4. Pedal Chain Order
First off, ditch the effects loop in your amp. The effects loop isolates your pedals from the preamp and keeps everything way too clean for what we’re trying to achieve. Those time-based delay and reverb pedals should get a little dirty with an overdrive as they hit the front of the amp.
Try placing your delay and vibrato before a drive pedal. Most guides tell you to place them in the signal chain last, however we’re not after perfection in that sense. The fluctuations of vibrato and the repeats of a delay take on a much grittier edge if you feed them into a mid-gain overdrive or fuzz. This is a great way to recreate the vinyl effect without buying a dedicated pedal and gives you way more sculpting flexibility.
5. Recording techniques
Go against your natural instincts to make your tone sound “good”. Lofi should come across effortlessly, with spiky peaks and wet-mixed modulation effects. Try positioning your mic central to the speaker cone, wider on the rim, or even further away from the amp than usual. Condenser and ribbon mics are more adept than their dynamic counterparts at detecting the tonal cracks and imperfections you’ve worked to create.
If you’re still not happy with the outcome, it’s time to dive into post-EQ plugins within your DAW. Try applying band-pass filters to remove some of the low and high-end frequencies. Just remember, you want your tone to be listenable so make incremental changes at a time. Heavy filtering can cause serious ear fatigue!
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