Totally agree. With all the modulation options you can go from funky to chaotic in no time.
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You might wanna try this: Make a HiHat out of Pink Noise, use a HP Filter. Turn the resonance of the filter up, so that it self resonates. Now tune the self resonating filter (the 7th note of the scale is a good choice). After that, turn the resonance back again and voila you have tuned your Hihat. Just experiment with different tunings.
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My only tip is to tune your open and closed hats the same.
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talking of open and closed hats, that is another kettle of fish, so to speak.
sometimes a closed hat sample is completely awesome. but that is all there is to be found … a different scenario if the hihat is coming from the internal synthesis machines of the Machinedrum
[or the mighty Rytm, however i try to not think about the Rytm very much, in order to avoid Gear Acquisition Syndrome Premature Encouragement.]
and so for an “open hat version”, what to do? find something similar i guess.
tried using gated Dark Reverb on the OT last night to effectively make an open hat version of an individual closed hat sample.
also tried playing with the Att section of a hihat sample on the OT, pitched 5 tones lower … to achieve a moderately enjoyable swishing, almost shaker-sounding version of a hihat with the Dark Reverb exploration.
A lot of the time I use exactly the same patch for both open and closed hi hats, just tweaking the envelopes to suit each.
Short for the closed, long for the open hat.
This method ensures perfect synergy between the two
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yes, this is the benefit of using direct synthesis to make/sequence the hihats for a track.
when using hihat samples from a collection put together over about 12 years, the different samples are often quite individualistic, a disparate and slightly abstract set of sample options sourced from various places and times.
although it is fun to have a wide range of hihat sample options, often there isn’t an open hihat sample to directly match the closed hat sample. in fact for an inordinately long time i mistakenly believed i had no use for open hihat samples.
lol that’s cool … i rocked up from Melbourne to Byron and somehow found a lift at midnight from Lismore to a secret backbeach fringed by cliffs and virgin rainforest to enjoy Earthdance back in the mists of time … there was a giant whale, jumped bodily out of the ocean at sunrise.
anyway as regards your enjoyment of 130bpm for bouncing, yes i now remember the joys of the more athletic tempos. tried making a tune around 124bpm, that was fun and felt natural … then went next level minimal club trance funky tech with an almost half-time feel at 138bpm. and doesn’t feel rushed at all.
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The other thing I’d mention, is that (in DAW-land at least) I’ve started using BFD3’s cymbals in EDM tracks. In that case, I’m selecting different cymbal sizes, which in the real-world is how you get different tunings.
Perhaps, rather than tuning the sample, it’s worth considering (in many cases) selecting a different sample?
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Sounds like you had a whale of a good time!
Love whales, they’re so awesome… 
I know we’re talkin hats but tempo’s coming up too. To tie it together the frequency of hat trigs (and the rest of the sounds, but certainly the hats) really does a lot to the perceived tempo. Seems obvious of course, but a couple weeks ago I was running 144 bpm and it didn’t seem super fast really. It wasn’t 1/2 time either like 72bpm, when I get back to my gear I’ll investigate that pattern. I just went with it but I was a bit curious that it didn’t sound super fast but definitely sounded faster than 72… 
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There are many people that believe that the optimum bpm for electronic dance music belongs in the range of 135-145 bpm.
The reason being that when dancing the human heart typically pumps in this bpm range, acting like a secondary bass drum for the music, and this natural ‘beat maching’ between bass drum and heart beat induces trance like and euphoric states of both body and mind
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loving all the comments including this one, but really i must say Purusha, this is quite a challenging statement … from one perspective, make a lot of sensible sense. and yet i have greatly enjoyed repitching hihats, snare drums and bass drums in the 12 bit environment wonderland of the Machinedrum Userwave partition.
although come to think of it, one of my favourite elements of the MD’s internal synthetic percussion machines is in fact the MD’s Hi-Hat machines with the various kits. I should revisit them and slowly wean off this fascination with just using samples on the Machinedrum.
there are a range of potential eq phasing and formancy issues when repitching a sample.
avoidable. or embraceable.
but really the question is more along the lines of: how do i get my hihats sounding more awesome … rather than “how do i make my hihats stop sounding so terrible?”.
talking of “more awesome” … maybe the MD synth hihats will go next level if i play them through a preamp with tube overdrive subtly spicing up the sound before reaching the Octatrack.
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What a great thread! 