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Snare and hats setup


pogo97

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Hi, I'm not a drummer, I'm a piano player mostly. I've had a snare for about ten years and play it almost exclusively with brushes. Today I bought some hats (vintage UFIPs). I've set them up by my left foot with the snare between my knees and angled away from me, with the hats a little under an inch apart and maybe two inches higher than the snare.

 

any fine-tuning tips?

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that's where I am now, and I promise to learn from what works

 

and something that usually works is to ask people who know

 

To know the road ahead, ask those coming back. Chinese Proverb

 

Okay, here are some specific questions.

 

how do I set up to get a nice chick sound

should I get a rug to keep it from drifting?

how far apart should I put them -- pros and cons

they have lots of patina -- should I polish them?

 

stuff like that

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The stand should be placed where you can comfortably put your entire foot on the pedal. A lot of hat work involves subtle modulation of pressure on closed cymbals and good leverage is crucial here.. There are also several heel techniques that eventually come into play and actual foot / pedal alignment will change as you get comfortable with the figures you play. Carpet and usually spurs are a requirement.

 

I find chick is a function of cymbal types and pairing. Generally heavy bottom and medium or lighter top usually works best for modern cutting sounds.

 

Vintage, equal top and bottom produce less invasive, swishy sounds. A slight tilt on the bottom cymbal will reduce the air pocket effect.

 

I've found the rubber grommets provided by Mapex and Tama to be superior to felt washers. They allow firmer top cymbal grip than felt without choking and consistent orientation = consistent chick tone.

 

Unless you start with new cymbals and obsess over them eternally, there's nothing you can do about patina. Grime however will kill tone directly and also by gumming up your stick tips so I clean with Windex.

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Pogo97: You are wise to be asking all the correct questions of a new grasshopper.

1001gear has provided you with great information.

 

The answer truly is that there is no right or wrong. What works for you and what sounds best to your audience is what is correct.

 

I tend to keep the hihats where the bottom is tilted ever so slightly and almost always touching on one side of the top cymbal's bottom.

I don't leave a lot of gap but that is just my preference.

 

You might clean those cymbals with some soap and water, and 1001gear is right, grime can built up and affect tone, but there are companies still today that bury cymbals to achieve the look and sound that years of character have provided to you on these cymbals. I would leave them and see how they sound to you. If you feel you need them brighter, then clean them.

 

Hope that helps.

 

D

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Set up how is most comfortable. You'll want your seat height to where your knee generally forms a nice right-angle when your heel is on the back of the plate and adjust from there. This is probably an inch or two higher than your piano seat, depending on how tall you are. Unlike your past experience with lifting your toes from your heel to play the piano pedal, this tends (at least for me) to lead to muscle fatigue quicker when playing the hi-hat. Most of my hat work comes from bouncing off the balls of the sole (the muscles just behind the toes) with my heel off the ground (heel-up) and controlling the landing. You can certainly use controlled "pedal action" technique when you're playing slow and controlled (eg. I'll do this when I'm only reinforcing the snare hits), but once you get into a groove you may find heel-up easier. Also, if you do heel-up off the bottom-middle of the plate rather than the top, you can easily turn quarter notes into eights without adding effort.

 

For me, rug and claw is best and most comfortable.

 

All of my cymbals have a patina on them. For brush work, you'll probably find this a more pleasant tone. Otherwise, it really depends on what you're going for. Polished cymbals are simply brighter. If you need your cymbals to cut through a mix, such as in a rock, pop, metal context, you'll probably want those higher frequencies. Patinad cymbals are a touch darker and silkier. This is more obvious on un-choked cymbals.

 

As for distance between the hats, it varies completely depending on what you're doing. I am constantly adjusting mine, anywhere from just-touching to about 1/2" apart. I usually want them spaced wider for playing foot-splashes or if I'm using a tambourine/jingle ring attachment.

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Thanks for all the suggestions. I took snare and hats to a weekly jam on Thursday (I normally play piano or guitar) and did quite well while learning a lot. Someday maybe I'll have a real big setup like this:

 

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You Wrote:

how do I set up to get a nice chick sound? With pedal only: space the cymbals about a half-inch apart, enough that the top cymbal separates from the bottom cymbal but not so much that the top cymbal has to move a lot to close. Underneath the bell of the bottom cymbal on the hi hat stand should be a tilt screw, rotate the stand tube (loosen and tighten the screw that allows you to raise and lower the hats to do this.) move the tilt screw to where it's on the opposite side of the stand from you. You then want to tighten the tilt screw to where the bottom cymbal is "very slightly" tilted toward where you are. You want to make it where the cymbal edges are within a millimeter of each other apart on the tilted up side and a few more millimeters apart on the edge close to you. You DO NOT want the top and bottom cymbals to match up perfectly, this causes "vapor lock". Too much air gets between the cymbals on the inside and is only a tiny area along the edge that makes it hard to get a sound from the cymbals. You want the cymbals to be just a hair to a millimeter off from lining up perfectly when closed, hence is why the tilt. Then you want to "tap" with the pedal of the high hat foot with your toes and quickly hold the pedal closed LOOSELY to get the "CHICK" sound from the the cymbals slightly rubbing together as they close. Closing with your foot too tightly will choke the cymbals and sound.

 

With a stick: Set up the stand cymbals that same way as above and hold the high hat pedal closed "snugly" but NOT super hard. Then play with the tip of the stick near the edge BUT STILL PLAYING ON TOP of the cymbal!! Do not play on the edges of the cymbal!! This a newbie mistake, (I made it too at first). You don't want to be playing on the edges of the cymbals!! THis chews up sticks and puts stress on the cymbals at it's weakest part. You can get the same sloshy sounds playing ON TOP of the top cymbal NEAR the edge with the high hat pedal just slightly closed as you're playing. If need be, you can play the top cymbal with more of the shoulder of the stick (Where the stick starts to taper to the tip) but keep it on top of the hats. Hope this helps.

 

Like said before, medium to heavier cymbals work best for a good chick sound, at least as long the bottom cymbal is medium to heavy high hat cymbals. Some light duty hats or stage hats may be lighter and harder to achieve a hard chick sound? Also I would clean the cymbals some, too much patina can limit the full sound of a cymbal if it's really super dirty, but some patina is good as long as the cymbal isn't too dampened by it.

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Thank you twosticks!! This is about three months worth of learning on one page and I'll be working through it over the next while. Meanwhile, I'm also learning to play the pipe organ (which includes ongoing funeral gigs for very acceptable money) including the completely-new-to-me pedals, so my feet will be having a busy summer.

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It's quite a rig. But you can bet they made great music on it.

 

Is the drummer sitting on a wicker stool? And who IS that drummer? The guy in the middle is Sonny Boy Williamson. But I've never seen the other two identified.

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