Creating hi-hats for house and trance

[spaceman]

Does anyone know any good tutorials on hi-hat programming, including synthesis or processing of samples.

I'm having problems creating clear, soft hi-hats. I'm mostly using samples at the moment but I can't quite get the to sound right. These samples often have a very heavy attack and lots of mids. But when you eq some of that out they just become monotone noise. I try to put an attack back in by using a filter envelope but it's not working out well.

I think I'm missing a trick or two.

[Aloysius]

Try a 'Transient Designer' to soften the attack of the Hi-Hats!

[Karen-K]

Does anyone know any good tutorials on hi-hat programming, including synthesis or processing of samples.

I'm having problems creating clear, soft hi-hats. I'm mostly using samples at the moment but I can't quite get the to sound right. These samples often have a very heavy attack and lots of mids. But when you eq some of that out they just become monotone noise. I try to put an attack back in by using a filter envelope but it's not working out well.

I think I'm missing a trick or two.

Here are a few mixing tricks:

- Try to use the "quantize" function of your DAW to add some groove to your hats sequence. If you move them a little backward they'll speed up the groove and vice versa.
- Try to use only an High-pass filter on a parametric EQ with a large Q so you don't have resonance of the sound left
- Try to Side Chain your sequence on Kick or Snare drums
- If you want a dynamic hat sequence you MUST use at least 3 samples variations (closed Hat, pedal Hat, Open Hat...)with volume variations.
- play the sequence by hand (Pad or keyboard) instead of the piano roll, it will give a more natural feel
- Use a compressor (what an advice...)

A few synthesis tricks:

- Try to generate hats from 2 waveforms: High pitched square for the attack of the sound (a few ms)and some noise for the decay. Then, experiment with high pass filter & pitch envelopp
- Same way as using samples, you must do some variation in the sound (decay and attack. Play with the ADSR if your drum synth got one
- Add "velocity to filter" routing (if your drum synth have a matrix that supports it) to bring some life to the sequence
- Use compression (!)

Last, don't hesitate to search the web for some MIDI sequences, you'll learn a lot from them.

Hope it will help you.

Cheers.

[spaceman]

@Karen-K

Thanks for the tips.
Much appreciated.

[camsr]

If you have the Sytrus synth, you can try to pick up on a technique I left off of. First measure the spectrum of a hat sound you want. Then use a sine oscillator and in the OSC settings dialog, draw a harmonic series similar to the hat you want. The root frequency should be low, something like a tenor note. As these harmonics match well the sound of a cymbal, you can give some modulation by using the unison and detuning a bit. Thats about as far as I got, so now you can take it a step further Hope that gives you some ideas.

[spaceman]

If you have the Sytrus synth, you can try to pick up on a technique I left off of. First measure the spectrum of a hat sound you want. Then use a sine oscillator and in the OSC settings dialog, draw a harmonic series similar to the hat you want. The root frequency should be low, something like a tenor note. As these harmonics match well the sound of a cymbal, you can give some modulation by using the unison and detuning a bit. Thats about as far as I got, so now you can take it a step further Hope that gives you some ideas.

I do have a license for FLXL but I'm on Mac now.

[ThomasKoot]

If you load your samples into a sampler you have some more control over the volume envelope and the overal dynamics. You can open up on the attack a little to get rid of the aggresive attack. To get a groovy pattern, modulate the attack of the volume envelope with the velocity, so the higher the velocity the shorter the attack will be. This can really get your hats moving.

I think the trick is really to be musical, try not to focus on sound so much. Use swing, velocity and move some hats manually instead of quantizing everyting. Focus on the groove, if the groove is right you will get the sound right intuitively. If there's no groove you will just keep searching.

[spaceman]

If you load your samples into a sampler you have some more control over the volume envelope and the overal dynamics.

Cheers Thomas. I'm going to experiment in Sampler in Live, add an oscillator to add or improve attack and the rest of the sample for the body. May experiment with transient designers as well.

It's this sort of stuff I enjoy the most in this computer music malarkey

[tehlord]

At it's very simplest form I often put in closed hats on a 16th note with every other (2,4,6,8 etc) hat pulled offbeat by a few ms to add some groove. I also have a different and harder closed hat on the 8th notes with every other hit softened a bit with velocity, then the obvious open hat on the offbeat too. I usually highpass hats fairly heavily, boost the top end but mix them quietly.