How To Stop The Bwinnng / Warp From Pushing The Hat Pedal Too Hard

unfunkyfooted

Silver Member
you know how when you apply more pressure to the hi-hat pedal it kind of changes the sound / pitch ?

my Meinl HCS hats sound pretty good, but the warp (as i call it) is unbearable as there is a very narrow range of slightly opening the hat where i get a good chick, but it´s hard to hold it there.

is there any way to stop that ? when my adrenaline is high, i get excited and just about every hit sounds different because of my bouncing foot.

i have considered muffling the bell some kind of way or drilling hole(s) in the bell. i never use the bell (and hate bell work in general. i also hate rim play, but that´s a different thread). : )

of course one day i will buy a better cymbal, but that is far down on the list of Things I Need In Life.

is there a way to make my hats more forgiving of a inconsistent bouncing foot ?

thanks.
 
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One way to change your sound is to change your playing. Sometimes a trick will work right away, sometimes it takes a lot of practice. Try a few of theses ideas:

Rest the ball of your foot further back on the pedal. Try playing in the center of the pedal. Also, try forcing yourself to play heel-down if you normally don't, just to see how it affects your playing.

You mentioned adrenaline taking over. In any situation like that (whether it's performing, or combat, etc.) Practicing what you will do and building up muscle memory is the way to get the result you want.
 
One way to change your sound is to change your playing. Sometimes a trick will work right away, sometimes it takes a lot of practice. Try a few of theses ideas:

Rest the ball of your foot further back on the pedal. Try playing in the center of the pedal. Also, try forcing yourself to play heel-down if you normally don't, just to see how it affects your playing.

You mentioned adrenaline taking over. In any situation like that (whether it's performing, or combat, etc.) Practicing what you will do and building up muscle memory is the way to get the result you want.

thanks.

yes, i does help to keep my foot in the middle of the pedal, but i find it hard to keep it there with so many other limbs requiring my attention. heel down is very difficult for me, but i´ll give it a try.

there´s no way of altering the cymbal to achieve said purpose ?
 
Altering cymbals in any significant way beyond muffling or adding rivets is not really practical (unless you also happen to be an experienced cymbal smith). It is possible that these just aren't the hats for you and you may need to look at something else. Generally speaking, buying different cymbals is the way you "fix" cymbals.

However, before you do anything that drastic, I would suggest recording yourself to see how much this is a case of you noticing something that nobody else will ever hear. I went through a phase where I tried lots of alternate hats with waffles or holes in them in order to reduce the effect you mention, only to find that I couldn't actually hear the effect on recordings unless I literally soloed the hat track and really focused on them. Once I realized this, I went back to traditional hats, which I think sound better.
 
Maybe you can try playing the way I do. It's not "correct", but who's to say what is and isn't? I play with my heal on the ground and about 1/3 to a half of my foot on the pedal. I've done that since i started playing when i was 13, I think it's because of my bad knee. I've always felt like Ive had pretty good control over the pressure of my hats.
 
I've found this irritating as well since returning to drumming a few years ago. I often find myself correcting my foot pressure in the first bar when riding the hats.

Yet, as Brundlefly said, I never heard it on recordings. There are tons of little annoyances that get lost in the wash for anyone not virtually sitting right on top of the kit. Recently I was being driven mad by a rattle when playing mallets on a cymbal. Our bass player, just a metre or so away, couldn't hear it.

Still, if I can, I try to clean these things up to increase my own enjoyment. Notwithstanding the other replies that I haven't tried, all I do is attend to the issue when it occurs, accepting that nothing I do is perfect anyway. If you don't have neighbour / noise issues then spending some quality time with the hats, experimenting with tones and pressure, would no doubt help ... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8syiOwwVyY
 
If it's just a matter of pressing down on the pedal with too much force then, well, simply don't press down on the pedal with too much force.

You need to be relaxed when you play.
 
thank you all for your replies. problem solved.

the problem was......[drum roll]....that i moved my kit pieces closer together. i was told that my drum pieces were spread to far apart - kinda in an arc rather than a square. in doing so, the hat moved closer to me...thus impacting where my foot landed on it ---too close to the top rather than the center of the pedal.

fine tuning a kit involves more than just tuning the heads. placement matters too. i moved the hats farther away from me and ALL things considered, it works better for me. so much to learn. such good advice.

i too wondered how audible it was to others not sitting behind the kit. i have not gotten around to recording that particular phenomenon yet, but your advice(s) are good enough for me to think it´s not that noticeable to others.

@ Brundlefly: how would one muffle the hi-hat, just for future reference ?

@ Auntie Grea: Max is MEAN ain´t he ? :)

the meanest drummer i know is bringing over some 13¨ K´s for me to try. he emphasised TRY. that means he´ll be taking them home with him. : ) i am thankful for good friends.

GOD BLESS US, Everyone.

i thank you ALL.

thanks so much.
 
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