How to create the Lo-Fi / phone line / old radio effect when mixing or mastering

Hello and welcome to this week's article!
Today we are going to see how to obtain that "lo-fi" effect, that often is present in many songs to create movement: it's a very effective way to lower the dynamics of the track before making it explode again, and it can be heard at the second 30 of the song above.

Let's start by saying that this effect can be used on any instrument, but it's very popular on a single rhythm guitar track, or on vocals, or even during mastering the whole song (obviously it's important to use this tool with parsimony, because it is easy to overuse it and to make it sound boring).

The idea is to do create a very narrow eq filter in order to make it sound as it is coming from an old radio, basically only the mid frequences must be heard (so that when this effect finishes the low and the high end comes back in producing a very impactful effect).

In this image I have used a low pass and a high pass filter to narrow down the frequences, and at the same time I have created a sligh boost in the mid area, to increase even more the effect, but it's not mandatory.

Once we have our lo-fi part perfectly carved down we can play even more if we want by adding some other effect, like a slight phaser (as in the song above), or by damaging the part even more with some saturation, as it can be heard in some Linkin Park song, or some bit crushing, as it can be heard in some classic Muse song.

Have fun with this interesting tool and let us know what do you think about it!


Become fan of this blog on Facebook! Share it and contact us to collaborate!!