Hi Hat Combos in DnB

[S.Ave]

I've listened to alot of electronica, and the only thing I can tolerate is Drum n' Bass styled electronica.

I've tried recreating many drumbeats, but I cannot figure out how to get the hi hats to sound like they do in actual songs.

They sound like there is a constant stream of hi hats that goes up and down in pitch rapidly. I'm not sure. Can someone send me a FL file with a demonstration of this or show it out in txt? I really appreciate it.

[Nineko]

can you provide an example of how you want them to sound like?

I mean, can you link to a song, possibly an OC remix, in which the hi hats act like you want?

[The Vagrance]

What I always do for my hi-hats to get a sense of speed without monotony is:

1. Put down at least 4 hi-hat tracks/samples

2. Compress and EQ them to get the desired sound you want out of each of them (I usually will just group them all together though so they don't stand out too much from each other)

3. Lay down constant 1/16th notes on all of them, then lower the levels of each track so you ave them balanced out how you want

4. After you do that, erase all of the notes, now its time to get to the good stuff

5. The trick to nice hi-hats: velocities. A very common pattern that I use is 1/16th notes for an entire bar, and the velocities are:

high-mid-low-mid-high-mid-low-mid etc. etc.. By high I mean like, 90% or 80% or something, then for mid I'll subtract a number greater than or equeal to 15 (we'll just say 15) so the mid would be like, 65, then subtract 15 from 65 and you get 50, the go back up to 65. Another pattern is:

high-mid-high-mid-high-mid etc. etc.

there's also:

low-mid-high-mid which goes great with the first one I posted. Its all about layering and if you make them all 1/16th notes you get a great sense of speed. The most audible song in which I did this:

www.thevagrance.com/music/wip/crystalclear.mp3

In that song I had a Redrum filled with just hat samples and I played around with layering until I got a nice pattern. Anyways, get creative, use unique rhythms, and be sure to play with the velocities.

[Splunkle]

I have no idea if this will get the effect you wanted, but a stream of highhats that go up and down in pitch can be done rather eaisily in most slicers. When I get home, I might try to whip up an FL example, but I'll text it out here. Oh, you seem to use FL, and I'm most familar with its slicer, but all those who don't use it... well, I'm sure you can figure out how to do similar stuff in your slicer of choice.

1) grab whatever drumloop you want, and slice it up right.

2) If you only want this drum loop to play hats and other high-up sound effects, switch the filter over to high-pass. Play with the resonance and filter cutoff until it sounds good just playing by itself. you don't have to use a highpass filter - I just like it, because it means I can dedicate this loop for doing smacy high end topping stuff.

3) Lay out your patten. I don't know too much about how pro's do this, I just lay stuff down until I fidn something that works. Probably not the most time-efficent method, but it works.

4) Fiddle. down the bottom, you can see that each note has a velocity. Play with that to change the volume. But you can click on the button currently labeled "velocity" to fiddle with other settings - like, pitch, filter cutoff, resonance. Fiddle with all these for cool variations and stuff. Considering you said pitch, you will probably want to play with that setting the most, but don't foget filter cutoff.

5) Layer. Get multiple drumloops down, and start layering up patterns, for some awesome little fills and stuff. I like panning one loop left, another right, and a third in the middle for a really full soundscape.

I'm hope you are getting the picture now. The last three steps are preety much interchangeable, too.

Also, Disclaimer: I'm not some huge pro dude. This is just one of the things I do with high end percussion. If you find something that works, do that. Doomsday's idea looks preety hot, too. I might try that out soemtime.

[The Vagrance]

Splukle's idea reminded me that a lot of people will take a drum loop and just high-pass it so they only get the high end then try to replicate the kicks/snares with hits, its worth trying but I don't dig it. I reccomend you go to www.dogsonacid.com and then go to The Grid as its a DnB producer forum and will probably satisfy all of your DnB needs as there aren't a huge amount of DnB dudes here.

[Skrypnyk]

FLStudio + Drum n Bass = Pilchard

[The Vagrance]

FL Studio + Drtum and B ass = Spor and Concord Dawn

Even proffesional artists use FL.

[S.Ave]

Thanks for all your posts. I really appreciate the help.

[Yoozer]

They sound like there is a constant stream of hi hats

Shakers, tambourines, anything. The trick is that you don't use the straight quantizing (tick-tick-tick-tick-tick) but that you use shuffle (tick-ah-tick-ah-tick-ah-tick-ah) etc. This moves the second note from its original location and provides a groove.

Older drum 'n bass beat samples are sped up funk- and hiphop beats; if those had real drummers doing 'm, not every note will be perfectly quantized.

[CC Ricers]

I didn't know that Concorde Dawn used FL.

You can take the sliced drum loop approach, or build them from scratch. You probably know how to nail down the 2-step beat already. The extra hi-hats are called ghost hits.

Aside from changing velocity and shuffle, some beats vary the pitch in the hats. You might want to treat them as if you're trying to play a simple melody, but don't vary the pitch way too much.

[po!]

not completely sure what style beat you're talking about..

one of the things i like do in DnB that kinda sounds like "streams of hihats" is put a lot of hats on off beats. the strong beats (each eigth note) are implied with kicks and snares, and i also usually will add a layer of steady 16th hats (or tambourine or whateva you want) to keep the basic beat

but i think the syncopated hat pattern is key to achieving that "messy" feel. i have a bad example of it here

http://www.dailymidi.com/midis/giant_steps

the drums on it are a bit too wild and messy, but its got the general idea. lots of syncopated 16ths and also 32nds