Lo fi: your two tracks, before and after
The two Lo fi tracks you sent notes on from the feedback button, each played twice: as you heard it, and as Lo fi starts the same track with the mend. Same beat, same key, same chords, same bars.
Kind Thoughts: the bass, as you heard it
The bass is too harsh and loud for lofi, also notes are clashing a lot in this song. Lofi is usually very warm, tight with a hip hop beat and keys with subtle jazz chords.
Lo fi at 83, E flat Mixolydian, the first eight bars. You tapped in the intro, where only the bass and the drums play. Before: the bass "Honey" at half time. After: "Pillow" at normal time.
Kind Thoughts: with the chords in, where the notes clashed
The same eight bars with the chords and the top line let in, as the track went on to play them. Before: every second chord has the wrong note under it. After: the bass plays the root and the third of each chord.
Waiting Room: the glassy keys, as you heard them
The glassy keys are too cheesy for this style, should be more subtle keys
Lo fi at 92, C Dorian, the first eight bars: the keys and the drums. Before: the chords on "Glass keys". After: on "Felt piano".
Waiting Room: with the bass and the top line in
The same eight bars with every part playing.
What was wrong
The clash was the bass line. The bass was playing at half speed on a walking line (the root, the note under it, the root, the note over it). The chords change every half bar, so at half speed the second chord of each bar never got its root: it got the note beside it, held for the whole chord. Under the fourth chord that put a C against a D flat, in every second bar of the track. The half speed was not chosen by Lo fi. It had come over from the track before, and nothing put it back when the new track started.
The bass was loud and harsh mostly because of the knobs. The four feel knobs (drums, chords, top line, bass) had come over from the track before as well, all of them high. With the same bass sound and the knobs at the middle, the bass is 3.1 dB quieter and has 23 dB less bite. The sound itself, Honey, is also the loudest bass Lo fi could pick.
The glassy keys were the same story, and a sound that does not suit. Glass keys is a bright, bell like keyboard, and the chords knob was high, so its filter was wide open and opened further through the intro. The knobs alone account for 7 dB of level; the sound accounts for most of the brightness.
What changes in Lo fi
Sounds. Lo fi now names its sounds one by one. They were picked by measuring every sound alone, not by name: the pads, keys and top lines with the least bite, and the basses the same. Out of Lo fi: Honey, Crushed bits, Clav bass, Glass keys, Toy piano, Bright piano, the bells, the music box, the harpsichord. In: felt, electric, dream, grand and upright pianos, vibraphone, soft pads, flutes, soft sax, marimba, and round and sub basses.
The bass line. Lo fi no longer picks the three walking lines that hold a passing note for a whole beat, and the bass stays at normal speed.
The start of a track. Every Lo fi track now starts tight: normal speed, the feel knobs at the middle, each part in its own octave, and the chords on a soft keyboard.
Level. The five loudest basses are turned down to sit with the soft ones.
Every sound and every bass line stays as it was for every other genre. Only Lo fi changes.
The figures
Measured on the eight bars of each clip, each part alone and the whole mix. "Bite" is the band from 2 to 8 kHz, where a sound is harsh. A fall of 6 dB is half the level; 10 dB sounds about half as loud.
| Kind Thoughts | Before | After |
|---|---|---|
| Bass against the drums | 4.3 dB louder | 4.7 dB quieter |
| Bass against the drums, in the low end only (under 200 Hz) | 8.9 dB louder | 0.7 dB quieter |
| Bass alone, level | 10.0 dB lower | |
| Bass alone, bite | 55 dB lower: there is none left to speak of | |
| Whole mix | hitting the limiter | 5.1 dB quieter, clear of the limiter |
| Whole mix with the chords in, bite | 13.5 dB lower | |
| Bass notes off their chord | every second chord | none |
| Waiting Room | Before | After |
|---|---|---|
| Keys against the drums | 6.3 dB louder | not measured apart: the keys came down 6.5 dB |
| Keys alone, level | 6.5 dB lower | |
| Keys alone, bite | 25.8 dB lower | |
| Keys alone, sharpest moment | 18.3 dB lower | |
| Whole mix | hitting the limiter | 6.6 dB quieter |
The after clips are the same saved tracks, started the way the mend starts a Lo fi track: where a sound is no longer in Lo fi's list, the first sound of the same family in the list plays instead. A new Lo fi track on the groovebox will pick its own sounds from the list, so it will not be these exact ones every time.
Not mended by this
A track written by the AI (the new AI writing switch) names its own sounds, so an AI written Lo fi track can still pick a sound that is not in Lo fi's list. That is being mended in the AI writing itself. And the knobs and the half speed still come over from track to track in every other genre; that mend is under way for all of them.
Made Tuesday 13 October 2026 for the BANG BANG groovebox. Clips are mp3 at 192 kbit.