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Lo-fi retrowave is a subgenre of synthwave music that includes artists such as HOME, Voyage, Forhill, Hotel Pools,  憂鬱, Unfound, A.L.I.S.O.N and Emil Rottmayer. Lo-fi retrowave combines elements of synthwave, ambient, downtempo and chill wave, but most importantly, they all capture a nostalgic mood. A great place to check out these artists is the Electronic Gems Youtube channel, which curates new tracks, and also features some great retro artwork.

The following is a guest article written by Forhill, a multi-instrumentalist producer based out of Boston, MA. He generously created a short demo for this article, as well as a deep look into how he creates his sounds, from putting together responsive synth patches, shaping them with EQ and using layers of delay to create interesting, wide sounds. All of the synth tracks in the demo are created with u-he Diva, a powerful analog-style hybrid synth that allows you to mix-and-match modules from different classic synthesizers. Another key plugin used is Soundtoys Echoboy, a versatile delay effect that specialises in emulating vintage analog delay effects with a dark, saturated sound. Check out the demo below, followed by Forhill’s writeup on all the individual layers that make up the track.

Pad

I like to play with patches that have a long release and let that act as the decay. One reason is that it’s easier to play parts live whilst coming up with ideas, allowing more time to change chords; I also just like the way it lets the sound fade into the reverb and delay. For this demo I played some low chords in Diva and used EQ to remove the low-mid frequencies, leaving just the tops of the chords and some higher harmonics of the low notes, resulting in a light but dense sound.

 











  

















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The panning in the Diva patch is biased to the left channel in the synth so that the dry signal sits on that side of the stereo field. After the heavy low cut EQ, the sound is sent into the delay, in this case, Soundtoys Echoboy, where I started with the Space Echo preset and used LowCut to remove the lower frequencies of the wet signal. I set the balance in the tweak panel so that the wet signal is biased to the right channel. Diva’s panning combined with EchoBoy’s alternately panned wide repeats results in the pad filling out the entire stereo field without anything panned dead center, while also having stereo motion that makes things more interesting to listen to. 

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Last in the effects chain is a second instance of Ableton’s EQ Eight effect, this time in M/S mode used to remove some of the mid-range frequency content out of the mid channel. This opens up room for other elements in the mix, such as the leads and drums. 

 

















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Chord Stabs

The chord stabs are based on my go-to brass patch. Set the filter attack so you hear it open when playing the notes and use the filter envelope’s velocity fader to set how much the note velocities open the filter envelope. I will usually play chords live and then tweak the individual velocities to taste, generally keeping them on the lower side so that the filter doesn’t open too much. I run most tracks through u-he Satin in Studio mode to add crunch before sending it to a chorus for a little width and softening of the sound. 

 

















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Ableton’s Echo effect is great for general purpose delays and ping-pong delay is a common technique in this genre, especially used on the chords patch to