Crafting signature hi-hat sounds

Hi-hats for the most part are simple – it’s only when you want to try to recreate a live-sounding hat or perhaps add a level thickening to it where it makes sense to get creative with layering these types of sounds.

But because we are creating a signature sound, let’s walk through how to create a custom hi-hat sound.

Let’s look through the Browser and find a hi-hat we think has potential. To create a signature sound for a hi-hat, I want to let you know that there are a few types of hi-hats we will create, which are commonly used in our sound design. These are as follows:

• Flat hi-hats, what we use as the main driving hat in our rhythmic patterns
• Open hi-hats, which we use to create lift and add transitional ear candy in a hi-hat rhythmic pattern and percussion, which compliments and adds texture to our hi-hat patterns

There are various types of hi-hat sounds in the marketplace, everything ranging from recorded live drum kits to synthetic sounds created from drum machines such as the Roland TR-808. There is no rule of thumb when it comes to picking hi-hat sounds, although if you study popular culture and the preceding decades, you may notice a pattern of certain types of hi-hat sounds representing certain eras. See these examples:

• In the 1980s, the Roland TR-808 drum machine hi-hats and drum sound were prevalent in most pop music productions.
• In the 1990s when hip-hop became mainstream, the use of sampling live-recorded drum sounds became prevalent.
• In the 2000s, the use of the Korg Triton and its relevant keyboard stock sounds became the prevailing hi-hat sounds of choice.
• In recent years, pop culture follows a trend of using all of these sounds in a very concentrated way. Trap music borrows from the Roland TR-808 sounds, yet some records choose to use live-recorded-sounding hi-hats too.

When it comes to creating a folder of signature-sounding hi-hats, I recommend having not just one main or key focal point of reference but creating a multitude of go-to hi-hats that may fit in different forms of production styles, like having live-recorded-sounding hi-hats for certain productions, in addition to having 808-sounding hi-hats for more trap- or urban-focused productions in FL Studio.

To get started, we will browse through FL Studio’s stock hi-hat sounds and create a kit of “live-recorded-sounding” hi-hats. Again, when creating a hi-hat folder, we want a short and dry-sounding hi-hat and an open hi-hat. Percussion sounds can be added for texture to each type of sound or can be used sparsely in addition to these main driving sounds.

Let’s dive into our Browser. These hi-hats already have a great live feel to them, and we will use these as our base foundation to create a signature hi-hat sound. In the stock drum kit sounds, the Bracke CH1 sound represents a short and dry hi-hat we can use to start off:

Figure 3.25: Browser | Packs | Drums | Hats| Bracke CH 1

Now, load the Bracke CH1 hi-hat into the Channel Rack as we discussed in the Using and organizing the Browser and Channel Rack section in Chapter 1:

Figure 3.26: Channel Rack

Now, we are going to find another hi-hat noise to add to the Channel Rack for additional texture:

Figure 3.27: Browser | Packs | Drums | Hats| Glotch CH

Place a note by clicking both of the hi-hat sounds in the Channel Rack on bar one:

Figure 3.28: Channel Rack | Bracke CH 1| Glotch CH

In this example, I have left the volume range the same on both layers. I have done this as a matter of preference, but I do suggest you use your ear to combine layers based on the specificity of each sound used.

Now let’s add the first hi-hat to the mixing channel:

Figure 3.29: Mixer | Bracke CH 1| Glotch CH

Now, what works well with hi-hats in my experience is either leaving them bare or adding a flanger or phaser to them.

Important note

Reverb plugins can work – but I don’t recommend them as a first stab in experimenting with this type of sound. The hi-hat should fit into your overall mix as a rhythmic carry, and shouldn’t be drowned out too far by a strong reverb, if any. Presets that work well for hi-hats include Fruity Stereo Spacer (for creating stereo spacing), Fruity Chorus (for adding texture), and Fruity Flanger (for creating motion-moving sidechaining).

Now that we have added the base hi-hat to the mixing channel, let’s add Fruity Flanger to its mixing channel in the Glotch CH channel and use the The Mover preset to create a swinging stereo sidechain effect for the layered hi-hat:

Figure 3.30: Mixer | Glotch CH | Fruity Flanger | The Mover preset

This is a simple framework that introduces the concept of layering and adding plugin effects to hi-hat sounds, which you can use to get creative when making hi-hat sounds. There is no particular rule of thumb, but heed my suggestions when it comes to preferencing certain plugins over others unless the overall production has room for delays and reverbs.

Now let’s look at open hi-hats. Whereas straight hi-hats are for holding down rhythm and carrying the track, open hi-hats add an accent to certain rhythmic patterns. There are certain stock open hi-hats in FL Studio similar to straight hi-hats that fit certain types of productions. For reference, FL Studio uses the tag OH for open hi-hats in its stock collection. Let’s create an open hi-hat by using the 808 OH sound and right-click to open the Open in new channel button now as seen in Figure 3.31:

Figure 3.31: Browser | Packs | Drums | Hats | 808 OH

Now when we layer open hi-hats, we can take the approach of layering a second open hi-hat or finding a crisp attack layer that will slightly add an attack frequency to the base open hi-hat.

In my experience, certain open hi-hats can blend well with each other, and you should experiment as you build your sound design library – but be careful not to just add two open hi-hats together with the thought that anything can be layered. I recommend finding quick-attack hi-hats to add layers to the base open hi-hat. In the example in Figure 3.32, this is what we will do. So now, let’s find another hi-hat to give the 808 open hi-hat an attack layer. The Stud CH 1 hi-hat is a quick, crisp, and quick-attack hi-hat that makes a good addition to the 808 open hi-hat; let’s add this as a separate instrument to the Channel Rack now:

Figure 3.32: Browser | Packs | Drums | Hats| Stud CH 1

As this is a simple layer framework, we do not need to add the sounds to the Mixer unless you want to experiment with adding plugins to each sound. I will note that open hi-hats should be dry in most cases. You can experiment with stereo shaping or playing with the volume panning, but as a general rule of thumb, open hi-hats fit well when centered and dry.

Now that we have gone through the base frameworks for creating hi-hats, let’s talk about how we can use FL Studio’s stock VSTs to make custom sound designs and synths.