Building a hi-hat in Serum is one of the simplest processes there is. But that doesn’t undermine the power of the digital hi hat in modern music.

So many genres, from Drum & Bass and House to Trap, Future Bass and Dubstep (and so many more), make strong use of digital hats. Some producers prefer the sound of live hats, but they don’t always fit into a particular phrase.

The amazing thing about building your own hats is the power you have over how they sound. The benefit here is a no brainer, and you could also use it to start building your own sample pack.

So, without further or do, shall we start talking about just how you can create a digital hat from scratch in Serum?

Build A Serum Hi Hat

First up, open Serum and turn off Oscillator A. Turn on the Noise oscillator and load up the ARP White noise preset. Generally, a hi-hat start as a burst of noise. So, we’ll just use the noise oscillator in Serum as the foundation of our sound.

Now, shape your sound with the use of Envelope 1. Attenuate your Attack to 0.5ms, your Hold and Sustain to 0ms, your Decay to about 55-60ms and your release to about 50-55ms.

There’s your burst of sound.

Now turn on the filter in the top right and load up a high pass filter. Something like High 12 will do just fine.

To make the magic really happen, modulate your filters cut off with Envelope 1 and let the shape of your hat come to life. Now, it’s really down to personal preference.

How thin/thick do you want your hat to be? How aggressive?

Personally, I have my filter cut off knob sitting somewhere between 55% and 75% with the modulation from Envelope 1 oscillating the filter between the 50% and my chosen sweet spot.

It may also be beneficial to turn the resonance up too. That’ll give you more of a shimmer on your hat, which isn’t for everyone.

Either way, you’ve got yourself a digital hi-hat. Great job!

The rest is down to you. You can experiment with different noise presets and different filters. You can mess around with the shape of your ADSR envelope and get a plethora of different hats. Make sure you either save them as presets or record them as MIDI and bounce to audio to build your digital hat collection.

As well as digital hats, we’ve created a guide on how to create a kick drum in Serum and how to post-process it for a powerful sound.

If you’re not so interested in building your own and would rather make use of a massive library of hi-hat samples that are ready to go straight into your track, we’ve got you covered.

We at Mixxed work with a growing number of sample labels and contributors to provide you with an affordable sample subscription service that’s more accessible than any before.

You’ll have access to our growing catalogue of thousands of loops, one-shots and sound effects that you can browse, download and keep forever for less than $3 a month.

Sign up today to find your sound!