by BABA on 21 Aug 2008 17:00
[quote="Chatchka"]what the hell is a hat tilt? I have a kit, hate my hats, and wonder if an adjustment is the key![/quote]
Hey, Chatchka. Thanks for the kind words.
In a typical hi-hat set-up, the bottom hat should be sitting on a piece of round felt, the felt should be sitting on a round metal disk/washer of the same diameter as the felt, and the washer should be sitting on a little platform attached to the vertical tube that supports the whole thing. There should be a screw that runs vertically through the platform -- if you turn the screw so that it moves upward, it should increasingly tilt the washer, the felt and the bottom hat. You can also rotate the platform so that the screw is in the front, the back, or somewhere in between. All these different settings can yield different results -- have fun messing around before following Stewart's lead.
I always thought that the purpose of the tilter was to create different sounds, but perhaps the real purpose is to counteract the "airlock" phenomenon. When you close the hats quickly, something happens that might hurt the "chick" sound and subsequent playing -- air is forced out and then a seal is formed creating an underpressure zone inside the hats (an alternative view is that air is simply trapped, muffling the sound of the hats). Some people believe that tilting the bottom hat can reduce/eliminate airlock. Others try to defeat airlock by using bottom hats with wavy edges or holes. Now that I'm writing this, I'm recalling that Stewart mentioned that you won't get his preferred sound using a wavy bottom hat -- I'll try to edit that in to the story.
Don't hate the hi-hat -- once you get the foot-hand timing down you'll love it. Learning to get your hands and feet to do different-but-synchronized things is a challenge, but hard work pays off big time (and you can practice your coordination skills pretty much anywhere).