Opinion: why so many lofi libraries/effects these days?

[Dumbquestions]

My dumb question of the week.

Curious as to why there are so many lofi kontakt libraries and pianos on the market, and genuinely want to know what really sets them apart from one another in terms of value? New ones keep coming. From a dev’s pov, what inspires you to make a new lofi library? Is there a unique process? Is it just super easy/convenient to code a warble effect / lowpass / static into a plugin, which might be leading to so many being made? Or something else I don’t know, curious if anyone else thought this as well? Is it a fad? How long do you think it will last?

I guess I’m supposed to be making more beats for people to relax/study to?

(I actually don’t mind lofi as a genre, but this type of instrument seems to dominate the budget-vst category)

[Michael L]

I guess I’m supposed to be making more beats for people to relax/study to?

Yes.
Lo-fi ambient beatz for chill Zoom meetings are the next Thing.

[DCrown]

Not sure, but maybe to add some dirt and darkness to digital cold, bright and super clean sounds in a digital invironment?!

[agharta]

It seems to be a bandwagon that developers are jumping on.

[martinjuenke]

Lo-fi sounds for Lo-fi times.

[jules99]

As producing in the box made everything sound too perfect, too pristine, Lo-Fi was the anti-movement.

Also, as sad as it is, music has become even more background noise than it used to. And lo-fi sounds fit into non-disturbing music better.

[skyscape]

Are there really all that many? I can probably only name a couple of synths such as Phonec 2 (an excellent instrument) & Imperfect (a pretty mediocre instrument) that cater specifically to lo fi. Happy to be enlightened if there are many more. There are a handful of tape emulations, wow and flutter etc but I wouldn't say the market is overly saturated (look at how many compressors there are). As for instrument libraries, well lots of people want to sound like Boards of Canada, but they would still be dwarfed by the amount of people who want to sound like whoever is big in the EDM scene right now. That said, lazy devs and sound designers could certainly hide behind a lo fi label for their clicky, poor sounding instruments.

[soulata]

Native Instruments have plenty of those.

Melted Vibes, f.i.

I don't dislike all of them but I uninstalled this one. Noah's keys is similar but I haven't decided on it yet.

There's so much in Komplete 14...

[Echoes in the Attic]

Because lo is the best fi!

I guess high fi doesn’t have a whole lot of variation to it whereas lofi can be all kinds of characterful sounds, so I doubt it’ll go away. Eg guitar distortion - looks how many varieties of distortion pedals there are. Distortion started as driving amps to where they broke up and didn’t do what they were supposed to do!

[GaryG]

I guess I’m supposed to be making more beats for people to relax/study to?

I think that's the crux of it, those lofi study YT channels and playlists are incredibly popular, people making some serious cash off them.

So (being a total cynic...) maybe 'producers' are seeing them as an easy way to make money, not the most taxing of genres (IMOSHO) especially if you have the tools/samples...

[LFO8]

It seems to be a bandwagon that developers are jumping on.

I think this bandwagon is already quickly running out of steam. Fads seem to last a shorter amount of time these days.

[gaggle of hermits]

the minute people start asking "isn't there a lot of this about?", it's usually time to call it quits on the fashion.

see also: covers of Time magazine.

[maanga]

Same goes to too many Taiko drum sounds in market. Many are very expensive.

[vurt]

Same goes to too many Taiko drum sounds in market. Many are very expensive.

but not a single lo fi taiko drum plugin

[kevvvvv]

Never use lofi sounds.

They all sound like crap to me