Tags: posts polarity-music Bitwig Sound-Design Tutorial Bitwig-5.2b12

808 Hi-Hat Synthesis in Bitwig with Subtractive Synths

Tutorial | Jul 19, 2024

In this video, I show you how to easily synthesize hi-hats using a normal subjective synthesizer like Polymer in Bitwig. By adjusting settings like detuning, unison, and adding noise, you can create a metallic sound with different velocity and filter expressions. To avoid CPU spikes, it is recommended to sample the hi-hats and use them in your project.

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In this video, I show how to synthesize hi-hats in Bitwig using two methods: one with The Grid and another with a simpler approach using Polymer. Here’s a quick overview of both methods and some tips on optimizing your CPU usage.

Summary of Methods:

Method 1: The Grid

Method 2: Polymer Synthesizer

Key Points:

I hope these tips help you in your music production. Remember to sample and bounce stems to optimize your CPU usage. If you have any questions or need further clarification, feel free to ask!

Questions & Answers

Maybe you dont watch the video, here are some important takeaways:

How can I synthesize hi-hats in Bitwig?

To synthesize hi-hats in Bitwig, you can use either the grid or a normal subjective synthesizer like Polymer. In both cases, you can use detuned oscillators, filters, and noise to create a metallic sound. You can also manipulate the settings using velocity and modulation to add expression to the hi-hats.

What are some additional techniques for enhancing hi-hat sounds?

To enhance hi-hat sounds, you can use distortion on the master or output, voice stacking with spread modulation, and high-pass filters. You can also experiment with detuning the oscillators or using different filter settings to create a stereo effect. Adding effects like convolution reverb can also make the hi-hats sound more realistic.

How can I improve CPU performance when generating hi-hats?

To improve CPU performance when generating hi-hats, it is recommended to sample the hi-hats and bounce them out as stems. This way, you can use the samples in your tracks without wasting CPU power on generating the hi-hats in real-time. This is particularly helpful if you experience CPU spikes or if you have a large number of voices and voice stacks.

What are some ways to use the synthesized hi-hats?

Once you have synthesized the hi-hats, you can use them in your tracks or songs by incorporating them into your drum patterns. You can experiment with different settings, filters, and effects to create a variety of hi-hat sounds. Additionally, you can combine the synthesized hi-hats with other drum sounds and effects to create unique rhythms and textures.

Transcription

This is what im talking about in this video. The text is transcribed by AI, so it might not be perfect. If you find any mistakes, please let me know.
You can also click on the timestamps to jump to the right part of the video, which should be helpful.

[00:00:00] Hey folks, welcome back to another video on this hot Friday in Germany.
[00:00:05] And a few videos ago I showed you how to synthesize eight or eight hi-hats inside of the grid
[00:00:11] here with this patch.
[00:00:13] This is how it sounds like.
[00:00:17] So I'm using here a few detuned pulse oscillators going into two filters and then a global filter.
[00:00:24] And you can synthesize this pretty easily inside of the grid here and it sounds pretty
[00:00:29] legit in my opinion.
[00:00:32] But there is an easier way.
[00:00:33] So instead of using the fully grid here, we can also use just a normal subjective synthesizer
[00:00:42] like this polymer here.
[00:00:45] And with this inside of the FX box here, you're going to use a peak limiter just to make sure.
[00:00:52] And an EQ plus.
[00:00:55] That's what we need.
[00:00:56] Okay, so inside of the wavetable oscillator, we use here the detuning or the unison settings.
[00:01:03] We use 16 voices and we use fat and we detune it all the way up, right?
[00:01:08] And then we open up the filter here so we can hear all the frequencies and this is how
[00:01:12] it sounds like.
[00:01:15] Okay.
[00:01:19] And then we bring up here this ratio setting.
[00:01:25] And then we get kind of a metallic sound already.
[00:01:29] All we need to do now is to bring in here a bit of noise.
[00:01:35] Something like this.
[00:01:37] And then inside of the note clip, we have different velocity settings here.
[00:01:42] So we can react to the velocity here with the expression modulators.
[00:01:45] We take velocity and let's say open up the decay setting or the release setting here a
[00:01:51] bit more.
[00:01:52] Something like this.
[00:01:56] We use an high pass filter here and we change the frequency with velocity.
[00:02:10] Something like this.
[00:02:11] And then we can tweak here this with the ratio setting.
[00:02:19] And maybe we use this second envelope here for the noise.
[00:02:27] Okay.
[00:02:31] So now that we have this, we can maybe use distortion here on the on the master or on
[00:02:37] the output.
[00:02:40] We can also use voice stacking.
[00:02:41] So instead of just zero voices or 16 unison voices, we add additional five voices.
[00:02:49] So each voice stack uses now 16 unison voices and we use a stack spread modulator.
[00:02:57] Let's say minus one to plus one.
[00:03:00] And then we do tune everything here with the pitch.
[00:03:10] Playing along those lines and then maybe a high pass here additionally.
[00:03:21] Maybe more voices.
[00:03:22] Let's say seven or eight.
[00:03:27] Yeah, I think this sounds okay.
[00:03:34] Then we can cut everything here.
[00:03:37] Maybe bring in some weird places.
[00:03:41] Dissonant places here where we cue stuff in.
[00:03:58] So yeah, and then you can tweak it here to a liking.
[00:04:01] Make basically all kinds of different hi-hats that sound in a metallic or in this direction.
[00:04:07] Everything you change in here changes the sound, obviously.
[00:04:17] Oh yeah, we can also detune it to the left and the right oscillator differently.
[00:04:26] So it's more a bit more stereo.
[00:04:29] You can also use it a voice stack or the spread modulator for this.
[00:04:35] So it's different on each voice stack.
[00:04:43] I think this sounds okay.
[00:04:48] Maybe here high pass, high cut eight.
[00:04:57] And in my opinion, this is probably better to sample this later on in the project because
[00:05:02] for me, I got a lot of CPU spikes here.
[00:05:07] And that's because of the voice stacking.
[00:05:09] So when I go up here to 16, you can see it's really problematic then.
[00:05:15] I don't know if this is a bug or that's maybe the combination of my CPU and Bitwig.
[00:05:21] I don't know.
[00:05:22] Maybe there are too many, just too many voices because it's 16 voice stacks, which 16 voices
[00:05:28] each.
[00:05:29] I don't know.
[00:05:30] So it could be everything, but when I bring this down here to eight, it's completely fine.
[00:05:35] But you can still see it's a lot of CPU wasted basically on hi-hats.
[00:05:40] So you want to sample this properly.
[00:05:42] But you can generate this inside of Bitwig pretty easily and then bounce out some stems
[00:05:48] afterwards and then use that in your song or in your track.
[00:05:52] Okay.
[00:05:54] Also this here we can use either, let's say, another filter plus and then bring in here
[00:06:02] a bit of distortion.
[00:06:07] Maybe something like this.
[00:06:23] It almost sounds like a shaker to me.
[00:06:30] And then you probably want to bring in some kind of convolution reverb here.
[00:06:36] So it sounds more like a real life object.
[00:06:40] I've already got some hi-hat tops.
[00:06:42] It's basically just a hi-hat sample, I guess.
[00:06:58] Or let's say something very short, very tiny.
[00:07:09] One at five milliseconds.
[00:07:10] Let's use this one.
[00:07:26] Yeah, everything helps kinda.
[00:07:28] Then you bring in the rest of the drums.
[00:07:58] It could be nice to use here different settings.
[00:08:08] Let's see.
[00:08:10] Bring this down.
[00:08:22] So yeah, lots of options to generate hi-hat sounds and patterns.
[00:08:41] And like I said, it's probably better to just bounce these two stems or extract or bounce
[00:08:47] single sounds and then use it in the sampler.
[00:08:50] So you don't waste any CPU on that.
[00:08:54] So that's a quick tip from me for this Friday.
[00:08:57] I hope you like it.
[00:08:58] Leave a like if you like it.
[00:09:00] Then leave a like.
[00:09:01] Okay.
[00:09:02] Subscribe to the channel.
[00:09:03] Thanks for watching and I'll see you in the next video.
[00:09:04] Bye.