Hype up your Hip-Hop Hi-Hats in Reason

In some of the recent Hip-Hop tracks I've heard, specifically Waka Flocka Flame, I've been seriously impressed with the hi-hat programming that has been taking place. Instead of regular 8 beats, and 16 beats within the hi-hats, with the occasional 32nd note shuffle, they have added really cool inclusions of 64th note bursts rolling through a very tight beat.

I've decided to give a little instruction within this tutorial on how you might, if you're interested, add some of the intricate hi-hat bursts with very little effort. I'll be using Reason, but the same principals apply to all other DAWs. Let's check it out!

Step 1

Turn the tempo down to about 66 BPM, or simply double the tempo to 132. I'm going to go with 66, just to give myself some extra wiggle room.

Step 2

In ReDrum, load up Hip-Hop Kit Number 3

Step 3

Draw in this beat for your kick, sub-bass, and snare.

Step 4

Zoom in close and draw 8 hi-hat hits, as shown below, from 1 to 1.3. Then drag select all of the hi-hat hits.

Step 5

Change your Snap Settings to 1/64

Step 6

With all the hi-hat beats selected, drag the thumbnails over so that all of the hi-hat beats are 64th notes in length.

Step 7

Hold down the Option key and drag the last two beats over 4 times, creating four repetitions of each beat, and 8 additional notes.

Step 8

Now select all the hi-hat hits again!

Step 9

In the velocity area, draw a straight line in the lower regions of velocity like this for the first 7 hits. To do this without affecting the other drum hits, hold down Shift+Option+Command and draw. It should look like the image below.

Step 10

Now, for our 64th note burst, draw a diagonal line going from down to up, so that the burst goes from soft to loud.

And there you have it, a very easily created 64th note burst that glides in and adds some depth and coolness to your hip-hop beat. It should sounds like this in the end:

And, if you play around, and copy little snippets here and there, it can sound like this...

Oh, and for best effect, and to re-create the previous hi-hat sound. Replace the hi-hat sound with: Hh2_Nextstep.wav.

Enjoy!

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