Tethered

What does Lofi music actually sound like?

This was the question I pondered for the better part of this project, since ‘Lofi’ has seemed to become a label applied to a wide range of music generally in the electronic realm. Some songs have historically shared characteristics; simple snares + kick drums make up the backbone to many current Lofi tracks, but beyond this there is a vast dichotomy of melodic and compositional philosophies at play.

When approached by a friend and fellow game developer, I was asked to create a rapid prototype track for his upcoming game “Tethered”. In it, he was hoping to ask me to create a ‘Lofi” track ideal for space or a low-stress puzzle environment. To be frank, I was a little confused what he meant since this didn’t tell me much beyond the genre of game and application—musically, he could have meant anything from Daft Punk to Tony Leys to even Justice depending on how I interpreted that. My solution was to challenge myself to emphasize the rapid element of this process this once to get on track with what he was looking for. I first showed him some samples of prior music; tracks I had produced prior, songs I thought fit in the genre made by other artists, etc.. Doing this ensured I spent less time in a DAW creating a stab in the dark at what I thought he needed, preventing me from having to scrap an entirely new song.

The Process

From here, I moved on to create a four-chord song using some chords I was most comfortable with to get the ball rolling: C Minor 7, F Minor 7, C Minor 7, G Major 7#5. I had experience with these chords through a large portion of jazz piano sheet music I had written in recent years relying on these chords. From here, I focused on making this track as minimal as possible to aim for the ‘lofi’ aesthetic I was tasked with making. This was tough; I find it easier to realize an idea when given a full toolset to work with, so making the most out of a small handful of tracks was challenging to say the least. I used a simple click and kick as a drum beat, a recurring drum loop, and a synth as a solo to give a body to the track. This process I found particularly useful for future cases in which I’d need to rapid prototype a track—from start to finish, this took about 45 minutes to craft something decent for in-game purposes.