Quick & Easy Series: Creating Hi-Hats in NI Massive

Welcome back to another installment of the Quick & Easy NI Massive Tutorial Series. This tutorial will show you just how easy it is to create a good sounding set of Hi-Hats in Massive, and it only takes a few seconds to make! In fact it is so easy to do, we only need one picture to show you everything

Every good beat needs a nice pair of hats to help bring it all together, and sometimes the best beats have the most subtle of changes. So we will take a look at adding some character and movement to the Hi-Hats as well, as we program a sequence in Performer. Make sure to try different curves in your projects, as well as different accents and LFO rates to crossfade between sequences. This is what really makes the sound work, and it only takes a moment to make your own unique signature rhythms. You can also try adjusting the Color of the Noise panel down to achieve different electro style Hi-Hats, and while doing so you will probably recognize many iconic sounds used over the years by countless recording artists and DJs.

As you can see in the image below, there are no osciallators used, except the Noise panel in the lower left corner of Massive. It is being controlled by a Performer, which is set up on the Modulator 5 tab. As well as creating a nice sequence within the Performer, I have also added a small touch of reverb on the FX1 tab. No changes were made to the 6LFO tab, which is controlling the crossfades on the Performer. So literally, what you see is what you get in this example!

To get the best sound, you should raise the Decay level all the way up on the 4Env tab, which is the main envelope in Massive by default. You may also want to consider adding some EQ to better focus your target frequencies and get a more true-to-life sound. And remember, that you can build every sound in your drum kits with Massive!

Cheers,
ΩhmLab