Yup, can't agree more with you, iCe and Shawn.. I learned early on to keep time and add that chick sound with the hats when riding, or in soloing, or even in some standard rolls. Actually to the point where sometimes I have to consciously tell myself to take my damn foot off the hi-hat because it becomes so instinctive to use it all the time. But it adds that extra accent, that accompaniment.. kinda seems like a tambourine going with your snare hits. Try doing two chicks on the hats, one with your snare hit and one after, it's awkward at first but I was experimenting with trying to have the hats really stand out in my ride timing and this way you and/or your audience really picks it up.
Then it gets fun and interesting to vary things if you can spend 10 or 20 minutes practicing on the ride patterns.. you can add hi-hat chicks softly, or stomp it, or try barking it or splashing it... it's super hard at times to do with electronic but if you go at it for a long time in one sitting you can really find some amazing nuances. Also, many of us have been compaining in here about the Alesis hi-hat functionality (with good reason).. I've got the Pro X setup, with the shitty loud top cymbal and the not so perfect open increments. But over the last couple years I've really dug into why I've had difficulties and by spending say an hour straight on testing out my style in practices here and there, I've started to come to some conclusions that part of the problem is adjusting our method in coming from acoustic (which is way more forgiving) to ekits.. if I want to play partly opened rocking out, I find that with every hit it gives a slightly more closed sound and I really had to focus on making sure that when I'd land the stick on the edge of the hat that I'd concentrate on not letting my foot drop the slightest, it's almost automatic it seems.. like blinking if you tap your face.. as well, I often make the mistake of resting my left forearm on my leg in between snare hits, or it comes down and hits my thigh, which adds pressure on the hi-hat foot. So when I'd really try to change these habits, my partly open hi-hats came through much better. And of course, there's just the demanding need to really pivot your left heel well at the base of the pedal and maintain the same height of your upper foot. And that's not easy on electric.
I feel like there's a trade off.. we want our hi-hat to be super sensitive, allow multiple voicings depending on the spring/where the mechanism senses the height of the top hat, but then it picks up such slight movements in your foot or leg. On an acoustic hat setup you can have your foot resting on the pedal and if it moves a bit it's still harder for the ear to pick up the differences in open/closed widths but the module I'm sure brings out those. So I'm working on it constantly and have had some decent results but it takes hours of practice and its still not perfect. I know other brands do better jobs, that's for sure, but I'm just saying that at times it's ourselves and how we place our feet.. to get a good bark I often have to bring my foot up higher on the pedal so that none of it's on the heel rest.. but to get some fine tuned openeness, it's too shakey to have your foot up high so I bring it back farther down. Then, of course, I get on the acoustic set and I have to retrain myself, lol.. there's that slight difference in when you can begin to open the hats to bark it that is just off enough between electric and acoustic that makes it hard to switch from one to the other!
Now my focus is working on the transition from playing on the hats and then getting into a fill and moving my left foot over to the double kick pedal, and getting back onto the hat stant when I'm done. Takes a lot of practice to get that smooth.. and I still end up splashing the hats since the pedals are so close.. on the other hand, it sounds really cool at times.. sometimes those subtle mistakes end up adding some pizzaz and you weren't expecting it. Also, I'd like to get good at working the double kick pedals as well as having my heel or part of my foot on the hat pedal to give it that added ka-ching!
Damn ain't drumming just the funnest thing in the world?!? What therapy! Rock on boys!