last evening I dissected the Digitakt factory patterns, here’s a neat trick I found that was used to make closed Hi-Hats sound less machine-like and more like a human drummer (if that is what you want).
Use the LFO with a random waveform to modulate the sample start point. The sample is then sometimes played from the very beginning and sometimes from a point close to the beginning (adjust the depth to taste). That introduces a lot of natural sounding variation into the sample each time it is played. No need for P-Locks and you can even play it live with the variation.
Here are the settings of the pattern’s LFO page (just as a guideline):
You can also use this technique to simulate timing fluctuation, if you use samples that have a little bit of silence before the drumhit. I tried to do this on my rytm and it only worked there with very short samples due to the 127 step granularity, but if the DT has a much finer samp start resolution, this should work wonderfully!
If you need the LFO for something else, just live record different start points/velocities/amp/delay send/overdrive/attack etc values. Of course you lose the randomness but still you get a more organic sound.
Yep! If you want to live record some of this and still have some “organic feel”, and have a non-syncopated hat track, you can offset your track length and remove a few steps. That’ll put the live record variations at different points in your sequence as your playback loops.
I use a mixture of p-locking between synthesis and sample to never get the same, LFO on volume, Swing… I also P-locking a bit of effects and overdrive as well. Don’t forget ghost note and retrig…
Trig conditions on top of that.
If you cant get something groovy with that tips… PLAY on REAL ACOUSTIC HATS
I think (from my point of view…) Using the LFO with a random waveform to modulate the sample start point
goes in the opposite to human feeling and gives mostly a weird feeling like the sample is sometimes in bit reduction or need to be repair with spectral plugins.
I think variations with x.sample + groove + slight playing errors is the key.
And to know how to getOUT PARTS and re-ENTER Parts is also humanizing … There’s nothing more boring that’s something playing from start to end.
To me… at least
Anyway thanks and continu to share things it’s very nice to do that between Nauts <3 share the LOVE
Maybe you’re doing it wrong? From the digitakt preset patterns open A6 (“Runner2000”) and mute everything but track 6 (Closed Hat). Now enter the LFO page for track 6 and turn the depth to 0 and compare it to the preset value of 5.08 - I think it’s very effective.
If I had a DT, which I don’t, I’d definitely not use a random waveshape for the samp start trick, triangle or sine or ramp would be much better for this. What you’re aiming for is the “push and pull” feel that a good drummer does with drums, it is not random. For best, as in funkiest results, strategic retriggering of the LFO at key steps would also intensify this effect/groove.
it’s just personal advise I guess personal taste take part also. But either way, if it sound good to you well nice personal trick … I just react and gives advises in the groove subject as I find the thread great. I encourage everyone to give their tricks on this thread… so people who search for terms “groove” “humanize” “hi-hats” will fall here and get good tips on the subject.
There’s a knob to control the randomization of timing on my Gotharman Fuzion for every track. It’s a bit sensitive, but I love it, and use just a touch of it on almost everything. I really wish Elektron would just adopt this feature. It’s sad to have to use your only LFO, and go though all that trouble to mimic it.
I’m not saying something useful might not come out of using a rand LFO shape, but personally, for me, for getting a push-pull feel, I wouldn’t use it. Of course anything goes in music if there’s no scope of what we’re aiming for.
