@Fin25
Youre def overthinking this. If 909 hats are your thing, people listen to it, and it keep you going, do it with no apology or remorse.
What if EVH said “I think this tone is keeping me from opening my eyes…let’s get a new amp/guitar”…
(Well…he did and I guess that’s how we ended up with 5150)
Far from criticizing anyone but the thing why I enjoy electronic music is its inherent (for me) lack of long term historic traditions that could weight down and slow down the genre and the total freedom to use whatever sound you feel fits in the frequency spectrum and overall tone of the piece. I appreciate the historical resonance of some sounds but in very small dosis. But why even having hit hats on your music at all?
But I’m not a very nostalgic person to be honest with you.
There’s a fabulous interview with @Ess somewhere on YouTube (can’t remember in which video) where he refers to machines such as 808, 909 and 303 as ‘the folk instruments’ of electronic music. If I remember correctly he suggests that, because these instruments were used some much over a long period of time, the sounds and instruments are instantly recognisable and creates a sense of familiarity for both the musician and listener.
As a folk musician I totally get this. There are certain instruments that people just keep returning to like guitar and violin. These instruments and sounds have a quality that means they have been used in a wide spectrum of genres of music from around the world for centuries and are recognisable to (I’d imagine) a large proportion of the worlds populations.
So there’s a good reason why you like your hats and why they have been used so much. Not because they are cliched or hackneyed but because these sounds help to ground you and the listener in your music. This 909 hat must have a quality that is very special/clever/magical because many people in this forum (and electronic musicians in general) still like to use it in 2022. Which is pretty amazing considering how people here like to push the envelope when is comes to sound design.
I’ve paraphrased @Ess here to some degree. It would be a joy if he could chime in to clarify and add to the above.
No photos allowed in the church. 
As for 909 hats… In all my clubbing years, the 909 hats are the only ones who can make a crowd scream like there is no tomorrow when they drop at the right moment. They just work.
Maybe. But if that was true of me, I wouldn’t be here and using synths and sequencers.
The will is there. I just need to plan, save, get the time off from parenting and work agreed, line up friends to go with, buy a load of black clothes, develop my best “slightly edgy but not an asshat” face so Sven will let me in.
I can’t stand any of the music I listened to before my thirties. It makes me nauseous. I think it has something to do with being so all in on music, making it into my identity and stuff like that. Going back and listening to it now feels like digging for lost friends and childhood class mates on Facebook. Just dank and unpleasant. I generally can’t stand nostalgia and love throwing away stuff I don’t use though.
If it’s any consolation: I tried to remake the Amen Break on the ST.
I probably do actually. I try to catch that kind of sounds with most gear I have.
Not sure what it is for me, cause it can’t be much nostalgia. I started listening to electronic music in 2012.
Ok a lot of artist I listen to used old Roland stuff…
But another important point is, they just sounded incredible and nailed a certain sweetspot. Undeniably…
Perhaps it’s not the power of nostalgia but just a product of evolution that just works and doesn’t need change. There are a lot of instruments that have come in different variations of the same original concept. Perhaps we have to admit Roland nailed it in the day. The clouds in the sky will always be clouds although they appear in many forms and that’s fine imo.
Please share!
See, progress can be made.
Here’s how to get in comfortably:
there’s no way it’s only 488.
The question I would ask myself is not, for whom you are making the music, but why are you making music and would forcing you to do something, you obviously don’t like that much, would help you express yourself better. Does using a HH-Sound you don’t like that much, makes your song better? If that topic is worth enough to start a thread about it, I would say: No. I don’t think, that there will be people in the audience, who think: Oh damn, that piece of music would be sooo good, if he had used something else for the HH than the 909 sample he used. I would go that far, that 99% of the people listening to music don’t know what 909 means. On the other side: it might be the other way around. Because I think that using something you are not happy with, knowing that it could be better, but you just decided to not make it better, won’t help you with that “free mind” you might need to express yourself the way you want to.
Exactly
I have occasionally had this thought (even though I love all 909 sounds)
If you really want to be 14 again, you can. Remember how impressionable you were back then? Just become really easily inspired by everything again. Naive? You betcha! 