Techno Hi Hats

[lem]

I don't have listened to the sample, but in general, i like to made micro variations to every hit of my hat.

Start with velocities. Then, if you think about it, when you hit a real hit, you hear a lower frequency or a more resonating frequency depending on the force of your hit.

So try to stick a filter that increase the resonance of the high frequencies and bypass progressively the lower one if the hat is hit harder.

Also program different attack, decay and release for every hit. Careful programming will make the groove

I'm not into using hi hats too much as I always think things sound better if I substitute them for shakers but I have used a similar approach to get a pattern I am happy with. If I was using a sampled hat, I'd just have a single open hat with enough decay length to work with and copy the sample 4 or 5 times in my sampler and map it chromatically up my keyboard.

Then I'd start out making adjustments to each of the same sample, the open hat would also become a closed hat by applying and envelope and once I had various legths assigned, I'd set each individual level, so hats that would be lower in volume in the pattern, I'd move in a little on the attack time to make them softer and I'd also apply a low pass filter to these to ensure the softer hats have less high frequency content and maybe make some minor pitch tweaks depending on the sound too. After getting a balance between the sounds, I'd send them all to a choke group where the closed hats cut off the open. You can also do the same thing but map them to the same key/zone and set individual velocity ranges so only a certain sound would get triggered depending on the velocity set.

The reason I used just one source sound is that I often felt like things just sounded like a bunch of samples that didn't belong together, by using one single open hat and manipulating it slightly, you can get a cohesive kit that doesn't sound like randomly chosen samples.

Of course it's totally different if you are synthesizing your own or whatever but I'd do that if I were using a sample as a way to get hat patterns I preffered.

I do a similar thing but I used modulation to change one sample, rather than copy the sample. This makes it feel more random and organic.

[dubgil2]

if you aren't using a computer, which I believe most of these tips/advice seem like things to do in Ableton,
what do you suggest, I only use Elektron MD and MnM, but I'd like to have better hats...I can sample,
I can apply filters, reverb, but sidechain???

[tsankip]

if you aren't using a computer, which I believe most of these tips/advice seem like things to do in Ableton,
what do you suggest, I only use Elektron MD and MnM, but I'd like to have better hats...I can sample,
I can apply filters, reverb, but sidechain???

You could record (or parameter lock) volume, delay or whatever variations etc..or get the lfo to change some parameters and you could additionaly use the slide function. You could also use that repeat thingy to get some nice flam like action going on and hook it up to the lfo to get little variations. Or just some accent here and there to get the groove going.

[Opuswerk]

if you aren't using a computer, which I believe most of these tips/advice seem like things to do in Ableton,
what do you suggest, I only use Elektron MD and MnM, but I'd like to have better hats...I can sample,
I can apply filters, reverb, but sidechain???

Check this thread on the Elektron-Users forum. http://elektron-users.com/index.php?opt ... &id=100459
Btw for most people having MD related questions, the E-U forum really has a depth of wealth.