The hi-hat organism: nature's own ticker. Six square-wave oscillators at clashing ratios make the metallic cluster - it is their high harmonics beating against each other that sound like a cymbal - blended with noise and shaped by three envelopes: a short closed tick, an open ring, and a stretched crash with a breath of noise. One instrument, three voices, and the law all hats live by: a closed hit chokes the open ring dead.
Triggering it
The Cl, Op and Cr buttons play the three voices by hand. A cord from a sequencer or keyboard into the inlet plays them by note: 42 is closed, 46 open, 49 crash - the standard drum layout - and any other note ticks closed, so a one-note pattern just works. Off 8 fires the open hat on every off-eighth while the transport runs; with a Kick set to 4/4 that is a house groove with no sequencer corded at all.
Parameters
| Tune | shifts the whole cluster in semitones. Down is heavier metal, up is smaller and glassier. |
| Metal | the blend between the oscillator cluster and plain noise. High is the classic robot cymbal; low is airier, more like brushes. |
| Tone | tilts the filters: low is fuller and darker, high is thin and hissing. |
| ClosedDecay | how fast the closed tick dies, in milliseconds. |
| OpenDecay | how long the open hat rings, in milliseconds. The crash rings four times longer than this. |
| Drive | pushes the voice into gentle saturation - glue and grit. |
| Level | output volume. |
| OffBeat | fires the open hat on every off-eighth while the transport runs, with no sequencer corded at all. |
| Closed | plays the closed tick by hand. The Cl button. |
| Open | plays the open hat by hand. The Op button. |
| Crash | plays the crash by hand. The Cr button. |