Hi Hats, Cymbols etc

[SpecialGuest]

Hello again fellas,

So I feel like I am making a fair amount of progress with my beat making but my most recent plateau are my cymbals. I am finding it extremely difficult to get that crisp glossy hat groove going so was wondering if anyone wanted to share some tips or some wisdom.

Here is something I have recently discovered that might help some of you lot out. I have been searching for cymbal reviews on youtube. Hi hats, crashes, rides etc. And what comes up is basically a drummer tapping all kinds of rhythms on the same cymbal. So when you chop that up you have all kinds of different hits that all match up nicely. With this technique my drums are sounding a lot better but there is still something missing with the hats. It's as if their sound seems too separate to my kick and snare.

Just FYI I am parallel compressing my drums, adding some EQ, distortion, reverb, etc. Have also been experimenting with layering some breaks underneath my drums but although I like the jungly sound that brings out, I am after more of a crisp punchy sound, similar to Calyx and Teebee's new album for example.

But yeah, any advice on getting those hats and cymbs grooving would be hugely appreciated.

SpecialGuest

 

[kama]

If you sample stuff, don't cut the samples up too tight, that few milliseconds of attack in a sample can nudge it just the right way. A machine rhythm takes the groove away. Most samplers and drum machine plugins and whatnot have an option to add some shuffle. With just a touch of that you can give it a more human feel.

Another technical thing to "glue" hats and cymbals better with kick/snare is to use the combined kick and snare signal as a sidechain input to your hats. When the kick or snare comes in, the cymbals duck just a bit to give it a much more uniform feel. Of course you can do this with regular group compression as well but this gives you much more control over individual sounds.

 

[Mania]

Hello again fellas,

So I feel like I am making a fair amount of progress with my beat making but my most recent plateau are my cymbals. I am finding it extremely difficult to get that crisp glossy hat groove going so was wondering if anyone wanted to share some tips or some wisdom.

Here is something I have recently discovered that might help some of you lot out. I have been searching for cymbal reviews on youtube. Hi hats, crashes, rides etc. And what comes up is basically a drummer tapping all kinds of rhythms on the same cymbal. So when you chop that up you have all kinds of different hits that all match up nicely. With this technique my drums are sounding a lot better but there is still something missing with the hats. It's as if their sound seems too separate to my kick and snare.

Just FYI I am parallel compressing my drums, adding some EQ, distortion, reverb, etc. Have also been experimenting with layering some breaks underneath my drums but although I like the jungly sound that brings out, I am after more of a crisp punchy sound, similar to Calyx and Teebee's new album for example.

But yeah, any advice on getting those hats and cymbs grooving would be hugely appreciated.

SpecialGuest

acoustic cymbals tend to work better with acoustic snares. If your snare is acoustic, everything should sound pretty together, you might need to adjust the levels to get it to sound right though.

 

[sam the dnb man]

I always add apply a very short reverb to drum sounds via an aux send. I will then adjust the amount depending on where I want it in the mix. I use Ambience by Smartelectronics or however you spell it. It's a brilliant free reverb plug in that sounds wicked with drums. Matrix reverb works quite well although you need to keep an eye on phase correlation.
But yeah, doing this gets your drums to sound as if they were all recorded in the same acoustic environment and the coherency between drum hits will be improved.

 

[bhksamples]

Hello again fellas,

With this technique my drums are sounding a lot better but there is still something missing with the hats. It's as if their sound seems too separate to my kick and snare.

SpecialGuest

Try this at first, lower the volume of the hihats more in your mix, as cymbals and hihats should have roughly 20 - 30 % of kick or snare volume to get breakbeats sound smooth.

if this not works and the hats still do not fit properly with your kick and snare, check the width / stereo / Room and fit to your kick and snare.

 

[Serum]

Some hihats are excessively bright. I will often roll off the tops using a very gradual curve starting at about 12khz. This often helps them to gel with the kick and the snare. Setting the levels right and not layering too many also works well. It all depends on the sample you start with of course.

 

[SpecialGuest]

Thanks for the tips guys. So here is another question. Do you just find one hat hit that you really like and then play around with it, the envelope, eq, pitch, etc, to get a few different versions? Or do you trawl your collection to find different hits that match?

 

[Lunos]

Buy Addictive Drummer if you're after 'real' sounding drum hits. A very good bank of sounds that you can manipulate yourself

 

[SpecialGuest]

Buy Addictive Drummer if you're after 'real' sounding drum hits. A very good bank of sounds that you can manipulate yourself

Amazing. That looks really decent, I will get that and post back with what I reckon.

PS.
Photon, your signature cracked me up. "who once booked shabba to perform a spoon bending show in 1995" HAHA! Big up vapour 36 hertz

 

[Mania]

Thanks for the tips guys. So here is another question. Do you just find one hat hit that you really like and then play around with it, the envelope, eq, pitch, etc, to get a few different versions? Or do you trawl your collection to find different hits that match?

It depends on the break really. Sometimes if you want a fast complex one you'll chuck in a few patterns with different hats. If you want a simple liquid roller, you might just adjust the velocity of one hat.
As much as it would be great to pick up EZ drummer, if you dont have the money there are heaps of ways to get the same kind of results qith just a half decent sampler and a few plugs. If you do have the money, break a leg.

 

[dbjungle]

It depends on the break really. Sometimes if you want a fast complex one you'll chuck in a few patterns with different hats. If you want a simple liquid roller, you might just adjust the velocity of one hat.
As much as it would be great to pick up EZ drummer, if you dont have the money there are heaps of ways to get the same kind of results qith just a half decent sampler and a few plugs. If you do have the money, break a leg.

I second EZ Drummer. It's affordable and the MIDI patterns give you a lot of flexibility.

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