Spicing up your hats

[Esperado]

my hats are never this spicy

Seriously though, How do you treat hats to help them fit into a mix better. I know its pretty genre specific, but regardless of looking up commonly used hi hat patterns and listening alot, i still cant seem to make my hats sound good in most mixes. i often end up "cheating" by layering them with loops to get something a little less dry and boring.

for example, in this Sketch i made, the hats just dont really sound very exciting to me, and i feel like they could really spice up the mix.

a good example of hi hat usage to me would be this theyre definitely there, and really seem to bring alot to the mix, but theyre not staring you in the face, or generic sounding.

is it just an issue of sample usage?

Edited November 6, 2013 by Esperado
fixed links

[Argle]

Some things you can do

- boost the highs.

- choose a different sample.

- play with the ASDR, make it less sustained.

- apply effects

- have 2 or more different hat patterns going at the same time.

- take a random drum loop and highpass it until you just have the top end. Instant cool hi hat pattern. What you call cheating is nothing of the sort.

[Rozovian]

- Vary velocities to make a groove

- Swing note timings slightly to make a groove

- Make a groove

[timaeus222]

- Vary velocities to make a groove

- Swing note timings slightly to make a groove

- Make a groove

Some things you can do

- boost the highs.

- choose a different [and/or better] sample, [such as from Platinum Percussion, Goldbaby, etc.].

- play with the ASDR, make it less sustained.

- apply effects [like room reverb]

- have 2 or more different hat patterns going at the same time.

- take a random drum loop and highpass it until you just have the top end. Instant cool hi hat pattern. What you call cheating is nothing of the sort.

Emphasizing some of what I would suggest and editing in what I would add. i.e. my lazy way of posting.

Other stuff:

Use different Hi Hat samples for each hit to make it sound like round robin, but it doesn't have to be a consistent order. For example, you don't have to go Hi Hat 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, you can do Kick, 1, 2, 1, Snare, 1, 2, 3, 2, Kick+HH4, Snare, HH4, assuming 4 is an open HH, and 1, 2, and 3 are slightly different closed HH.

Make the part realistic in terms of which sample usage order would be used to imitate a real drummer.

Example

Edited November 7, 2013 by timaeus222

[Esperado]

Sweet. That should be enough info to get somewhere. I never thought to use multiple samples. I suppose subtle panning might help too. Thanks guys!