Is it common to filter top end off hi hats?

[serox]

Yes I always liked malas hats for that kind of heavy but clean sound. In that synkro tune theres some wierd filtered kind of noise in the background doing a similar pattern to the hi hat. I think thats filling the right kind of frequency and might be tricking the ears. You could try layering subtle non hatt sounds and play with milisecond timing to get them sucking and clicking together.

Edit: Comparing my hats now its pretty disapointing, i should follow my own advice

Dont worry about it.

Synkro's hi hats are some of the best going when it comes to new releases. There are not many people who can get them right like that!

[setspeed]

bear in mind that you can always have more than one set of hats, depending on what for.

i normally have 3 channels of hats; one, a dirty one like synkro often uses - loads of distortion/saturation/no real top end, works as more of a 'drum' sound (ie. general percussion, doesn't really sit on the top of the beat, but 'in' it)

then, something a bit crisper, probably high-passed at 1Khz or even higher, not distorted. this sits on top of the beat and plays the traditional hi-hat role.

last, something really really bright like an 808 hihat, just to give a little bit of 10Khz sparkle, turned down to the point where you can't really hear it, and it merges in with the rest of the beat

[serox]

bear in mind that you can always have more than one set of hats, depending on what for.

i normally have 3 channels of hats; one, a dirty one like synkro often uses - loads of distortion/saturation/no real top end, works as more of a 'drum' sound (ie. general percussion, doesn't really sit on the top of the beat, but 'in' it)

then, something a bit crisper, probably high-passed at 1Khz or even higher, not distorted. this sits on top of the beat and plays the traditional hi-hat role.

last, something really really bright like an 808 hihat, just to give a little bit of 10Khz sparkle, turned down to the point where you can't really hear it, and it merges in with the rest of the beat

in that Synkro link he has something in the background, a little bit thumpy sounding, pitched down or maybe filtered right down, is this the 'drum' sound maybe that you mention?

It king of goes, Kick-un-un-snare,

Damn I am crap at talking music lol

[antics]

Surely compression is the what you're looking for as this will decrease the volume of the hit of the hi-hat relative to the tail

[setspeed]

bear in mind that you can always have more than one set of hats, depending on what for.

i normally have 3 channels of hats; one, a dirty one like synkro often uses - loads of distortion/saturation/no real top end, works as more of a 'drum' sound (ie. general percussion, doesn't really sit on the top of the beat, but 'in' it)

then, something a bit crisper, probably high-passed at 1Khz or even higher, not distorted. this sits on top of the beat and plays the traditional hi-hat role.

last, something really really bright like an 808 hihat, just to give a little bit of 10Khz sparkle, turned down to the point where you can't really hear it, and it merges in with the rest of the beat

in that Synkro link he has something in the background, a little bit thumpy sounding, pitched down or maybe filtered right down, is this the 'drum' sound maybe that you mention?

It king of goes, Kick-un-un-snare,

Damn I am crap at talking music lol

in that track there are 3 sounds between the kick and the snare; two hat sounds and one woodier sound which might be a drum LPF'd or something. the hihat on the offbeat is pitched higher than the other one, but both are very gritty and lo-fi. But then Synkro's drums are always gritty and lo-fi, that's part of his sound...

[grooki]

I always have maybe five or six perc channels - for eg one perucssion line (like the hihats) will have at least a couple of sounds in it to give it movement.

I am continually amazed, after reading the mythical "Gain Structure" thread, how much difference this makes to whether stuff sounds "right" or not. Often all the sounds I have chosen can work, it's just that they are not at the right volumes to give everything else space.

And, while the odd hit or so that isn't quantised sounds good to me, I don't understand this whole "don't quantise" thing... I think it is misleading for a lot of people: As far as I can tell, most dynamic, shuffley beats are not "unquantised" - they are skillfully made using different velocities and samples. When I was first trying to make good shuffles and so on this confused me - Ithought for instance I would ahve to make dusbtep at 280 bpm, or dnb at 340, because I thought were hits that had to go in those little spaces, but turns out no.

Edit:
My sig track has lots of hihats

[Sharmaji]

I Often all the sounds I have chosen can work, it's just that they are not at the right volumes to give everything else space.

I'm a firm believer of the idea of that 80% of your mixdown is in your faders-- compression, eq, etc are all waaaay behind in importance.

[deadly_habit]

I Often all the sounds I have chosen can work, it's just that they are not at the right volumes to give everything else space.

I'm a firm believer of the idea of that 80% of your mixdown is in your faders-- compression, eq, etc are all waaaay behind in importance.

seconded
first and foremost your sound selection and initial gain structure is key before processing

[mks]

I Often all the sounds I have chosen can work, it's just that they are not at the right volumes to give everything else space.

I'm a firm believer of the idea of that 80% of your mixdown is in your faders-- compression, eq, etc are all waaaay behind in importance.

seconded
first and foremost your sound selection and initial gain structure is key before processing

I agree with all of this. Also, a bit of careful panning can help give individual sounds some space in the sound field.

@ Serox - I think it is actually quite common to filter or eq hi end off of the hats, or just lower the gain if it's an individual hit. I was just working on a break today where I had to do this, I liked the kick and snare in it but that hats were just too bright, so I had to do some aggressive eq work. It sounds like you test your tunes out on large systems, too much high end on a hi-hat with too much volume does not sound good on a large system.

EZ

[3za]

I also low pass my hats at 48bd/octave at like 17khz give or take

can i ask you why you do this? and is this common practice?
i don't see the point in it. above 17khz there not much going on is there? and the the room up there might aswell be taken up with the hi hat. or so that filter seems a bit steep to me. seems a be OCD to me but, then in my mixs i have most of my problems in the high end alway sound dirty and not very clear up there. so im going to give this a go to see if it helps.

[deadly_habit]

I Often all the sounds I have chosen can work, it's just that they are not at the right volumes to give everything else space.

I'm a firm believer of the idea of that 80% of your mixdown is in your faders-- compression, eq, etc are all waaaay behind in importance.

seconded
first and foremost your sound selection and initial gain structure is key before processing

I agree with all of this. Also, a bit of careful panning can help give individual sounds some space in the sound field.

@ Serox - I think it is actually quite common to filter or eq hi end off of the hats, or just lower the gain if it's an individual hit. I was just working on a break today where I had to do this, I liked the kick and snare in it but that hats were just too bright, so I had to do some aggressive eq work. It sounds like you test your tunes out on large systems, too much high end on a hi-hat with too much volume does not sound good on a large system.

EZ

i will also add that panning is great, never really noticeable on a rig, but in headphones and at home makes so much a diff. how i write my tunes now, and gives ya some room to work with.

[3za]

I Often all the sounds I have chosen can work, it's just that they are not at the right volumes to give everything else space.

I'm a firm believer of the idea of that 80% of your mixdown is in your faders-- compression, eq, etc are all waaaay behind in importance.

seconded
first and foremost your sound selection and initial gain structure is key before processing

I agree with all of this. Also, a bit of careful panning can help give individual sounds some space in the sound field.

@ Serox - I think it is actually quite common to filter or eq hi end off of the hats, or just lower the gain if it's an individual hit. I was just working on a break today where I had to do this, I liked the kick and snare in it but that hats were just too bright, so I had to do some aggressive eq work. It sounds like you test your tunes out on large systems, too much high end on a hi-hat with too much volume does not sound good on a large system.

EZ

i will also add that panning is great, never really noticeable on a rig, but in headphones and at home makes so much a diff. how i write my tunes now, and gives ya some room to work with.

i remember learning that when listening to some rock music in my headphones and they had one guitar panned right and one left and, thinking why the hell did i never think of that way of getting to sounds in the same place.

[silkpantsman]

ok so im way too lazy too read all the comments but hopefully you ve gotten some good help...i would never filter off hats if you wanna apply proper treatment of baxandalls air to your masters...the key for me in making hats fit lies in the sustain of the sample provided its a good sample in the first place so sustain in the mix in the master try applying ying yang theory in eq instead of making cuts to the hats brighten up your lower mids which will dull your hi's in the mastering process. Im sure you already know but start your levels super low when producing to avoid over treating your audio.

[FSTZ]

silkpantsman

probably one of the best names on this forum

ever

[legend4ry]

I'm finally starting to like my hats but I did used to hate mine, and couldn't work out why they sounded so out of place. Here's some tips:-

1. Sample choice (obviously)
2. Reverb/Delay
3. Flanger (this one is a new one I've discovered, just stick it on the hats bus and you're sorted)
4. Reference to other tracks. I used to think my hats were too loud in the mix, I was right. Compare them to other songs you like and see where abouts they sit in the mix

You've got it right man, you use hats what fit the track and if they're still to harsh, EQ out bottom end but make sure you keep one or two hats (if you're like me and use like 4-6 per track) to keep it distinctive and carry its own groove.

Flangers are great - I am not a HUGE fan of reverb but a nice room verb goes down a treat if you only send like 25% signal through.

I really like my hats to be along side the kick and snare but also give relation to the groove happening - So I tend to have them about a quater volume below the kick and snare - sometimes lower, never higher. I know you said its not about the volume but correct volume placement is pretty essential, I would rather cut out low end in hats than to filter em, also.

I think you're just not using the right samples, try and treat your hats with care, they're fragile, one of the easiest things to get wrong in my opinion.

[nowaysj]

As far as I can tell, most dynamic, shuffley beats are not "unquantised" - they are skillfully made using different velocities and samples.

Yes, you can get an amen.

[Basic A]

i remember learning that when listening to some rock music in my headphones and they had one guitar panned right and one left and, thinking why the hell did i never think of that way of getting to sounds in the same place.

Watch doing this to something excessively mid/low ranged, switch to mono sometimes, I learned that doing it to stuff thats to similar or to dominate leads to phasing to hell when it goes mono (hence why you dont tend to notice hat panning as much in rigs)... little stuff like hats, it might not be bad, but, you try pannin out two midrange basses and switching to mono occasionally, you might have problems... keep in mind, most lcub systems are mono, so, producing your main elements in mono, oftena good idea. i.m.o, totally though, so take it for what its worth.

[nowaysj]

Okay a lot of heavy weights up in this joint, but I'll have my say nonetheless.

Sometimes I leave hats out entirely. Fuckem, if they don't belong, don't put them in there because everybody knows a beat needs hats. I'm just sayin, nothing is a prerequisite.

In another thread, his majesty the royal jolly wailerness suggested using a cohesive sound pallet. Yeah boi, that's the one. So how to achieve that relative to hats?


1. Sound selection. Ha ha ha, heard this one before? Not for your benefit, but maybe for others, listen to the sample in the context of the mix, don't listen to them in isolation trying to find the right sample. Everything sounds good, but little sounds good/right in the mix. FL is so damn good at this, you can set up your hat patterns, and just run a 1000 hat samples into those patterns in the mix. You get to try out each sample, in the pattern, in the mix, with absolutely zero delay between sample choices. That shit cannot be beat.


2. Individual processing of a few different hat samples. This can include eq/compression/short reverbs/distortion/etc. Bright hats, dull hats, etc. Don't forget envelopes on your samples... soften the attack a bit, may take that hard tzing out, soften the hit in the mix and make it's temporal position a bit fuzzy, looser to the beat. I'm poor, so I use envelopes. Big shits use transient shapers - you gotta ask someone else about those.


3. A sub-buss of hats to receive treatment together, done well this will help gel yo shit.


4. A drum buss to receive treatment together, again more gel. These buss level processings don't need to be extreme, just enough to tell something is happening.


5. A master (not mastering) level treatment. Eq is not just a clinical tool used to fit shit together, but can be very artistic in nature. You can roll the tops off your whole damn mix. You can punch holes in your mix. Pop commercial releases strive towards a completely full/balanced frequency spectrum, but fuck that, bro.




This shit is not a full balanced frequency spectrum. Whole segments of the spectrum are
missing, and that is what makes the pallet coherent (if only to a mad man).




And again, just because this shit is brilliant. This shit is BLUE!




Where the hats at, bro? Sorry for posting this in 85 different threads,
it's just on my mind. This track has a coherent sound pallet that has some holes in it.


To answer your question, yes, I roll off my hats all the damn time.

Some thoughts about this fucking excellent synkro track. It may be that this track fits the hats, rather than the other way around. Not saying this tool was used but this reverb,

Ambience

can pick up the texture of a sound run through it and create like a reverb bed of constant sustain. So you take your hats, you run them through this, you get a hum/hiss/smear that has the specific character of your hats, then use your hats on top of the hiss and wa la - coherence. Try this suggestion bro.

[serox]

1. Sound selection. Ha ha ha, heard this one before? Not for your benefit, but maybe for others, listen to the sample in the context of the mix, don't listen to them in isolation trying to find the right sample. Everything sounds good, but little sounds good/right in the mix. FL is so damn good at this, you can set up your hat patterns, and just run a 1000 hat samples into those patterns in the mix. You get to try out each sample, in the pattern, in the mix, with absolutely zero delay between sample choices. That shit cannot be beat.

FL is not good for this I find becuase you can not hit 'next' or 'prev' and go thru samples. So I find myself listening to hats in isolation, without processing trying to pick the right had to fit with the song, this sucks!

How are you doing this?!

[serox]

To answer your question, yes, I roll off my hats all the damn time.

Some thoughts about this fucking excellent synkro track. It may be that this track fits the hats, rather than the other way around. Not saying this tool was used but this reverb,

Ambience

can pick up the texture of a sound run through it and create like a reverb bed of constant sustain. So you take your hats, you run them through this, you get a hum/hiss/smear that has the specific character of your hats, then use your hats on top of the hiss and wa la - coherence. Try this suggestion bro.

It is an excellent track like all of his tracks. His hats are spot on, you cannot get better. The rhythm is sick, the bass is sick yet not over powering. You could remove the sub, the bass and the tracks are stick sick.

Its the small things that make it good, its polished.