zambizzi
Platinum Member
Zildjian and Paiste make the best hi hats imo
Disagree. Tried many, liked very few.
Zildjian and Paiste make the best hi hats imo
Zambizzi, have you considered pairing a hat bottom with a crash cymbal? The biggest issue I've found with Sabian's hi hats lately is the top cymbals are just too heavy for my tastes.
I've had really good results with an HH Sound Control crash and AAX Studio crash as top cymbals. For me the thinner tops with a med-heavy or heavy bottom sound great and are pretty versatile.
FWIW, I've noticed the same thing. I played on a friends AAX Stage hats 10 years ago and absolutely loved them, so a couple years ago I bought (ordered online) my own pair. I only owned them for about a week before sending them back for just that reason. Then a couple months ago, I was playing on someone else's kit with AAX Stage hats that were very old looking and they were excellent - not too heavy, very responsive, felt good under stick and foot... I don't get what Sabian has done with their formulas.Yeah, I had the same complaint. When I first got into Sabian cymbals, I bought the Groove Hats. I thought they sounded excellent but they felt like crap under the sticks and hi-hat pedal...the top is manhole cover thick.
FWIW, I've noticed the same thing. I played on a friends AAX Stage hats 10 years ago and absolutely loved them, so a couple years ago I bought (ordered online) my own pair. I only owned them for about a week before sending them back for just that reason. Then a couple months ago, I was playing on someone else's kit with AAX Stage hats that were very old looking and they were excellent - not too heavy, very responsive, felt good under stick and foot... I don't get what Sabian has done with their formulas.
I listened to the recording and I think your hats are too dark and don't cut enough. Maybe some of it has to do with the recording, as the guitars seemed low in the mix as well. I use a Yamaha Pocketrak for practice recordings and it tends to overemphasize the highs. A good studio recording, or hearing them live, is the only way to know for sure. But those are my thoughts.
Ya think? From behind the kit, they're much, much too bright. What prompted me to find something else was some of the recordings I had been going over, where the hats are just too prominent. It's not volume necessarily, I can play them lightly...it's a question of tone. I played some Istanbul Mehmet hats w/ these guys (house kit) and they were much darker, yet still cutting. That struck me as a great sound, right away.
Now, the top is pretty thin on the AAX X-Celerators, which lends them to being a little "slushy" sometimes, and not as articulate and crisp as I'd like. Is that what you're hearing, maybe?
These hats don't sound dark to me, at all, but like you said - the recording doesn't tell the whole tale. This was recorded in a very bass-heavy, small room, using a Zoom H2 recorder.
I think the solution is to have someone else sit behind your kit during a practice and you listen - if someone can at least bang out something simple enough for you to get an idea. As you know, everything sounds much different behind the set and the only way to know for yourself is to hear for yourself.
some cool groovin' there man....
I agree, you need meatier sounding hats, darker with a hint of trash....
14 hhx/ hhx legacy
14 Meinl Byzance dark
14 Zildjian regular k's
14" K special Dry hats
Istanbul ....
Lot's of choices...BTW those aax's sound pretty good to me
a little too "pretty" if you know what I mean....needs more dirt...
Those istanbul