Fri Nov 16, 2007 11:06 am   Reply with quote      

Hi,

I am hoping that some of you may have some useful tips for creating hihat/shaker patterns for Electro music. Having listened to several electro dance tracks recently I can see that they play quite a dominent role in delivering the groove and pushing the beats along. In particular I am intrested to know if there is a formula in creating the pattern as in most electro the hihats seem to skip, like they play triplets, but it seems like these only play on certiain beats of the bar. Is the best way to create a pattern of simple 16th notes and quantise these to 16th note triplets only on the 3rd beat (quarter note) of the bar for example. Any formulas would be really appreciated.

I understand that the velocity of notes help add interest and also the selection of the hithat and shaker sounds are also important, is there any rules to the type of hihats or shakers to use e.g. always use a more harsh shaker every off-beat quaver or keep the 16th note (semi-quavers) really light and short, making sure velocity levels change??

I have tried a few things in the past but it is not always creating the enegetic groove that I am after where the high percussion helps drive each bar to the next.

Any advice, help, or tutorials that show patterns would be really useful.

An example of the kind of percussion feel I am talking about can be found on many tracks like:

'Last night a DJ saved my life' by Seamus Haji, and
'Sunset to Sunrise' (M-Factor Mix) by Wheland & Di Scala Feat Nikki Belle.

Thanks

Terry

Sun May 25, 2008 1:32 am   Reply with quote      

a lot of times that is a process added to the hihats themselves, like an effects throught the send for the hihats. delay or a good reverb with delay does the job. you run the send effect on a nother track so you have both going at once. the thing about the elctro styles is that they modulate the time signatures of the delays so it gives it a changing feel through time. the original hi hat doesnt jump around like the delayed one so it helps it stay in time. thats one of the ways to do it but its all about modulating the time signatures realtime.hope that helps

Thu Aug 28, 2008 8:58 am   Reply with quote      

Hi Terry,

If you use things like velocity on your high hat patterns this makes a huge difference.

Say somethign like :

I i I i I i I i I i I

(where I is large or full velocity and i is smaller velocity)

also i tend to change the pitch of a hihat to crate a second hihat and use that in the pattern also.

Another thing i do a lot is pan the similar hihats away from each other. So if they are stereo samples i will pan the left side
of hihat sample 1 to the left whilst keping the right side centred and do the opposite with the other hihat.

Multiple velocity changes are also good as well, by that i mean different velocity levels, not just I i but multiple different
levels in the velocity parameters.

I also use filters to add movement to my hihat patterns sometimes. Especially somehign like Anatares filter where you can actually jave a step basd pattern which triggers the filter at specific points which gives hihats a real groove and crazy movement also. And offcours ein Antares Filter you can use
multiple filters at once.

Last but not least i tend to use left/right delay also. Maybe on the left hihat i will have it pan right every 2 bars or somethign and do the opposite with the right hihat.

hope this gives you some ideas.

thanks

Mark