The Obligatory Fake-Out Lo-Fi Intro, is it Cliche Yet?

MoreSpaceEcho · Post by **MoreSpaceEcho** » Tue Nov 27, 2007 9:50 am

yeah c'mon, everybody likes can.

*plays 'halleluwah' beat for 4 hours straight*

JGriffin · Post by **JGriffin** » Tue Nov 27, 2007 9:53 am

MoreSpaceEcho wrote:yeah c'mon, everybody likes can.

except for this one guy we know.

RefD · Post by **RefD** » Tue Nov 27, 2007 9:55 am

dwlb wrote:
MoreSpaceEcho wrote:yeah c'mon, everybody likes can.

except for this one guy we know.

*stops strumming Ovation Balladeer*

who's that?

logancircle · Post by **logancircle** » Tue Nov 27, 2007 11:55 am

dwlb wrote:
A-Barr wrote:
??????? wrote:A-Barr is a CAN fan?

Everytime I meet another Can fan, it's like I'm 13 years old and I'm all "You like them TOO??!!"

Rock on, brotha.

There's more of us around than you might think.

Swarms...

JGriffin · Post by **JGriffin** » Tue Nov 27, 2007 12:19 pm

RefD wrote:
dwlb wrote:
MoreSpaceEcho wrote:yeah c'mon, everybody likes can.

except for this one guy we know.
*stops strumming Ovation Balladeer*

who's that?

You know, that one dude who listens to Yes, who left the Land of the Stinking Onion for the sandy wastes of Feeniks.

Electricide · Post by **Electricide** » Thu Nov 29, 2007 9:35 am

what's going on in here???

oh, yeah, the lofi intro, I'm not a fan. It's like a total Kelly Clarkson move.

centurymantra · Post by **centurymantra** » Thu Nov 29, 2007 9:46 am

MoreSpaceEcho wrote:yeah c'mon, everybody likes can.

*plays 'halleluwah' beat for 4 hours straight*

I think Can did a lo-fi intro (or outro) somewhere...I just know it.

*makes note to use this as an excuse to pull out all Can records for investigation of said allegation*

*realizes that I don't really NEED an excuse to do this*

*muses to himself that Can really may be the greatest band to ever walk the planet Earth*

madtho · Post by **madtho** » Thu Nov 29, 2007 10:06 am

I didn't wade through all of this, so sorry if it's been covered.

The lo-fi intro always really pissed me off because I wanted the whole song to be like that. There must have been a rash of these right before Kiko and Bone Machine came out, because I felt vindicated when they came out. Then Trip-hop came along and the aesthetic was mainstreamed.

I even like it when the intro is lo-fi, but that element remains while the spectrum is filled in (Wish you were here).

I went searching for that Minor Threat song and found this great video. Remember when mosh pits weren't really violent?

-mad

MoreSpaceEcho · Post by **MoreSpaceEcho** » Thu Nov 29, 2007 11:01 am

centurymantra wrote:*muses to himself that Can really are the greatest band to ever walk the planet Earth*

fixed it for you.

a really good lo-fi outro is the last song on loveless. i love the way that sounds.

eeldip · Post by **eeldip** » Thu Nov 29, 2007 11:03 am

Electricide wrote: oh, yeah, the lofi intro, I'm not a fan. It's like a total Kelly Clarkson move.

which is bad why? thats like saying gated verb sux cause its a madonna move.

LONG LIVE THE LO FI INTRO. CLICHE AND ALL.

thieves · Post by **thieves** » Thu Nov 29, 2007 12:31 pm

the lo-fi outro is just as run into the ground by pop-punk/emo/whatever bands who make it sound like their song is playing on the radio after they're done playing their song. although i do admit that i did the trick several years ago back when my buddy had a band like that and i just had a four track. but that's about the maturity level of it.

that much said, i really like the idea of intentionally messing with the fidelity of certain instruments and/or parts of songs. a great example of using a lowpass filter in the middle of a song is the microphones' "the glow" off the album "it was hot, we stayed in the water"... there's a huge, ramshackle instrumental/krautrock bit right in the middle of the (11 minute) song that gets lowpassed into obscurity and while some bandpassed (highpassed?) female vocals come in over it and it just sounds great.

i've also always been a fan of collecting tape machines of various/dubious quality and recording certain parts on them then transferring the mess to a mix i'm working on in my DAW.

Blue Room · Post by **Blue Room** » Thu Nov 29, 2007 11:48 pm

It's way cooler when the band pulls it off live! I saw a couple guitarists in a local metal band start off with a really high-pitched sh***y guitar tone and then stomp over to full blown thick metal ....kinda neat to hear it in that context.

tsw · Post by **tsw** » Fri Nov 30, 2007 3:53 am

Just for the sake of conversation:

What about Tchad Blake? What about Sparklehorse? What about Califone? What about any song that has a section that uses the Copperphone?

Tchad Blake has gone on record many times saying his favorite move is to juxtapose lo-fi and hi-fi sounds.

Maybe that's a bit different from the "fake-out lo-fi intro," but it's a pretty fine line. We're talking about the contrast between lo-fi and hi-fi within a song, right?

The first song on the last Sparklehorse record starts out pretty lo-fi. And then there are lo-fi components in pretty much every song throughout the record. Stuff that crackles and hisses and sounds, to me, totally awesome.

I think it's hard to make cool arrangements and I think "lo-fi" is a totally valid card to play. It creates such great contrast. Yes, some people do it more tastefully than others, but that's true of every "technique" (doubling vox, etc.).

My 2 cents.

RefD · Post by **RefD** » Fri Nov 30, 2007 8:27 am

but doesn't Tchad Blake tend to juxtapose lo-fi and hi-fi sounds in parallel instead of effectively resectioning the song into all lo-fi and all hi-fi?

cos that's most of the approach i've heard from him.

A-Barr · Post by **A-Barr** » Fri Nov 30, 2007 8:32 am

Really the lo/hi fi contrast is a tool or technique, it can be used creatively and isn't always a cliche. The intro fake-out thing, is just using that tool in a worn-out , uncreative way, in my opinion.

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The Obligatory Fake-Out Lo-Fi Intro, is it Cliche Yet?

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