The forgotten- hihat cup felts, do we take them for granted?

V

veggo32

Silver Member
Today I went to my local music store and purchase hihat cup felts (Gibraltar) I've had my stock tama roadpro bottom felts on there since new (about 4yrs) they had softened up quite a bit and were muffling my hihats a little bit, so I believed until I put the new firm bottom felts on my stand. Wow what a difference my hats opened up considerably more than I thought they would. They are brighter more sensitive and just delicious sounding now. They are 13" A custom mastersound hihats by the way.
I highly recommend switching out your bottom felts, 3bucks for 2 yes you get a spare one or in my case (aux hats) I used them both.
This post is just to remind everyone that we play a complicated instrument with many many parts and even something as small as hihat bottom felts/hihat cup felts can maximize ones sound for little money.
Moral of the story don't take your hihat cup felts for granted.

If you have any similar experiences pls share!
 
Yeah, I ditched mine completely. My bottom hat sits on hard plastic completely unmuffled. It doesn't harm the cymbal and the cymbal is plenty stable. I use a Roadpro stand too, btw.
 
I forgot to mention I also prefer hihat clutch felts on all my cymbal stands where feasible..opens up my crashes and splashes nicely..
 
It's surprising how many different kinds of felts there are. This is not something that drummers discuss avidly in the bar but I do think the felt affects the sound you get.

Some are large, 2 inches or more across. Others are pretty small.
The felt varies quite a lot too. Some felt is hard, some soft and obviously there is in between.
I bought a large bag of assorted cymbal felts on EBay some time ago and I have been experimenting. You don't really know what sound you are going to get so you have to keep trying different ones.
 
I use mapex rubber felts, they are made of rubber obviously, and they very small and curved on top, so they don't muffle the cymbals and also allow them to move more frely.
 
veggo32 said:
Today I went to my local music store and purchase hihat cup felts (Gibraltar) I've had my stock tama roadpro bottom felts on there since new (about 4yrs) they had softened up quite a bit and were muffling my hihats a little bit, so I believed until I put the new firm bottom felts on my stand. Wow what a difference my hats opened up considerably more than I thought they would. They are brighter more sensitive and just delicious sounding now. They are 13" A custom mastersound hihats by the way.
I highly recommend switching out your bottom felts, 3bucks for 2 yes you get a spare one or in my case (aux hats) I used them both.
This post is just to remind everyone that we play a complicated instrument with many many parts and even something as small as hihat bottom felts/hihat cup felts can maximize ones sound for little money.
Moral of the story don't take your hihat cup felts for granted.

If you have any similar experiences pls share!
Click to expand...

I like this post & thread - good thought provoker... Thanks!
 
ambientgreg said:
I forgot to mention I also prefer hihat clutch felts on all my cymbal stands where feasible..opens up my crashes and splashes nicely..
Click to expand...

Wow thanks for this, I just replaced my bottom felts for two cymbals: 8" Zildjian K splash and
16" Zildjian K custom fast crash. I was strongly considering selling the fast crash because it was not explosive enough but when I replaced the bottom felt and removed the extra top felts and let the cymbal just sway on the stand freely it totally changed the dynamics of the cymbal.
It's like a new cymbal it explodes now and much more open sounding. I will be damned if I sell it now, this ones a keeper. thanks again.
 
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