Lo-Fi Network

ver the years Lo-Fi Studios has been the place for bands to record. The first Virtual Record Wall represents a handful of punk bands that recorded at Lo-Fi Studios at the Redlands location during the 1990s. At least 100 punk bands came in during the studio's formative days. Most were newly formed and needed a demo. This was back in the time when it was DIY at Kinkos and cassettes and split 7" vinyl ruled.

Help Wanted
Three piece punk band from the Inland Empire back in 1996-97. Members included Eric on guitar, Jay on bass and Marv played drums. Eric later recorded with another band after Help Wanted broke up. This is a classic DIY effort from the band complete with sticker included with the cassette!


Back in the days, the Lo-Fi Demo cost around $120 for 5 songs with a DAT master and a couple cassettes. The audio archives at Lo-Fi Studios contain recordings from bands such as Riverside's The Conditionz, The Finders, Last Laugh, Filthy Vagrants, Family Butcher, Anti-Cost, The Punk Rods, Viscious Porkskins, Cafe Racer among others.

Holokaust
The band recorded twice at the original Lo-Fi Studios and at the new studio. This 3 piece punk band was a little more politically minded than Help Wanted.

Their self-released black labeled 7" showed WWII era pictures of gas-masked children and a Pol Pot era photo with an arrested mother and child, reminiscant of the Dead Kennedys famous Plastic Surgery Disasters album.




Deficit and Clam Chowder
Both bands recorded their split 7" in 1997 on their Def Clam label. Their EP included separate lyric sheets and pics of both bands. Deficit members were Dave (vocals), Alex (drums), Rob (bass) and Nick (guitar). Clam Chowder members were Paul (bass) Ricky (guitar) Beau (vocals) and Mike (drums). Clam Chowder signed the studio copy album.





Dirty Dirt and the Dirts
One of my favorite band names--gave the studio a complimentary copy of an earlier EP. A couple of the tracks were rerecorded at Lo-Fi.







From 1995-97 Lo-Fi Studios recorded on a Fostex R8 1/4" 8 track recorder and a Studiomaster 8 channel mixing board. The studio upgraded to a Fostex B16 1/2" 16 track recorder and a 24 channel Studiomaster board. The next upgrade was in 2000 when we installed an MCI 2" 24 track machine and a 32 channel Mackie board. The studio currently combines 24 track analog and digital Pro Tools with 32 tracks.