TL;DR
Lo-fi hip hop is a small set of ingredients: a slow, lazy groove around 70–90 BPM, jazzy seventh chords on warm keys, dusty drums and a layer of vinyl crackle or tape hiss. The quickest way to make lofi music from those parts is the lofi generator: the Prompt box opens already filled with a complete study-beat recipe and Instrumental Only switched on, so you can press Generate Music for Free straight away. Below it, six "Start from a vibe" tiles each play an example track made on Suno v6 and copy the exact prompt behind it into the box. One run costs 10 credits and returns two songs in about a minute, and new accounts get 16 free credits.
In this guide
- What makes lofi music sound lofi
- Step by step with the lofi generator
- Writing a better lofi prompt
- Six lofi vibes with proven prompts
- Common lofi mistakes
- Choosing a model
- After the beat is made
- FAQ
- Final take
What makes lofi music sound lofi
"Lo-fi" means low fidelity, and the genre's charm is deliberate imperfection. Before you write a prompt it helps to know the parts, because each one is a word or two you can put in the Prompt box:
- Tempo. Most lo-fi hip hop sits between 70 and 90 BPM. Slower feels sleepier; faster starts to sound like boom bap. Write the number: 75 BPM.
- Swing. The drums lag slightly behind the grid, the famous "drunk" feel. Lazy swing, laid-back or swung drums push the model there.
- Harmony. Seventh and ninth chords on a Rhodes, a felt piano or a nylon guitar. Jazzy seventh chords, warm Rhodes and minor key all read well.
- Texture. Vinyl crackle, tape hiss, a slightly muffled top end, the wobble of a warped cassette. Tape saturation, vinyl crackle and tape wobble are the words.
- Ambience. Rain on a window, a café murmur, city noise under the beat. Optional, but very lo-fi.
- No vocals. Or at most a soft hum far in the background. That is why lo-fi works under reading, coding and studying: nothing asks for your attention.
- Loopability. Lo-fi is played for hours. Loopable and mellow and steady tell the model to avoid big drops and sudden endings.
The preset on the page uses almost every one of these: lo-fi hip hop, chill, study beats, 75 BPM, dusty boom bap drums with a lazy swing, warm Rhodes chords in a minor key, soft sub bass, vinyl crackle and gentle rain on a window, tape saturation, loopable. Read it once and you have a template for any lofi prompt you write later.
Step by step with the lofi generator
- Open the lofi generator. It is the same studio as the main AI music generator, set up for lo-fi. The Prompt tab is selected, the Prompt box holds the study-beat recipe above, and the Instrumental Only chip is on, so the result has no vocals.
- Check the rest of the form. Under the box are chips for your library, + Lyrics, reference Image, Video and Audio, and an Inspiration row of genre chips. Below that sit Number of Songs to Generate (2 by default) and the Public switch.
- Try a vibe before you spend anything. Tap a tile under Start from a vibe. One tap plays that tile's example track in the player bar and copies its prompt into the Prompt box. Below, we tapped Late-night coding: the box now reads chillhop, jazzy lo-fi, 82 BPM, crisp swung drums, jazzy seventh-chord electric piano…, the tile shows a pause icon, and the player plays "Late Night Coding: Chillhop Beat with Jazzy Keys".
- Browse all six examples. Further down the page, the examples list shows every track with its length and tags, from the 3:00 rainy study session to the 3:09 autumn lofi jazz piece. Each one was made on v6 from exactly the prompt its tile fills in.
- Open an example if you want a closer look. Each track has its own page, for example Late Night Coding, with the cover, a play button, Share, its tags and the note "Instrumental track — no lyrics".
- Press Generate Music for Free. Logged out, the button asks you to sign up; the note under it says new accounts get 16 credits with no card. A run takes about a minute and returns two songs. They are new tracks in the style of the prompt, not copies of the example, so expect the same mood with different chords and arrangement.
Writing a better lofi prompt
The preset and the six vibes are proven starting points. To make your lo-fi rather than generic lo-fi, change one thing at a time and generate again. Two songs per run make comparing easy.
- Lead with the style, then the tempo. lo-fi hip hop, 75 BPM first, then instruments and mood. Early words carry the most weight.
- Name one lead instrument. warm Rhodes, felt piano, nylon-string guitar, breathy tenor saxophone. One clear lead beats a list of five.
- Put the tempo in numbers. 72 BPM is understood; slowish is not. Suno honours tempo roughly rather than to the exact beat, but a number moves it far more reliably than an adjective.
- Say the key colour, not the key. minor key or sunny relaxed major key changes the mood more than in D minor does, though you can write both.
- Add one texture and one ambience at most. vinyl crackle, gentle rain. More than that and the texture swallows the music.
- Say what should not happen. no sudden changes, fades out gently and never pulls attention from the work all appear in the page's own vibes, and they do keep a track calm.
- Use the space, not all of it. The Prompt box takes up to 500 characters. The longest vibe on the page is under 300, and that is plenty.
For a longer list of words that reliably change the sound, see our Suno prompts guide.
Six lofi vibes with proven prompts
These are the six tiles on the lofi generator, with the exact prompt each one fills in. Every example was generated on v6 from that prompt, so you can hear the result before you use it.
| Vibe | What it is | Prompt |
|---|---|---|
| Rainy study session | Classic study beat, 3:00 example | lo-fi hip hop, chill, study beats, 75 BPM, dusty boom bap drums with a lazy swing, warm Rhodes chords in a minor key, soft sub bass, vinyl crackle and gentle rain on a window, tape saturation, mellow and steady so it never pulls attention from the work, loopable |
| Late-night coding | Jazzier, crisper chillhop, 2:53 example | chillhop, jazzy lo-fi, 82 BPM, crisp swung drums, jazzy seventh-chord electric piano, walking upright bass, muted guitar licks, subtle tape hiss, focused late-night mood, clean but warm mix, loopable |
| Sunday coffee | Acoustic, sunny café lo-fi, 3:08 example | acoustic lo-fi, 70 BPM, soft brushed drums, nylon-string guitar melody, warm upright piano, gentle shaker, light vinyl texture, sunny relaxed major key, cozy café morning feeling, loopable |
| City night walk | 80s city pop colours over lo-fi drums, 2:45 example | city pop lo-fi, 85 BPM, punchy lo-fi drums, glossy 80s electric piano, funky slap bass, soft synth pads, tape wobble, nostalgic neon night-walk mood, bittersweet major seventh chords, loopable |
| Sleepy piano | Very slow bedtime lo-fi, 2:59 example | sleep lo-fi, 60 BPM, very soft felt piano, pillowy kick and gentle rimshot, warm pad, distant music-box notes, low-passed tape hiss, slow calm and dreamy, no sudden changes, fades out gently |
| Autumn lofi jazz | Smoky lofi jazz with sax, 3:09 example | lo-fi jazz, 78 BPM, brushed drums, upright bass, breathy tenor saxophone melody, warm piano comping, crackling vinyl, cozy autumn library mood, smoky and relaxed, loopable |
Two extra recipes of our own, untested, if you want to go beyond the six:
- Snowy window (untested): lo-fi hip hop, 72 BPM, soft swung drums, felt piano, warm bass, snow falling outside, quiet winter evening, vinyl crackle, loopable
- Lo-fi with a hum (untested): switch Instrumental Only off and try lo-fi hip hop, 80 BPM, dusty drums, warm Rhodes, soft wordless female humming in the background, mellow
If you want the piano on its own with no beat, the piano music maker starts from solo-piano prompts. For calm instrumentals that are not lo-fi, try the AI instrumental generator or the AI background music generator.
Common lofi mistakes
Most disappointing lo-fi comes from the same handful of prompt habits. If a song sounds off, check these before you blame the model:
- Too many instruments. piano, guitar, saxophone, strings, flute reads as a busy jazz band, not a bedroom beat. Lo-fi is sparse: one lead, drums, bass, texture.
- No tempo. Without a number the model can drift up toward 95–100 BPM, where it starts to sound like upbeat hip hop.
- "Relaxing" as the only mood word. Every lo-fi track is relaxing. Say which relaxing: melancholic, nostalgic, sleepy, sunny, rainy. That single word changes the chords more than anything else.
- Stacking textures. vinyl crackle, tape hiss, rain, fireplace, café noise buries the music. Pick one texture and one ambience.
- Switching Instrumental Only off by accident. The chip is on when the page opens. If you turn it off to experiment, the next run may come back with a vocal.
- Judging from one song. Each run returns two so you can compare. If both miss in the same way, the prompt is the problem; if only one does, keep the other.
A useful habit: keep a note of prompts that worked, and reuse them with one word changed. Rainy to snowy, Rhodes to felt piano, and you get a set of tracks that sound like the same playlist.
Choosing a model
The model picker sits at the top right of the form.
- v6 Mini is the free tier, described as "Fast drafts, high volume". Lo-fi is forgiving by design, so it is a good place to find a prompt you like.
- v6 is "Most powerful, for any song". All six example tracks on the page were made on v6. It needs a paid plan.
- v6 Wild is "Best for experimental ideas", also on paid plans. Try it when you want odd textures or genre blends such as city pop lo-fi.
Every run costs the same 10 credits for two songs, whichever model you pick. The Number of Songs to Generate stepper counts in twos, up to 10 songs (five runs) at once. Plans and credit packs cover everything after the free 16 credits.
After the beat is made
- Make a longer mix. Lo-fi playlists live on long runtimes. Extend Song continues a track from any point, and our guide to extending a song covers where to cut so the join is invisible.
- Fix one weak moment. Replace Section regenerates a stretch of the track without touching the rest.
- Hear it in another style. Cover Song re-performs a track in a new style, a quick way to get a jazz and an acoustic version of the same idea.
- Separate a vocal. If you added a hum or a hook, the vocal remover splits the song into two stems, vocals and instrumental.
- Put it under a video. Streams and study-with-me videos are where lo-fi gets played; the music video generator tool turns a song into a video.
- Download it. Downloads come with a plan; pricing lists what each one includes.
FAQ
Is AI lofi music copyright free?
The tracks you generate are new, original audio, not copies of existing songs. What you may do with them depends on how you paid: commercial use is included on the Standard plan and above, 2,500+ credit packs and Team plans. Songs made with free credits or on the Starter plan or a Mini credit pack are for personal use only.
Can I use lofi music on YouTube, Twitch or Spotify?
Monetised videos, streams and releases count as commercial use, so you need the Standard plan or above, a 2,500+ credit pack or a Team plan. Free credits, Starter and Mini are personal use only.
How long is a generated lofi track?
Usually two to three minutes. The six examples on the page run from 2:45 to 3:09. For an hour-long mix, extend a track or string several together.
What tempo should lofi music be?
Between 70 and 90 BPM for lo-fi hip hop, 60 or lower for sleep lo-fi. The page's vibes use 60, 70, 75, 78, 82 and 85 BPM. Write the number into the prompt.
Can I add vocals to a lofi beat?
Yes. Switch Instrumental Only off and describe the voice, such as a soft wordless hum. To use your own words, the Own Lyrics tab takes lyrics up to 5,000 characters plus a style of up to 1,000.
Will I get the same song as the example?
No. A vibe tile copies the prompt, and pressing Generate makes two new songs in that style. They will share the mood and instruments, not the exact melody.
Can I use a photo or a song as a reference?
Yes. The Image chip takes up to five photos and the song picks up their mood; Audio takes one track from 6 seconds to 30 minutes and borrows its feel. A reference costs no extra credits.
Final take
Lo-fi is one of the easiest genres to make with AI because its ingredients are so well defined: a lazy groove at 70–90 BPM, jazzy keys, dusty drums and a bit of tape hiss. If you are still asking how to make lofi music that sounds like yours, start from the preset or a vibe on the lofi generator, listen to the example first, then change one ingredient per run until the track sounds like your room at 2 a.m.