Ableton Forum

If you got pads, practice doing two finger rolls and better timing in general. Do 16-32 bars straight through and if it sucks, use a lower quantize amount (25-50%) to fix what's off. This doesn't have to be the whole pattern; select what isn't right, not everything. This way it isn't completely quantized, just nudged a little more in place, and with 16-32 bars, it's less repetitious and more human. Feel free to split up sections and move things around or exploit certain sections more than others to accent a part.

Also, sidechain gate has been mentioned and +1 for it to give it more human sound.
Sidechaining just to kick and snare is good, but even sidechaining the whole kit can work, too.
You should hear good results with a low threshold, heavy compression and with attack and release times around 9-10 o'clock iirc.

Drink 8 glasses of water a day. From your faucet doesn't count.

!!!!!!!!!!!!

more good info, heres some wisdom from Vespers

Humanizing HiHats w/lfo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_iHqzNwMOn0

swank!

another tip which wont really humanise the hats but can create a nice groove as well: put a simple delay on your hihat track.

start off with this setting: minimal feedback, about 30% dry/wet and the delay time set to freerun.

now play around with the delay time.

this of course works best if you have a hihat pattern with only a few notes, for example the classic hats-on-offbeat style.

oooh that reminds me of a subtle reverse reverb effect I found early on when I didn't know shit.
I think it was the Freeverb2. The pre-delay went out so far that you could get to a bar, and the attack on the reverb must've been late or there was a setting for it, because it had more of a noyce pseudo-reverse effect than a reverb.

shadx are you high or what, hehe

ive tried the delay on hats too, couldnt get it to quite work in that particular case, but i know its used in dub quite alot, def worth revisiting...

wishing i had done a different thread title now, this could be a useful time capsule for future hihat suckas to come...

I kinda see it like that. His delay tip reminded me of the reverse verb effect on drums that are half the part. I'll see if I can find it for example...
but I was talking about a reverb effect, and the pre-delay went up to 2k ms or something and the way it was less of a reverb and more of a nice kind of reversey slop-slap-back; nothing new, but it wasn't a delay.

watch how a real drummer uses a pedal

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FX_84iWPLU

actually, watch lots of Bernard Purdie
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFlrI-sorec

look at his right knee

that video just made my morning! wooo thats so awesome, just his whole demeanor (ripe for sampling of his honest voice and a few hits too)

AND

now i know whos drumming on one one of my fav Kutiman mashups!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tprMEs-zfQA

Sorry for raising this thread from last month, but I figured it's better than starting a new thread that is titled "Ride Cymbals Suck" lol.

So I'm listening to some tracks right now, and I started feeling Ride Hat Envy. All of these groovin' tracks have such pronounced ride hats, but they are not overbearing. Whenever I'm trying to add this element to a track, it always sounds messy and lame ass.

Does anyone have any processing tips for ride hats? The best I can think is to side chain them against the BD, but I don't feel like that's what's going on in a lot of these other tracks. They feel like they are always either too loud or too quiet when I start adding them, and usually quickly retract my choice to load that sample -- but perhaps it's simply that I fear the ride. :\

(i'm glad you pulled it back up, hihats are still eating my f--ing lunch)

got an example ttilberg?

i'm right there with you guys. i made something last weekend that i'm really liking, but the hats aren't quite right.

it seems sample choice is critical...and tuning the sample

but tbh i still dont know shyte..hit and miss, mostly miss......

As a few examples, I'll just pop some Beatport links, because it's easy to find a variety.

Ride cymbal after the breakdown:
http://www.beatport.com/track/always-so ... ix/3313533

And the same:
http://www.beatport.com/track/bamboo-or ... ix/3242937

A more clubby example:
http://www.beatport.com/track/se7en-ori ... ix/3343314

During the breakdown, almost more just a standard open hat, but it is a little longer and a little lighter:
http://www.beatport.com/track/across-th ... ix/3333503

Basically, it sounds so simple to do, but in these tracks it sounds good and not intrusive. However any time I even get a ride sample ready to go, it's like WOAH PONY! YOU DON'T BELONG IN THIS HERE HOUSE!

I think I'm just shy about them when I try adding them -- except --

One day a friend told me not to fear the ride and crash. This is what came out of it for your lolicious pleasures: http://soundcloud.com/arsenal/follow-suit
I was going for the Justice / mstrkrft /ridiculously loud compressed hats lol
Skip the first minute if you play the track, it's horrible and mostly just cobbled together so I could mark it finished and move on to something else, and is not representative of the track in general lol.