + Punch seems to round off the sound rather than to make the highs sizzle. Delay is your friend with these dubby stabs.

As promised:

3 Likes

this is solid stuff, thanks for sharing! really digging your whole SC feed at the moment. the bass lines are especially grooving hard. are they all from the M:C? how about the chords and claps and such?

1 Like

Thanks a lot! First stuff I’ve ever done into actual songs let alone mixed!

Every synth and bass sound is from Cycles, I don’t even own any other synths. Some claps I have layered just a touch of another clap, 909, 808 or 707 to add a little bit of hi freq snap. It could probably be done on only the Cycles too if you just keep in mind that a fat lazy clap won’t probably cut through the mix if there’s already a fat bass and kick under everything. They’re ok when just jamming. Had to record something to figure this out.

Some 16-hats on some tracks and some additional perc are from Cyclone TT-606, a tr606 clone that isn’t really spot on but a cool drum machine. It is not on every song tho’. There’s some ghost snares, those juke-y toms and that 606 clap that isn’t really a clap but an electronic noise snap. the way, Cycles is quite good as it is compared to the TT that has to be eq’d quite a lot. It’s dry as a Sahara desert going in to the recorder :smiley:

awesome thanks for the run-down. I knew I heard some 606-style toms and hats in there!

love it! in a room surrounded by them, it’s great to hear simple, fun, groovy shit done with a minimal setup. not sure I could do it (again), but I definitely appreciate people that do. :+1:

1 Like

Thanks for the support! Yeah I kinda love and hate machines. I have a very limited attention span :sweat_smile: Cycles is simple enough. I’ve been thinking of buying the Model:Samples because it has a user interface I am totally familiar with already, but a little bit different sounds and the low pass filter. Cycles cannot do the 909’ish open hat pump which is pretty essential to house. I have managed without it except for one track where I did it in Live.

This is cool, love the vibe it has, kinda bouncy, kinda funny, but still good techno business haha :crazy_face:
Wish the kick would‘ve reached a bit lower though.

wait a minute… is the voice sample here Chief Wiggum?

if so, I love it even more.

1 Like

Haha the Kite song? :laughing: It’s some southern accent news reporter woman, pitched down.

haha well maybe she’s a Simpsons fan then :rofl:

1 Like

I’ll add another link here, I think I figured out some more lofi tricks with this one.

https://soundcloud.com/chromevomit/habitual-c-demo

Lead (actually a minor chord tuned high) has this nice warble that is LFO: Sine wave, dest: DIST. Make it fast, it will have a very nice vinyl kinda warble tremolo. Tweak the LFO speed or record the movement to make it even more fucked up :smiley: I recorded a few takes where I rolled the pitch down on a certain note, sounds like a vinyl slowdown effect. Chord here is just a chord, tweaked it into a dark muffle using sweep and contour.

I did use some mild extra distortion in Live but the sounds are essentially all Cycles. Additional hihats and perc from TT606 again. Sample is some obscure Memphis shit. I’ll buy you a beer if you name it :nerd_face:

1 Like