it stands for "low fidelity", a response to the term "high fidelity" or hi-fi. Hi-fi is a marketing term for this idea of recordings with the designation being neutral, purely presenting the recorded sound with no distortion. lo-fi, on the other hand, is about embracing that distortion, celebrating it as having a meaningful, positive impact on the music. the term is typically focused on indie rock, with people who record on a four track in their bedroom or whatever, but it is a quality that can be found in any genre that has been recorded, basically. there was an electronic album from a few years ago from this guy Ekoplekz who has been really good about exploring the lo-fi sounds in that area, but the idea was to try to make a weird sort of hybrid of ideas of lo-fi and hi-fi, it's a good one.
I assumed without actually learning anything that lo-fi basically meant a shitty recording and hi-fi meant very high quality recording... regardless of how much noise there was.
For example, I'd still consider In Utero a hi-fi record (even if they purposely went with Albini to get more of a lo-fi sound vs Nevermind they complained had too much of that polished hi-fi sound), whereas a Sonics record is lo-fi.
Sometimes lo-fi is on purpose and sometimes it's because of budget/technology? In other words is there a limitation of horizons on hi-fi? Like a Beatles record probably was originally hi-fi for its time, but nowadays sounds less so. I guess what I'm getting at is there's limitations of horizons (a better recording method wasn't available yet or budget didn't allow) and then there's doing hi-fi or lo-fi on purpose.
I think polished is a good way to say hi-fi and lo-fi is either purposely not polished or they only had budget for like one microphone and a tascam tape recorder... no mixing or mastering.
Tap totally has the right answer, just sharing my miseducation .
oh I'm not 100% sure on my answer, sorta speculating on that one but it seemed to fit. and yeah there's totally music that seems fair to call hi-fi that uses like guitar distortion and stuff, like I think Steve Albini's recording style is really "hi-fi" and about this sort of neutral presentation of the sound. and also yeah, neutral is a moving target as technology improves, so things that are hi-fi in their time end up sounding like relics in the future, brushing up against the boundary ends up with that boundary being a big part of the identity once time has passed and they have been exceeded.
hmm I'd probably need to chew on this before really getting into it but I guess I sorta see polish as some sort of movement to a hyperreal sort of thing, isolating and emphasizing aspects of timbre in these ways that are impossible in real life just hearing the instrument, so they have this impression of being higher than hi-fi but I don't think the process is exactly consistent with the meaning of fidelity. I have more thinking to do on it but that's where I'm starting at.
lo-fi = recorded (intentionally or under the weight of circumstances, i.e. no money for fancy studio time) in what is considered poor recording conditions under the Pink Floyd jurisdiction, OR recorded with sufficient luxury but mimicking the DIY sound.
hi-fi = there was sufficient money to record in Abbey Road for 6 months, and it shows.
lo-fi = recorded (intentionally or under the weight of circumstances, i.e. no money for fancy studio time) in what is considered poor recording conditions under the Pink Floyd jurisdiction, OR recorded with sufficient luxury but mimicking the DIY sound.
hi-fi = there was sufficient money to record in Abbey Road for 6 months, and it shows.
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