Good Sounding Closed HH?

[Jman]

Anyone have favorites out of the Hi Hat sounds that sound good on the closed HH? Not sure if it is just me, but I find a lot of the HH's sound real nice open, especially completely open, but closed HH sounds sound like crap... not crisp and sizzly, but more like a crappy set of garage band hats, metalic stick noise .... I dialed through a bunch of the kits this eve .... I thought the HH in the Balanced Kit .. #74 sounded pretty nice closed, .... but most seemed Harsh to me ... Not music to my ears....

[Slap the drummer]

Hey jman - I've got to say I agree.  I like my hihats sounding crisp and light (and then pushed up pretty
high in the mix).  There's way too much "stick" in the 2box samples (closed) to my ears - like they had
the mikes on the tip of the drumstick!  I've found this to be the case with most sampled hihats, not just
the 2box ones.

The 13inch hihat in the Natural Drum Kit might well be the answer to your problems.  (See my post about
the NDK for some more detail).

There's top and edge samples and about five different degrees of being 'closed' before it starts to sound
like it's really opening up - so you've got lots of options to play with.
Personally I think its a no-brainer - so long as you're ready for the hassle of making your own dsound files
and don't mind risking the price.  I've never regretted splashing out the cash.

I should say tho that a drummer friend who gigs a lot tried my kit recently and one of the first things he
said was "What is this sh!t?" - talking about the hats.  Then he dialled in one of the really clunky 2boxers
and said, that's better 

[Jman]

Hey jman - I've got to say I agree.  I like my hihats sounding crisp and light (and then pushed up pretty
high in the mix).  There's way too much "stick" in the 2box samples (closed) to my ears - like they had
the mikes on the tip of the drumstick!  I've found this to be the case with most sampled hihats, not just
the 2box ones.

The 13inch hihat in the Natural Drum Kit might well be the answer to your problems.  (See my post about
the NDK for some more detail).

There's top and edge samples and about five different degrees of being 'closed' before it starts to sound
like it's really opening up - so you've got lots of options to play with.
Personally I think its a no-brainer - so long as you're ready for the hassle of making your own dsound files
and don't mind risking the price.  I've never regretted splashing out the cash.

I should say tho that a drummer friend who gigs a lot tried my kit recently and one of the first things he
said was "What is this sh!t?" - talking about the hats.  Then he dialled in one of the really clunky 2boxers
and said, that's better  

Thanks a lot appreciate your insights .... I do want to get into importing some samples eventually and using one of the sample packs and DSoundTool to get some really good sounding hats in there... was hoping to find one or 2 within the module a little more usable in the meantime butwill look into NDK ..... thanks again,

Funny the comment about the other drummer's taste in HH sounds .... I guess beauty really is in the eye .... (I mean .... ear) of the beholder. J

[Jman]

The 13inch hihat in the Natural Drum Kit might well be the answer to your problems.  (See my post about
the NDK for some more detail).

There's top and edge samples and about five different degrees of being 'closed' before it starts to sound
like it's really opening up - so you've got lots of options to play with.
Personally I think its a no-brainer - so long as you're ready for the hassle of making your own dsound files
and don't mind risking the price.  I've never regretted splashing out the cash.

I had read that thread of yours a month or so ago.... it sounds like a good option to me... went back to the NDK site and listened again to some of the audio demos.... some nice stuff. Really like that 13" hat ... How well does the 13" translate via the Drumit Five?  and the other samples for that matter, are you getting a pretty good result now that you have had some time to work with building your kits?

[Cuban]

My main hi-hat closed sound, I really, really like. 
It has a very 'soft' feel to it, just like my UFIP hi-hats.

I'm using the Swiss SE 14" with +2 on tune.
2 bars to right on the balance.
13dB Gain / -36dB Threshold / Normal Curve.

So pleased to hear the 2Box is working out for you jman.

[Jman]

My main hi-hat closed sound, I really, really like. 
It has a very 'soft' feel to it, just like my UFIP hi-hats.

I'm using the Swiss SE 14" with +2 on tune.
2 bars to right on the balance.
13dB Gain / -36dB Threshold / Normal Curve.

So pleased to hear the 2Box is working out for you jman.

Thanks for the tip Graham ... I'll check it out .... I have also found that some of the closed HH cymbals sound better as long as the volume is kept lower in the mix...

[Cuban]

Thanks for the tip Graham ... I'll check it out .... I have also found that some of the closed HH cymbals sound better as long as the volume is kept lower in the mix...

Indeed, this one is maybe at 3/4 volume.

Each sound, naturally, needs to be mixed, balanced, panned etc etc to suit.
Where as TD modules tend to be balanced right out of the box, so maybe 95% of people I have spoken to have never even touched their settings, even on a TD-20, which is good in a very limited way, but naturally they do then miss out on so much more.

With the 2Box, you really do have to go through the library and find the sounds you like, then mix, balance, pan etc within the module to sort the kit out to your requirement.

This is really just as it should be at this level of sound quality, we all hear differently, so we need to set 'our kits' up for our own individual sound requirements.  

The tools are all there in the module and it does not require studio engineer abilities as many VST packages seem to!  

Looking forward to the next update from 2Box as the OS V1.10 Software Update was a HUGE leap forward.  

[Jman]

Indeed, this one is maybe at 3/4 volume.

Each sound, naturally, needs to be mixed, balanced, panned etc etc to suit.
Where as TD modules tend to be balanced right out of the box, so maybe 95% of people I have spoken to have never even touched their settings, even on a TD-20, which is good in a very limited way, but naturally they do then miss out on so much more.

With the 2Box, you really do have to go through the library and find the sounds you like, then mix, balance, pan etc within the module to sort the kit out to your requirement.

This is really just as it should be at this level of sound quality, we all hear differently, so we need to set 'our kits' up for our own individual sound requirements.  

The tools are all there in the module and it does not require studio engineer abilities as many VST packages seem to!  

Looking forward to the next update from 2Box as the OS V1.10 Software Update was a HUGE leap forward.  

That is something I have always had to do to a certain extent on my modules.... panning, mixing,  tweaking individual instruments, etc. Those things have to happen when you use a kit with multiple sound modules. So, my first mission with the new system is to go through all the factory kits and change instruments to suit my setup. I split all my tom inputs on the Drumit Five so I can have all 5 toms on the D5 plus more splashes and China, so now I am reassigning the drums/cymbals replacing the tom rims with additional drum and cymbals: 10" splash on 1, 8" splash on 2, a china on 3, and the 5th tom instead of the rim from tom 4.  As I do that I pan everything mostly similar to my natural layout, plus adjust volumes on everything, tune for tom 5, etc. I stay away from Hard Panning Full left or right as that tends to take too much of the flavor out of an instrument IMO.

I am running both modules direct outs to my mixing board using 8 outs for 2Box, 10 for TD-20X (Effects/Verb 9/10 separate pair for the TD-20X). That means I can adjust the panning and volumes on the individual module and outputs to blend .... pan and volume wise. The process for all the kits is a little time consuming, but necessary and it is a good way to become familiar with the module and sounds. I've already tweaked about 30 of the factory kits. Once I get through all the preset kits I'll start the process of choosing some factory kits and replacing the snare, or kick, or HH, ride .... etc. to build some custom kits for recording.

In preparation for the Drumit 5 module I already spent a couple weeks reassigning and tweaking the instruments and inputs/outputs of my TD-20X to fill the module 2 spot as I am not using that module with the exact same assignments I had previously. All that before receiving shipment of the Drumit Five.

Thing is, I already had a huge no. of kits already prepped for my previous setup with the 2 TD-20X modules. Certain kits I would use for certain types of songs ....  But that is OK, because I wanted a complete makeover on my sounds and that is where I'm at....  

[Slap the drummer]

I had read that thread of yours a month or so ago.... it sounds like a good option to me... went back to the NDK site and listened again to some of the audio demos.... some nice stuff. Really like that 13" hat ... How well does the 13" translate via the Drumit Five?  and the other samples for that matter, are you getting a pretty good result now that you have had some time to work with building your kits?

It fits in very nicely indeed.  But then I only use a handful of kits based around the NDK snares and toms, so I suppose
it would.  It should integrate with the straightforward 2box kits though, no problem.  And there are so many different
sample groups (eg 14 levels from closed to fully open) you can almost make as many different hihats as you can be
bothered with.  There's a more limited 14inch hihat as well which is quite good if you want something that really doesn't
intrude into the mix too much.

Another idea - why not try adjusting the volume of the closed hits relative to the open sounds?  This is a 2 minute job with
Louis's DsoundTool.  You might get something more workable that way.  Just a suggestion...

[Jman]

It fits in very nicely indeed.  But then I only use a handful of kits based around the NDK snares and toms, so I suppose
it would.  It should integrate with the straightforward 2box kits though, no problem.  And there are so many different
sample groups (eg 14 levels from closed to fully open) you can almost make as many different hihats as you can be
bothered with.  There's a more limited 14inch hihat as well which is quite good if you want something that really doesn't
intrude into the mix too much.

Another idea - why not try adjusting the volume of the closed hits relative to the open sounds?  This is a 2 minute job with
Louis's DsoundTool.  You might get something more workable that way.  Just a suggestion...

Thanks again for the tips .... I will probably get NDK when I get some extra dough. How time consuming ... or ... how much work has it been for you to build .... say a HH and snare from that, or to build a few kits based on NDK? and since I am totally new to building layered sample files I suppose I will be slow, hit or miss at first .... Also, I use dBPoweramp quite a bit when I do music collabs on line ... it is a music converter tool ... it can convert Wave from 48Khz to 44.1, do you think that will work, or is it easier with a setup like you use ... I think you mentioned you can do multiple files at once.... ?
I downloaded Louis' DSoundTool and looked over one of the Hi Hats... looks very simple to edit... I'll do a little experimenting with that. thanks again, J

[rpb1966]

Gotta say one thing though, the hi-hats on the Drum It 5 are sooooooo much better than the hi-hats on BFD and BFD 2, if I am honest I think the DI5 hats are the best I have heard or played yet, maybe not everyones cup of tea, I would imagine, but they sit very well in a mix, and they don't sound harsh at all.

Russ

[Slap the drummer]

Thanks again for the tips .... I will probably get NDK when I get some extra dough. How time consuming ... or ... how much work has it been for you to build .... say a HH and snare from that, or to build a few kits based on NDK? and since I am totally new to building layered sample files I suppose I will be slow, hit or miss at first .... Also, I use dBPoweramp quite a bit when I do music collabs on line ... it is a music converter tool ... it can convert Wave from 48Khz to 44.1, do you think that will work, or is it easier with a setup like you use ... I think you mentioned you can do multiple files at once.... ?
I downloaded Louis' DSoundTool and looked over one of the Hi Hats... looks very simple to edit... I'll do a little experimenting with that. thanks again, J

I'm not necessarily the best person to advise on the best way to do the conversion.  Sound Forge just happened to be the first thing I came across with a free trial that wd do the job.  That said it is very easy to use with a straightforward windows style interface.  It also seems to have high quality tools to do the sample rate conversion (to 44100), and bit depth (to 16bit) if you want.

When you unpack the ndk it is all in a crystal clear folder structure -

eg, Cymbals/Hihats/13inch/Brushes/A[=degree of openness]/Edge

Then all the different velocities are separate wav files in that folder, and each file is named so you can work out exactly what it is.
--------------------

To convert you do something like this.

Open SF.
Open Tools/Batch processor.  Windows style dialog box with tabs.
Go to each tab in turn to do the following.
Select all the folders that contain files you want to process [eg all the different 13inch HH brush edge hits from open to closed].
Next tab has simple drop downs to select processes you want to apply.
Click 48KHz to 44KHz, add to list.
Click 24bit to 16bit, add to list.
Go to save tab.
Keep wav format.
Append "_converted 44/16" to file names (or whatever you want).
Select path for converted files to be saved to.
Run batch.
Come back later.

Here's the best bit - when you choose a Save path you can check a "Preserve Subfolders" box.  Now SF will recreate the full
original file structure inside the new folder you chose - and as you keep processing new folders it will work within this duplicate
structure creating new folders and paths as necessary.  The upshot is you build up a duplicate of the original folders but now
with all files converted.

From there, making a new DsoundFile is very easy with Louis tool.

I hate computers but it was all pretty hassle free once I'd worked it out.  It takes a while to convert everything [there's a lot
I havn't even touched yet] but the computer does most of the work.  You save your Batch process then open it whenever and
add more folders to convert.

Hope that helps.

[Jman]

I'm not necessarily the best person to advise on the best way to do the conversion.  Sound Forge just happened to be the first thing I came across with a free trial that wd do the job.  That said it is very easy to use with a straightforward windows style interface.  It also seems to have high quality tools to do the sample rate conversion (to 44100), and bit depth (to 16bit) if you want.

When you unpack the ndk it is all in a crystal clear folder structure -

eg, Cymbals/Hihats/13inch/Brushes/A[=degree of openness]/Edge

Then all the different velocities are separate wav files in that folder, and each file is named so you can work out exactly what it is.
--------------------

To convert you do something like this.

Open SF.
Open Tools/Batch processor.  Windows style dialog box with tabs.
Go to each tab in turn to do the following.
Select all the folders that contain files you want to process [eg all the different 13inch HH brush edge hits from open to closed].
Next tab has simple drop downs to select processes you want to apply.
Click 48KHz to 44KHz, add to list.
Click 24bit to 16bit, add to list.
Go to save tab.
Keep wav format.
Append "_converted 44/16" to file names (or whatever you want).
Select path for converted files to be saved to.
Run batch.
Come back later.

Here's the best bit - when you choose a Save path you can check a "Preserve Subfolders" box.  Now SF will recreate the full
original file structure inside the new folder you chose - and as you keep processing new folders it will work within this duplicate
structure creating new folders and paths as necessary.  The upshot is you build up a duplicate of the original folders but now
with all files converted.

From there, making a new DsoundFile is very easy with Louis tool.

I hate computers but it was all pretty hassle free once I'd worked it out.  It takes a while to convert everything [there's a lot
I havn't even touched yet] but the computer does most of the work.  You save your Batch process then open it whenever and
add more folders to convert.

Hope that helps.

Thanks for the detailed explanation, that makes it all very clear!!! Jerry

[Louis]

Just would like to add that there is also a free Windows tool that can convert from 48KHz to 44.1KHz with good quality, see http://www.voxengo.com/product/r8brain/
It supports batch conversion.

[Jman]

Just would like to add that there is also a free Windows tool that can convert from 48KHz to 44.1KHz with good quality, see http://www.voxengo.com/product/r8brain/
It supports batch conversion.

Thanks for that.... I downloaded it. Will try this out and your DSoundTool when I finally start to build some new instrument sounds.... J