How do you add bounce to hi hats?

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koalafresh

New member
I seem stuck on a way to add a little shuffle to programming my hi hats. I still haven't been able to come anywhere close to what I was looking for. Here are a few of the techniques I've tried:

Program: Reason/ReDrum

1. Filling a 16 step sequencer and placing every other step with different velocities.

2. Layering hi hat & shaker sounds.

3. Playing manually/by hand.

The type of bounce I'm referring to is pretty continuous.

The song that best describes this sound is:
(It may be hard to recognize because of the crashes included)

J. Cole - Dollar And A Dream II

If anybody has any suggestions on how to make this type of hi hat arrangement I'd be much appreciative.
 
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Honestly playing them live is really the key here. Becasue in that song not only is there different velocities which are in a specific pattern there they are not perfectly timed by steps.

Try playing live...again. If you have rhythm (put on the metrenome) and it may take practice you will get it. Try putting the same hi hat on two different keys or pads so it's easier to do them fast. This way you won't get perfect timing, and if you have a bounce in your palying you will get that.

Second, if your programing them don't throw random velocities. You need to use patterns. A simple bounce can be made just by making one full and the other halffull. Usually I make my highest velocities hit where the snare hits. And if you really con't program a descent bounce just quantize it, and use a groove. I know in FL I use "MPC" groove a lot when I want to make a pattern similar to J. Cole's.
 
If u do what wedges suggested you should come out with the bounce you want.

Also add some swing to whatever channel/lanes your hi hats are on to give it that sound by using ReGroove Mixer in Reason.
 
Another tip that works for me with playing out drums on a keyboard: I always map my drums to the sharps/flats when I'm playing them out.

I feel they're a little easier to work with since the keys are raised.

Also have at least two separate notes to the hat say B and C, makes it sound more realistic like to different hands hitting at two different velocities.
 
All good advice so far. Also try shifting all your hats forward or back by the same amount of ticks, its essentially the same thing as what "Swing" does, but you have more control over it, but always play live velocites, even when quanzting. If you play live velocites and quantize with swing/shift your hats. You can get a great bounce, but the best is always to play w/ quantize off and live velocities.

I think when ppl talk about having stiff drums when quantizing, its that they are using straight 1/16ths and/or constant velocities. If you use 16th note triplets your beats will have a lot of swing even if 100% quantized, but you still got to play your velocities live.
 
Dynamics and timing are the most important aspects to get a beat to feel good. In that J Cole example the 8th notes are accented and the 16th in between are ghosted.
There is a thing that drummers do where they don't play straight 8th or 16th notes but they also don't completely swing them, they are played somewhere inbetween. It's not easy to do but sounds nice and adds a bounce to the beat without it being completely swinging.
 
yep, ghost notes are soft hits
so the bold and underlines are normal or loud velocity and the e,a's are ghosted.
1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a
 
sometimes i'll lay down the kick snare and hats quantized, then go back and redo the hats not quantized or something like that

it feels more natural to me to do it this way
 
ghost notes are notes that are a really low velocity making you just able to hear them and it adds a lot of shuffle without having it go completely quiet. Shitty explanation I know. Google it, you will find tons.
 
Boom-Bap said:
yep, ghost notes are soft hits
so the bold and underlines are normal or loud velocity and the e,a's are ghosted.
1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a
Click to expand...

Is it possible if you could elaborate a little more on what the e's and a's stand for?

I'm guessing the 1,2,3,4 are quarter notes on a 4/4 beat.
But more specifically explaining on a complete 1/16th level.

1 e + a 2 etc.

1/16 2/16 3/16 4/16 5/16 etc.
​

BTW, thanks for the help guys, I still haven't gotten the reaction for my hi hats but at least I know I'll be practicing on the right path. It really helps a lot.
 
koalafresh said:
Is it possible if you could elaborate a little more on what the e's and a's stand for?

I'm guessing the 1,2,3,4 are quarter notes on a 4/4 beat.
But more specifically explaining on a complete 1/16th level.

1 e + a 2 etc.

1/16 2/16 3/16 4/16 5/16 etc.
​
Click to expand...

Yeah that's right. The e's and a's are just simply a way of counting out all the 16th notes in a beat.
 
Like what was said before-play by hand and dont quantize.At first itll feel like your notes are way off but in time youll be able to play with swing and thats what will add the bounce to tracks
 
Update:

I couldn't find a way to do it by hand yet.

So what I did is lay out 16th notes on the drum machine. The first 16th note of hi hats is at 100 velocity and the second is at 10 velocity. It creates the ghost notes for me. Hopefully this will help others.

Fresh
 
Personnally I always play the hats by hand, not quantized.

Then I add quantization, but not 100% Usually (in Reaper, my DAW) I apply 80%.

Then I usually move all the notes slightly to the right, because I like the "loose" feel, rather than "tight" one.

There was a page written by Nicolay on his facebook (but he deleted it) where he was explaining how to get the groove. There are several techniques, but he was basically doing this:

Kicks: spot on
Snare: some snares are a bit early
Hats: all hats are late
Bass: bass is late... really late... :)

I now also play with velocity, or even, I use two different hat sounds (one being often the first one but with slightly different velocity and picth).

Maybe it is not the kind of groove your are looking for... but
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dRWZjXzjJM at 0:32
see how he plays the hats...

or check Boon Doc (I love this guy - I decided to make beats after having watched all his videos) => https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVzP7UuHHqI at 2:09 !
 
You could also try sidechaining hats with compression and not necessarily with a kick as an input. Use other percussive sounds to duck the hats, you might get some interesting grooves.
 
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