hi-hat tricks

[AlanK]

Hey everyone! Just curious if anyone else has every tried or thought of this. I was messing with my acoustic set's hi-hat a week or so ago, wanted to angle the bottom cymbal up a bit from the front. Then a few days later I was on my DM10X and thought I'd try the same thing there.

Spun the collar around 180deg, gave the thumb screw a couple turns to angle the front just ever so slightly up.. sometimes I get klutzy and my right stick ends up in between the hats as I'm playing, esp if my timing's a bit off doing some barking or something. Will attach a couple pics.

Here's what I found out.. now it could be my imagination, or a hope based placebo effect, could even have been the drugs, but I feel like I've improved my hi-hat experience! It "seems" like its a bit quieter (and I've got the good or at least slightly more rubbery crash as the top hat instead of the crap that came with the Pro-X hat). Secondly, I don't get my stick stuck in the gap as often. Thirdly, I seem to feel like the chicking / foot stomping works better (less air resistance from the two hats being flat).

Finally, it just feels like I'm getting better calibration. Now, I'm using Addictive Drums so things are a bit different in sound and feel for me anyways, but I swear I was getting much smoother gradations of openness and the response just seemed a good amount better than previously.

But again, it may have just been my personal bias from the excitement of the new setup, hoping it would improve things somehow.. in any case, it feels to me like it did improve my sound, the action, and my enjoyment all with just a few turns of the angle adjustment knob.

Hope some of you try it out and see if it does anything, and let me/us all know what you think. It could all be just my imagination...

[AlanK]

So nobody had a chance to read/weigh in on my revelation??   

lol oh well, I'm liking the new setup anyways.. seems better somehow.. probably a placebo effect

[orion32]

Hi Alan, I'm curious if you felt or noticed that in the "semi-open" position you got better results?

I'm also trying to picture how you got your stick caught in between the hats....LOL.

I sometimes get lazy and I'll catch the underside of the hat, never in between

[AlanK]

hi Orion, yes, I think I'm getting better response in the open/partly open phases, I don't know if it's the angle helping but it could quite be

the other thing I've been contemplating and working on, is just trying to work on my left foot.. because of electronics and the triggers, there's so little room for movement, ie. if you're playing with the hats slightly opened, you've got to be so so focused on keeping your foot at the exact same place (easier to do, for me, in heel down playing). As you're hitting the hats it's so easy for the motion of your body to make your foot rise up a bit or drop by a fraction, and I think the system picks that up so it gives a closed hat sound or a fully open sound if my foot moves. But if I can really try to hold my foot in place, I can get consistent partial open variations.. acoustic hi-hat playing is so much more forgiving with minor play (movement) in your foot position.. move a fraction up or down and it's hard to hear a difference but with the ekit you do

well, that's my theory and I'm stickin' to it but I think the slight angle on the hats helps with how it reacts, plus I really think it helps accentuate my chicks and barks as well

[orion32]

I'll have to give that a try when I can.  My hihat pro is in the band room and at home I just use the stock DM10 pedal/single HH.  I'm really not a big fan of the pro.

My problem is that I just started drumming less than 2 years ago and when I'm trying to work on getting different sounds out of the HH I can't tell if my technique is improving or not which is a bit frustrating

[orion32]

Hey, I thought of your last night while practicing.  I hooked up my Strike Pro to my practice DM10 kit at home to see how it responded and if I could get it to work, which I did but I laughed because in the middle of playing a song, the tip of my right stick got hung up between the hats and I had an OMG moment.

LOL.  I said to myself I have to tell Alan.

[AlanK]

holy shit no! hahahaha.. that's hilarious.. see? It happens!

haha.. I never had a chance to reply to the question of how does that even happen, but man, it does sometimes.. maybe it's the drugs.. lol

but the tip just sometimes manages to get jammed in between the hats..usually (maybe its just) bad timing when I am opening and/or closing the hats and not paying enough attention

used to happen a lot more when I'd try using brushes (on my acoustic set).. I know you generally stick to brushing along the snare, or using the ride, but I go to the hats sometimes trying to practice at night and keep things quiet, then the brushes get jammed in between the hats when I'm getting too loose.. oh the fun

[orion32]

I have a HH Pro and have NEVER had that happen.

I'm still trying to figure out how.

I think after my downstroke I must have continued down and on the upstroke it got jammed in there.

Now if I posed that somewhere other than a drum forum I would have probably gotten some interesting replies

[Iggford]

I'm horrible for popping the underside of a cymbal, sending the stick flying in some instances, but so far, never between the hats.

Although, after reading this thread, I've been a bit weary of the possibility, LOL!  If it's a possibility, it WILL happen to me at some point!


--
Shawn

[AlanK]

Orion, I'm laughing out loud after reading your comment about upstrokes, downstrokes and so on. LOL and Shawn, yes, I do that all the time.. esp cuz I play on 5 different drumsets, 3 of which aren't mine and tend to get re-oriented by the owner or their kids, then when I get on them, I have to adjust things.. often I'm just so unused to where their cymbals are that I'll catch myself underneath them and yes, my sticks tend to go b-doink and fly off towards the bass player!

And maybe it's an age thing, I never used to catch a tip inside my hi-hats but I've got some carpal tunnel and I'm just a bit spazoid (oops, sorry if that "offended" anyone, can I say spazoid in here?? hahaha).. my solo career band name will be Sticks-A-Flyin'

[orion32]

Now that you mention that.......it is pretty funny.  I should have ended with a "That's What She Said".........LMAO

Well its good to know I'm not the only one sticks go flyin' all over the place.

A few times in practice I did that and we are in a tight room.  The guitar player always laughs.

Funny story.  We are playing outdoor at a local winery that just opened this year....... we know the owners and they wanted us to play on a Sat afternoon.

Well at the end of the second set it started to rain.  We were under a tent but there was one power strip right at the edge of the tent.  So as I'm playing I'm watching and the rain started to come down the edge of the tent near this big strip that had my module, the keyboard, the base players amp one of the main speakers.  So I'm looking over ever few seconds and just praying for the song to end so I can pull that strip under the tent.  So now I'm barely paying attention to the song and somehow I think my right stick got under my left and when the right stick came up, the left stick popped out of my hand and was spinning right in front of me.

I wish I had this on video but it was right there........ and I tried to grab it twice as it was spinning.  It was like it was in slo-mo.  In my mind I picture it looking hysterical but it probably wasn't all that funny.

The stick hit the snare and bounced away......I think I was still trying to grab it.....LOL.......Then I just realized to grab another stick.

[DebraN]

I've been using the original hihat cymbal for a while now just added a few layers of plastic cardboard to fill in the gap. I just finished designing a 3d printed insert.

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4414170

[AlanK]

Hi Debra, this is interesting, can you explain more about what you've done, what those inserts do? When I first got the Pro X upgrade and found the top hat so loud, I also tried a few tricks likek sticking some foam bits in a few places under the rim to soften the blows.. nothing stuck for longer than a session or two, and eventually I took somehow here's advice and put on one of the better cymbals for the top and it's better.. still enough ambient noise to drive me nuts but better. With your example and renewed inspiration I may have another go at making mine even better 

[DebraN]

The original hihat cymbal has about a 10mm raised area around the front. these pieces fill in the other area making a flat surface all the way around, so the three contact points on the lower cymbal will work correctly. I don't understand why they put such cheap pad on the cymbal. not sure it lasted 15 minutes before I had it disconnected and started figuring out how to use original one. 30 minutes later I came up with up with what you see in the picture. only meant for it to be temporary, that was 18 months ago.

[DebraN]

one thing I forgot to say, this is for a DM10 kit 12" hihat. not sure if the other kits use the same cymbal or not.