Live hi hat tricks

make your hi hats sound live = pan/velocity changes, turn quanitize off, use swing, etc or... play them live

Alot of good advice here. Id say i use a mixture of all the techniques i usually have 5/6 different hats. Some doubles with filters, some layered with fx, some velocity adjustments. If I add anything it would be to try mixing breaks with your own one shots from kits and sound banks/packs in seperate tracks this will give you different rythms that you play with easily.

@ Ghosty man up dude...wheres the beats and dont generalise the members just cos there not workin woth g unit or whoever doesnt make there music any better or worse than yours. Know ones bootleggin your music dude and if were all such no hopers without all important industry connections how we gonna get hold of wyclef or will smith or 50 to sell it to em

OldSchool969 wrote:

cyrus wrote:well, the technique i almost always use isnt neccesarily "live" like completely sounding real or whatever. but it adds bounce.

its real simple. you can definately do more, but this is the easiest way to add bounce with your hihats with very very little work. here it goes:

alternate hihat velocities on a 1/16th hihat pattern. i.e. X x X x X etc.

here is how i do it:
i will use note repeat to create 1/16th pattern on track A. then i copy that to track B. then i go to grid edit on track A and delete all the even hits. then i go into track B and delete all the odd hits. now if you play both tracks together it sounds like a regular 1/16th note repeat pattern. now lower the velocity of the entire track B so track B velocity is like half of track A i.e. track A-110% & track B-30% (usually i mess with the exact values until it sounds nice). so there is a relationship between track A and B of LOUD and QUIET

the idea is to get a LOUD QUIET LOUD QUIET pattern going to give the track bounce. louder hits on the downbeat. accenting the beat like that gives it a push pull bounce feeling, even on the most simple pattern

ya know! sorry for **** explanation, probably easier to show in video.

Once you get that down, you can instead of using note repeat, freestyle it using velocity in 16 levels. alternating the velocities gives push pull feeling. you dont just have to have exact values, you can add more variation, or you can even use differant hihat tones. etc.

now i dont even use note repeat. i just tap out without quantize so that i can make it groove how i like, then i add to it by doing the copy thing and deleteing alternating hits and adjust the velocity of each track. sometimes ill just put on 16 levels velocity and just do the alternating all in one track

you can accomplish similar results by using shakers too. lay down straight 1/16th hihat pattern with normal hihat. then go in with a shaker but dont do same pattern, do it 1/8th on all the downbeats. experiment!

Really great advice. Don't forget also that the dynamics of bass can really alter your perception of the highs, and thus "tricking" your mind into thinking that the sound is different. It's one of the first things I picked up on when I started (not even a year ago). For instance if you have your hats on the 1/16 and a simple bass drum on 1/8ths, every kick can give the illusion of bringing the hats down just a notch, making it sound more like a live set. Add a bassline and you get an even greater effect.

So think about how the sounds play with each other before you give up on trying to perfect the hats in a track.

yeah, this is so true. each sound doesnt stand alone. the placement of the drums into the track as a whole is crucial. so its not always that you can just make a pattern, then toss stuff on top, even if that patterns has nice bounce or feel to it. you gotta make it play with the other sounds too, find the pocket, and hit in the right spots.

Man,.....where do they get these expert village guys from....EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM has no idea what they are doing....WOW!!

The pads are velocity sensitive so just.... play them?

When you guys are chopping up breaks do you leave air in the beginning and end of the hit or chop them real tight?

youknowmysteeze22 wrote:chopping up breaks do you leave air in the beginning

always keep this on standby to give my hi hats that swagged out extra air

konc3pt wrote:

youknowmysteeze22 wrote:chopping up breaks do you leave air in the beginning

always keep this on standby to give my hi hats that swagged out extra air

You must have alot of time on your hands buddy for a stupid post like that. I just started doing this stuff and had a question.

youknowmysteeze22 wrote:

konc3pt wrote:

youknowmysteeze22 wrote:chopping up breaks do you leave air in the beginning

always keep this on standby to give my hi hats that swagged out extra air

You must have alot of time on your hands buddy for a stupid post like that. I just started doing this stuff and had a question.

I do have a lot of time on my hands...you're real uptight buddy..try leaving air in the beginning and see what happens...if you you just started you probably would want to post this in "getting started" section

I am tight cause Im going nuts trying to do this break chopping lol Thanks for the tip though. I posted here cause I did a search and this came up because I knew I would get razzed if I started a thread on this topic.

I don't do hip-hop stuff like most of you guys, but I still have similar thoughts on high hats.

Strings of identical high hats are boring

To give it more of a live sound, I often use a random LFO set on something high like 4 beats, that way each hit is a bit different. Level, pitch, filter, can be used with the random LFO to make it more interesting.
I also often put different volume/filter settings/decay high hats on a bunch of different pads, and pan each pad a lot differently.

Another thing I like with high hats is an open hat on the same beat as a kick, when it seems to distort or clip the hat some. Just think it sounds cool.

youknowmysteeze22 wrote:When you guys are chopping up breaks do you leave air in the beginning and end of the hit or chop them real tight?

my opinion (thats all it is) is to remove all the air that doesn't contribute to the sound at the beginning.
that way, i know when they are going to hit (when i damn well please) and if i want to add swing / lateness i just shift the note events later.

a friend of mine would leave some delay in cause he said it added a natural swing, but it drove me crazy cause you can never get a tight groove if you want it.

The whole 'air' thing goes back to the days of of chopping by ear and by numbers, like on the Linn MPC's and E-mu SP-1200.

There was no waveform editing and the sequencer resolution was very low by todays standards.

The result meant that chops were not as tight as they could have been and some samples had a little air upfront and/ or on the tail, all of which contributed to a particular type of offbeat disjointed feel which characterised the hip-hop beats of the day.

In todays productions 'air' can be used to creatively fill gaps between chops, avoiding the dreaded digital silence.

clint246clint wrote:The whole 'air' thing goes back to the days of of chopping by ear and by numbers, like on the Linn MPC's and E-mu SP-1200.

There was no waveform editing and the sequencer resolution was very low by todays standards.

The result meant that chops were not as tight as they could have been and some samples had a little air upfront and/ or on the tail, all of which contributed to a particular type of offbeat disjointed feel which characterised the hip-hop beats of the day.

In todays productions 'air' can be used to creatively fill gaps between chops, avoiding the dreaded digital silence.

Im using an MPC 3000 and trying to chop these breaks. That digital silence is killing me trying to get these drum breaks to sound smooth. lol

Chop on the computer if that's easier.

Use your ears and eyes.