About Lofi Boops
To be fair, Lofi Boops is a bit of an experimental and gag EP. One day I woke up imagining myself DJing a full set with PO-33 KO.
How It Started
I mean imagine it yourself, pulling a Pocket Operator out of your pocket and spin. Is it even possible? To put it into context: I find PO-33 KO the most budget-dawless lofi beatmaker on the market. I simply love making beats with it. On the other hand, PO-33 KO handles 40 seconds of total bank, whereas lofi as a genre is pretty much relying on actual snippets and samples, which contradicts a massive number of different tracks at the same time.
In short: 40 seconds is more than sufficient if you are working on one beat, but for more? Another thing would be the melody base – the number of patterns one can handle, but if I would simplify the patterns, to 4 each (intro, verse, chorus +1) that could work.
Materializing the Concept of Lofi Boops
After giving it some thoughts, I decided to change a bit the original concept and go toward lofi hip-hop-ish over the regular so-called lofi (chillhop) vibe. This way I saved up precious seconds on samples.
Heading into it, let’s draft beats. Now, that was a bit of a challenge. I had second thoughts to be fair. They came as I found the whole setup a bit limiting. PO-33 KO is not chromatic in terms of the buttons but goes on a minor scale (giving a sad vibe to the songs, unless I leave out some notes) – limiting the playfield further. On the other hand, the lack of samples encouraged me to boost the tempo a bit. Let alone as I needed to play both the melody and change the patterns (along with the songs), changing the tempo was a threat. So, ultimately, I decided to go with one bpm for the whole EP.
Recording Lofi Boops
Finally, a fun part of it but also a challenge. Playing all melodies in one go, without mistakes. I wanted to record as one, to really give myself that kind of live session vibe.
I know it is played small, but also recorded on a small tool. In the end, I was kind of happy with it. Lofi Boops is definitely not part of the mainstream Latte Chill vibe, more the experimental side. This is why I ended up giving different titles for these beats, to separate them from the main line. Despite, I believe it was a fun experiment, and I will try to have some more in the future.