Getting those awesome D 'n' B hats?

SoundCrafter · June 18, 2007, 02:34:19

Hey guys, I'm working on a new D n B song, and it's a bit outside my comfort zone. I'm asking the 'experts' in this genre (Boot-Sec, Xincbox and the like) to fill me in here:

How do you get those hats to vary so well? I'm talking about this:

Naturally in a breakbeat rhythm you've got your basic kick and snare, then you've got hats which fill in basically everything in between. How do you get them to sound so good? repeating the same sample over and over doesn't sound good. I've listened to DnB loops and have been perplexed. How do you get that variation which sounds so good? If you're still confused I'll try to upload a demo, but can someone please offer me some tips?

LPChip · June 18, 2007, 07:57:22

I usually use the snare to form a secundairy hihat.

But not just by playing the snare with a lower volume. I use the Oxx for that with a volume if necessary.

lets say your snare is sample 1, then it could look like this.

C-4 01 v32 O08
--- .. .. ...
C-4 01 v20 O05
C-4 01 v20 O0A
C-4 01 .. ... <- the normal snare

etc...

Use 2 or 3 different snares and you'll have great timber in your song. You can even do the same with a basedrum at the same time a snare is playing to alter its sound.

Hope that helps.

SoundCrafter · June 18, 2007, 20:05:25

Offsetting! Of course! genius! I love it, thanks LP.

I'm actually using reason for this track, but it has a feature called "Sample Start" on its drum machine, which is Identical to offset. So my plan is to make a drum machine exclusively for the hats and set them to several offsets, or try automation on just 2 or 3. I also thought this morning about volume variation. Thx again LP.

LPChip · June 18, 2007, 20:14:50

No problem.

Glad I could help.

seventhson · June 19, 2007, 00:50:46

Quote from: "SoundCrafter"Hey guys, I'm working on a new D n B song, and it's a bit outside my comfort zone. I'm asking the 'experts' in this genre (Boot-Sec, Xincbox and the like) to fill me in here:

How do you get those hats to vary so well? I'm talking about this:

Naturally in a breakbeat rhythm you've got your basic kick and snare, then you've got hats which fill in basically everything in between. How do you get them to sound so good? repeating the same sample over and over doesn't sound good. I've listened to DnB loops and have been perplexed. How do you get that variation which sounds so good? If you're still confused I'll try to upload a demo, but can someone please offer me some tips?

The obvious thing to do would be to use different hihat samples and varying which sample you use.If you'd cut up one of those DnB loops you'd probably see and hear what i mean :wink:

SoundCrafter · June 21, 2007, 13:44:03

@Seventhson: I actually did consider that. The challenge is finding two or more hats that sound enough alike to be considered variations but different enough to be different hats. =/

seventhson · June 21, 2007, 14:01:17

Quote from: "SoundCrafter"@Seventhson: I actually did consider that. The challenge is finding two or more hats that sound enough alike to be considered variations but different enough to be different hats. =/

Have you tried cutting up loops?
If those d&b loops contain what you need,i'd just cut them up into segments,or just cut the hi-hats and use those.

BooT-SectoR-ViruZ · June 21, 2007, 14:13:16

sorry to destroy your illusion, but i don't do anything extraordinary with my hats

i usually use one closed and one halfopen hihat, make a rhythm and then add a little panning- and volume randomizing through the instrument-editor
(don't know if reason has a randomize function for those params)

then maybe add some EQing, maybe a little delay or reverb and everything is fine...

AND if you listened to my tracks a little more precise,
you'd have found out, that my hihat lines are quite repetitive

:lol:

LPChip · June 22, 2007, 09:44:13

I do basically what B-S-V does, except that I use 2 basedrums and 2 snares and make 2 seperate rythmes that at certain points play with eachother. It creates very nice and good sounds, and ofcource here and there (not that much actually) I add Offsets.

BooT-SectoR-ViruZ · June 22, 2007, 10:29:49

who said that i'm only using 1 bassdrum and 1 snare? :|
man, we're talking 'bout hihats here

LPChip · June 22, 2007, 13:50:18

Quote from: "BooT-SectoR-ViruZ"who said that i'm only using 1 bassdrum and 1 snare? :|
man, we're talking 'bout hihats here

Right... but I wanted to contibure on the slightly not so ontopic chatter

SoundCrafter · June 25, 2007, 03:05:34

@Seventhson: Yes and no...all my loops are ReCycle format so I can slice them and hear the different hats, but the only way I can actually use them is by slice triggering (very annoying) or stereo-capturing (also annoying)...I suppose I could but I don't feel it's worth the effort ;-)

Um, I'll try to upload some demos including stuff I've done.