genres, ugh. hi-hats, yuck.

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I am still confused about a lot of electronic music genres, but have more or less given up on knowing whether I'm currently listening to some form of trance, some form of techno, some form of house, or whatever.

But still.

Lately I have been kind of liking some things that have been tagged as "dark techno" but honestly, one of the things that turns me off to a lot of music is hi-hats -- specifically, that relentlessly repetitive disco-ish 16th hi-hat sound (usually on the 3rd or 4th, sometimes the 2nd 16th of each quarter).

Are there any rhythm-oriented subgenres (e.g. not ambient/drone/noise) that are characterized by NOT using hi-hats, or at the very least, keeping them subdued as a sort of accent? Google has not been helpful here.

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There's plenty of techno tracks that don't make use of a hihat but you're going to have to go on a trawling mission to find them. It's not like there's a sub-genre that doesn't use hihats :) I guess you're more talking about the ever present syncopated hat?

Here's a favourite of mine, off the top of my head, that's not hihat heavy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1v4DW3q9j7o
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do_androids_dream wrote:There's plenty of techno tracks that don't make use of a hihat but you're going to have to go on a trawling mission to find them.
Kinda what I figured.

I'm not sure what it is that annoys me, except in a lot of tracks the hats seems to be mixed totally in-your-face above everything else, with no variation in rhythm or dynamics or timbre, just constant TS TS TSH TS while the kick drum is like "hey can anybody hear me, I'm down here?" and the snare might have gone missing entirely and there are some synth lines in there but they're so terrified of the hi-hat monster they stay timidly in the background. To hear anything but hi-hat you have to kill the top half of the EQ and all that's left is mud.

And so fatigue sets in and I get tired of them entirely, and want something more interesting and creative to play in that part of the spectrum.

Maybe I should listen to Men Without Hats :D


I'm liking these two tracks though, thanks

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Seems more you listen to the wrong music. :) If it's like you described, then that's major issues in the production of the tracks themselves. Levels and such should be harmonious, and well balanced, basically well sounding, otherwise you did something wrong i guess.

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foosnark wrote:
do_androids_dream wrote:There's plenty of techno tracks that don't make use of a hihat but you're going to have to go on a trawling mission to find them.
Kinda what I figured.

I'm not sure what it is that annoys me, except in a lot of tracks the hats seems to be mixed totally in-your-face above everything else, with no variation in rhythm or dynamics or timbre, just constant TS TS TSH TS while the kick drum is like "hey can anybody hear me, I'm down here?" and the snare might have gone missing entirely and there are some synth lines in there but they're so terrified of the hi-hat monster they stay timidly in the background. To hear anything but hi-hat you have to kill the top half of the EQ and all that's left is mud.

And so fatigue sets in and I get tired of them entirely, and want something more interesting and creative to play in that part of the spectrum.

Maybe I should listen to Men Without Hats :D


I'm liking these two tracks though, thanks
Speaking as a bonafide techno head.. I too get tired of the hihat and sometimes I can almost sense it's being used 'cheaply' in a lot of tracks- throw it in coz everyone else does. And, I find that a lot of the more interesting techno tends to subdue it heavily - low pass filter is your friend on the hihat...
Last edited by do_androids_dream on Tue Dec 01, 2015 4:18 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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foosnark wrote:I'm liking these two tracks though, thanks
Mike Parker's a techno producers producer.. That track's 16 years old - still a timeless classic.

Another producer I like who keeps things on the warmer side.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URy-YH8knwk
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chk071 wrote:Seems more you listen to the wrong music. :) If it's like you described, then that's major issues in the production of the tracks themselves. Levels and such should be harmonious, and well balanced, basically well sounding, otherwise you did something wrong i guess.
And also always bare in mind that this genre was essentially made for dancing half the night in an vault like dark room in a Berlin cellar...listening on a sofa Sunday afternoon the hats may get annoying fast I assume... :wink:

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2ZrgE wrote:And also always bare in mind that this genre was essentially made for dancing half the night in an vault like dark room in a Berlin cellar...listening on a sofa Sunday afternoon the hats may get annoying fast I assume... :wink:
Good point. I have gone through periods of snobbery against dancefloor stuff for that reason -- sometimes going to extremes and hating 4/4 time itself, at which point only Venetian Snares, karsilima, 5/4 jazz and some Finnish folk music will make me happy. :lol:

Right now I'm on a kick (so to speak) where steady but dark is good.

Although, damn, I may have to fire up Huge Chrome Cylinder Box Unfolding now.

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chk071 wrote:Seems more you listen to the wrong music. :) If it's like you described, then that's major issues in the production of the tracks themselves. Levels and such should be harmonious, and well balanced, basically well sounding, otherwise you did something wrong i guess.
Even in this thread, someone managed to throw out the "user error" response. :-p
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foosnark wrote:I'm not sure what it is that annoys me, except in a lot of tracks the hats seems to be mixed totally in-your-face above everything else, with no variation in rhythm or dynamics or timbre, just constant TS TS TSH TS while the kick drum is like "hey can anybody hear me, I'm down here?" and the snare might have gone missing entirely and there are some synth lines in there but they're so terrified of the hi-hat monster they stay timidly in the background.
This was amusing :-D

I have similar complaints about a lot of genres. Some piece of music will be doing something interesting and then WHAM, along comes the genre obligation feature that totally ruins east was going on and makes it sound like it was assembled from a song starter kit.
- dysamoria.com
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look up Tipper on Youtube. Some of his recent material has a nice sparseness of kick and snare and bunch of otherworldy sounds and synths.

He's also on http://addictech.com

He's almost always got the number one position in the charts there.
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...maybe you just listen the music at too low levels so subs are not prominent enough.

Personally I prefer louder hithats than used in average productions. :shrug: They must drive hard!
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Tricky-Loops wrote: (...)someone like Armin van Buuren who claims to make a track in half an hour and all his songs sound somewhat boring(...)

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foosnark wrote: I'm not sure what it is that annoys me, except in a lot of tracks the hats seems to be mixed totally in-your-face above everything else, with no variation in rhythm or dynamics or timbre, just constant TS TS TSH TS while the kick drum is like "hey can anybody hear me, I'm down here?" and the snare might have gone missing entirely and there are some synth lines in there but they're so terrified of the hi-hat monster they stay timidly in the background. To hear anything but hi-hat you have to kill the top half of the EQ and all that's left is mud.
:lol:
These days I prefer a washed out hi hat sound, like really diffusive and spread, not too peaky, but still part of the rhythm.

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do_androids_dream wrote:More..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXe4wxFXqXk
This is automatically disqualified for being something other than 4/floor (how DARE someone make music that is not 4/4 kick kick kick kick :x )

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