Personally, I don’t like how straight and robotic this beat sounds. I have some triplets and a tasty roll at the end of my beat, that’s great but there’s something missing. Here’s what my beat sounds like with a roll. You can visualize my crescendo with the red volume markers that control the level of each beat. This crescendo does a nice job of ramping up my roll towards beat one of my loop which should be emphasized to drive the pulse along. To make the beat more rhythmic and less of an assault on my ears I added a small crescendo over the roll. To make the beat more rhythmic and less of an assault on my ears I added a small crescendo in volume over the roll. Making sure that my DAW editor’s grid is now in an even shorter 32nd triplet note grid let’s add a roll line and fill in the last full quarter note section of my beat. In this beat, I’ll use a roll to emphasize the starting note (beat one) of my drum loop by adding a roll at the very end. Of course, there are many ways to use rolls to accentuate different beats! But if you listen carefully you can hear what beats the producer is trying to accentuate with a roll. To some, trap hi-hats may sound random and sporadic. The key to getting rolls right is putting them in rhythmically appropriate places where they complement the pulse of the beat. One of the most innovative aspects of trap music today is the rolling hi-hats you hear in trap sub-genres like drill and footwork. With the new triplets, here’s what my beat sounds like now:Ĭool, we have a sweet little triplet pattern. In this case, I am using a sixteenth note triplet grid, denoted by 1/16T marker in the bottom right. To make triplets in your DAW editor make sure you’ve entered the triplet grid. Notice those shorter groups of three? Those are triplets! Here’s what that duple feel sounds and looks like in a DAW editor. Today’s trap music takes that duple feel and upends it by adding triplets into the rhythm. It makes sense since a lot of hip hop samples came from genres which mainly focussed on duple feel and syncopation in sixteenth notes. Most hip hop music in the ’90s and early 2000s, with a few exceptions, focus on that one-two duplet feel. To learn how trap hats work it helps to have a basic foundation in rhythmic music theory.īut as a very basic crash course, triplets are groups of notes that are felt in threes instead of twos.Īs a very basic crash course, triplets are groups of notes that are felt in threes instead of twos. When you master the four basic concepts of trap hats– triplets, rolls, pitch and swing you’ll have the ingredients you need to make hard-hitting and unique trap hats for your beats. Pitch automation is used to shift the tone of a track’s hi-hats up or down, they’re most often used to accentuate rolls. Swing is used in trap hats to take those parts of a beat that are written in duples (ONE-two feel) and make them fit within the context of a triplet feel. Putting a roll in the right place can help to accentuate the beat and create interesting and complex rhythms. Rolls take the triplet idea but increase their speed by doubling or tripling their note value. It’s what gives trap hats those interesting off-kilter rhythmic qualities. Triplets upend the beat by adding an extra note to create rhythmic phrases that are felt in threes instead of twos. Trap hats use four rhythmic ideas you won’t find very much in old school hip hop– triplets, rolls, pitch and swing. Specifically, it’s their use of four rhythmic ideas you won’t find very much in old school hip hop– triplets, rolls, pitch and swing. The dividing line that separates trap hi-hats from hip hop hi-hats, is their level of complexity. Trap hat basics– triplets, rolls, pitch and swing
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