If you’re after retro vibes, the handheld Lofi-12 XT packs old-school sampling power into a handheld groovebox. Greg Scarth finds out more.
The Sonicware Lofi-12 XT groovebox wears its 1980s influences on its sleeve. The subtle black colourway shown here is retro enough in its own right, but if you opt for the limited edition beige version it really spells out the blueprint, hinting at early Akai MPC samplers and the original Nintendo Gameboy thanks to that distinctive combo of directional pad, LCD screen and crimson CLR/OK buttons. The formula of old-school sonic vibes and portability tells you most of what you need to know about the Lofi-12 XT: this is a fully portable beat production tool with vintage character.
To be clear, the Lofi-12 isn’t a modern take on an 80s MPC. Akai still make modern MPCs, and they’re excellent instruments, but this is something quite different. The Lofi-12 XT is actually something of a hybrid, drawing on two previous Sonicware releases. For the XT, the Japanese brand have shoehorned the ethos of the excellent Liven Lofi-12 into the same hardware used for the SmplTrek sampler. The Lofi-12 is one of the highlights of the affordable Liven series, while the SmplTrek is the brand’s more advanced sampling groovebox option.
Before we dig into the details of the Lofi-12 XT, what’s so good about 12-bit sampling anyway? In the 80s, when the idea of making music based on digital sound snippets was in its infancy, 12-bit samplers like the MPC60 and E-mu SP-12 helped to define the sound of house, techno and especially hip-hop. The limitations of low-fidelity 12-bit sampling gave those old-school instruments a distinctive, characterful sound, not clean and clear but slightly gritty and intensely vibey. It’s worth noting that the XT, like the Liven Lofi, allows you to record and play back samples in cleaner 16-bit/24 kHz mode, so it isn’t a one-trick pony, but the retro sound is there on tap if you want it.
While the XT combines features from the Liven and the SmplTrek, it isn’t simply a case of Liven with added SmplTrek features. The more powerful hardware platform derives from the SmplTrek has allowed Sonicware to push the capabilities of the Lofi concept further than the Liven. The XT can be thought of as a Liven Lofi-12 on steroids, with eight tracks of sequencing, samples up to 40 seconds long (as many samples as your SD card can take), up to 256 samples per project, parameter locks and up to eight simultaneous track effects from a selection of 22 options. Samples can be loaded from SD card (including an excellent selection of vintage drum machine samples included from the factory) or you can create your own by quickly and easily sampling via built-in mic or stereo inputs around the back, allowing you to hook up microphones, instruments, or line level sources.
The workflow of Sonicware instruments is always good, and while the added complexity of the XT does mean there’s a slightly steeper learning curve than you’d find on the Liven, it’s still an intuitive, user-friendly approach which encourages creativity. Are there any downsides compared to the Liven Lofi? Not really. The pad-style keyboard is slightly less spacious if we’re splitting hairs, but that’s also part of the trade-off for the more portable form factor borrowed from the SmplTrek. On that note, the XT’s built-in speaker, microphone and the option to run on six AA batteries mean that it’s genuinely portable and useable as a standalone instrument without any other equipment. With that said, it’s also got enough connectivity to make it play very nicely alongside other equipment, whether that be syncing to MIDI devices, analogue instruments or DAWs, or running as part of a live setup. The Liven Lofi-12 was already a winning device, but the Lofi-12 XT takes that retro audio ethos to the next level. A fantastically inspiring groovebox and portable workstation suitable for just about every genre of electronic music.
Greg Scarth
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