Creating a Lofi Remix Explained
If you're looking to start producing lofi-sounding productions, this lofi production video course is a must-see! Studio production expert Gary Hiebner covers a multitude of tips, ideas, and techniques for recasting your track with a lofi sound, adding the vibe and character associated with this popular genre in a completely transformative way. You'll learn about lofi sound design, processing, tweaking chord progressions and melodies, and much more. These videos are for users with some basic mixing experience.
Videos
• Introduction (02:54) - Gary starts off by explaining what will be covered in the video series, including what Lofi is and what characterizes the genre. He then shows you the song we're going to be working with and provides a quick listen to the end-result Lofi remix.
• Chord Progression Melody (05:49) - Here, we look at analyzing the chord progression in the song and learn how to make it more complex to suit the type of chord progressions often heard in Lofi. We also convert the melody line to MIDI so we can use this with instruments later in the video series.
• Building the LoFi Drum Beat (07:11) - Learn how to create a drum beat in the style of Lofi productions; in this case, it's a chilled hip-hop-style groove. You'll also see the type of processing and routing you can add on the drums to give them a Lofi flavor.
• Adding Keys & Synth (08:30) - This video looks at the types of keys and synths you can use in Lofi, such as pianos, Rhodes, and some pitch-modulated synths, and examines the types of processing you can add to make the instruments sound more vintage. You also see how you can add in some rhythmic imperfections and humanize the note velocities.
• Creating the Bass Part (05:17) - Here, we start off with a synth sound and design a bass sound with it. Then we also look at what bass notes to play over the chord progression.
• Adding the Melody Line Instruments (10:06) - Discover how we can take the melody line from the original song and transpose it to some piano and trumpet instrument tracks. We'll also see how to create a synth with some pitch drops and look at the processing applied to these tracks for them to sit in the mix.
• Adding Some Noise & Ambience to the Mix (05:29) - A characteristic of the Lofi style is adding some background noise to create ambience. We do this by adding a scratchy vinyl effect and also using a noise oscillator on a synth to create some random background noise.
• Adding Side-chaining in the Mix (04:58) - Learn how to add some side-chaining compression to the mix to create a slight pumping effect in the song.
• Finalizing the Remix Song (10:44) - We finish off this video series by checking the tracks' levels and panning. Plus, we add a slight introduction to the beginning of the arrangement using some automation techniques and finish off by adding some master bus processing on the main output.