Samples under stress.

How lo-fi can you go?

In today’s blog we are diving into the world of low fidelity: embracing the ethereal, welcoming the weird, and getting lost in the sauce as we pair our beloved War Party with the beautifully unpredictable Casio SK-1.

The jump off. 0:00 – 0:16

We will begin our journey with an example of the bypass sound, the sample you are hearing is a few notes played on a kalimba or thumb piano. The SK-1 imparts a grainy quality from its low sampling rate that is quite pleasant, but we can greatly expand its tonal range with a little help from War Party.

Lost in space. 0:17 – 1:34

Bringing War Party into the mix we immediately get a more focused low-end, which can be helpful to keep samples from getting muddy. In addition to the tighter bass response, we can use the tone and gain controls to further dial in the texture of our sample. Notice how at higher gain settings the kalimba sample becomes much harder to identify and instead transforms into a mysterious new sound!

Let’s make some noise!

Now that we’ve explored the possible, let’s go and create the impossible. Visit here for War Party.