A tale of two Iron Cobras

AirborneSFC

Gold Member
Hello everyone I thought I would provide long term feedback on some Tama Iron Cobra pedals I have. A couple years ago I purchased the single version of the Iron Cobra Power glide. I used this for just about every gig I had until I left it at a venue....and it vanished.

Luckily I have insurance on my gear and got a check cut for a replacement. This time I decided on the Rolling Glide version. So here is my take:

Power Glide - It does what it says! The cam at the end is angled so that it accelerates the action of the beater against your bass drum head. This is great for some serious bass drum power playing without wearing out your foot. The downside was for the more sensitive playing situations. It was a very fast pedal in every sense and very robust. Only issue I had was the screw that holds the speado ring came out during a gig.

Rolling Glide - The cam on this one is round. I come from an old school (Camco) pedal background so I had been used to the round cam for a long while. Having replaced my Power Glide version with this one I found naturally it does not hit quite as hard. For me this is a non issue; I can lay hard onto a bass drum even with a cheap pedal. More importantly this pedal follows every nuance of my foot. It almost feels like a natural extension of my foot. I was playing 16th notes steadily at 92bpm within a few small adjustments. I had bursts up to 110 but I am still dialing it in.

With either version you could slacken up the spring tension for more controlled quiet playing. I feel overall that the rolling glide gives you the best situation for an all around pedal. To me it felt even better than a DW 5000, and 9000. I had a chance to play both pedals and they both felt heavier than the Iron Cobra.

What I found surprising was the lack of inventory at most music stores for the Rolling Glide. I called every Guitar Center in NC and none had any in stock. I ended up getting mine from Chicago Music Exchange.

For those on the fence I would highly recommend trying the rolling glide version. For those on a budget there is a 600 series version that has both cams!
 
Good review. I've not played an Iron Cobra, but I've got a Pearl Powershifter Eliminator that comes with four cam shapes. I am in total agreement re: cam shapes. The large round cam always ends up being my go-to on that pedal because of its versatility and sensitivity. The more aggressive cams do what they are supposed to, but give up too much feel for my taste. It's cool to know that characteristic remains consistent across brands/designs.
 
I've got the double pedal Power Glides myself. One thing I've noticed about the Iron Cobras vs my DW 3000's is that I feel A LOT of the impact of the beater hitting the drum head through the DW 3000 footboards compared to the IC's. I can really really dig in with the IC and barely feel anything while after about 10 minutes with the DW3000 my leg starts to wear out from the vibrations and having to work a bit harder as the DW 3000 is a bit sluggish on the stroke and return.

The IC is a fantastic pedal but I too am left wondering if I would like the action of the Rolling Glide more. Oh well, I'm just glad to be able to have the IC's.
 
I've got the double pedal Power Glides myself. One thing I've noticed about the Iron Cobras vs my DW 3000's is that I feel A LOT of the impact of the beater hitting the drum head through the DW 3000 footboards compared to the IC's. I can really really dig in with the IC and barely feel anything while after about 10 minutes with the DW3000 my leg starts to wear out from the vibrations and having to work a bit harder as the DW 3000 is a bit sluggish on the stroke and return.

The IC is a fantastic pedal but I too am left wondering if I would like the action of the Rolling Glide more. Oh well, I'm just glad to be able to have the IC's.

If any of you guys are in the Raleigh NC and want to do a gig or two with my rolling glide I am totally down. I am just like everyone else; just want the most bang for my buck. I play a two hour gig tonight with my Rolling Glide and I will let you guys know how it goes. This show is mainly covers with some originals so its a good indicator of how it will work out over a wide range of music. In practice my foot still felt equally relaxed and not worn out.
 
play a two hour gig tonight with my Rolling Glide and I will let you guys know how it goes. This show is mainly covers with some originals so its a good indicator of how it will work out over a wide range of music. In practice my foot still felt equally relaxed and not worn out.

How did the show go? The pedals worked well?
 
I own and play both the PG and RG. They don't feel that different to me. Once I'm a few measures in I don't really notice a big difference. Both are good pedals. I like using mine with a lighter beater. I also switched out the footboard on the PG to one from a first generation IC (the silver one). I like the it a lot more now.
 
If any of you guys are in the Raleigh NC and want to do a gig or two with my rolling glide I am totally down. I am just like everyone else; just want the most bang for my buck. I play a two hour gig tonight with my Rolling Glide and I will let you guys know how it goes. This show is mainly covers with some originals so its a good indicator of how it will work out over a wide range of music. In practice my foot still felt equally relaxed and not worn out.

That is a very cool offer to your fellow drummers Airborne! I'm not near there but that's cool of you to offer. I hope the gig went well for you and that the pedal worked ok.

I wonder if Guitar Center would allow someone to "rent" a few pedals of their choice, like the ones on the floor for display. I wish I could try a handful of pedals to see what fits me. Part of me wonders how the DW 5000 and 9000 are and I also would love to check out the Mapex Raptor and even the new Falcon. I actually thought about buying the Raptor at first but instead went with the IC PG. I was just really skeptical about the quality of the Raptor so I chose not to buy it.

Don't mean to hijack or turn this thread into a pedal comparison thread, sorry.
 
How did the show go? The pedals worked well?

The show went ok! I have been super sick lately and the cold meds I am on did not allow me to perform at my best. That being said here is my take from playing it last night:

1. After sound check I added a little more spring tension.
2. The pedal felt really solid and playing quick doubles and so forth was straight forward with plenty of authority and no issues.
3. My foot was only slightly tired after our set - that is to say vs. the power glide a slight difference in overall effort over a long set
4. On some of our usual crowd pleasing numbers where I really laid into my pedal it felt every much as powerful as the power glide.

Overall I am very happy with the rolling glide. To be honest I play a lot of very fast notes with my foot to compensate for lack of a double pedal and to make my fills easier. Where I had to really dial in my power glide over time to me the rolling glide was more or less ready to go out of the box.
 
That is a very cool offer to your fellow drummers Airborne! I'm not near there but that's cool of you to offer. I hope the gig went well for you and that the pedal worked ok.

I wonder if Guitar Center would allow someone to "rent" a few pedals of their choice, like the ones on the floor for display. I wish I could try a handful of pedals to see what fits me. Part of me wonders how the DW 5000 and 9000 are and I also would love to check out the Mapex Raptor and even the new Falcon. I actually thought about buying the Raptor at first but instead went with the IC PG. I was just really skeptical about the quality of the Raptor so I chose not to buy it.

Don't mean to hijack or turn this thread into a pedal comparison thread, sorry.

The guitar center in Charlotte, NC offered to let me "borrow" a power glide version for my big show I just did down there. I was really after the rolling glide and some guy said they had one at the store. Turns out they didn't but I felt it was interesting they would lend such a nice pedal out.
 
The guitar center in Charlotte, NC offered to let me "borrow" a power glide version for my big show I just did down there. I was really after the rolling glide and some guy said they had one at the store. Turns out they didn't but I felt it was interesting they would lend such a nice pedal out.

I'll be damned, too bad I didn't think to ask this before I bought the IC's but it's not like it was a bad move as they're incredible pedals. Not being able to try all the ones I'm interested in is just the way it is when you're not made of money I suppose. Well I'm glad the gig went well, here's to feelin better though.
 
Yeah I think for us drummers its best to try what we like and play what we want. I think all too often people get caught up in marketing hype and so forth. For the younger players or those hard working musicians I feel bad because often time the gear does not live up to the hype.

Thanks for the well wishes; I had to play another gig tonight and I am feeling better. I still played it safe though and not go crazy. Really cozy gig with no monitors so it was strange not having some feedback of my kick or any of my lead singers vocals for a reference. I am also very congested still as confirmed by the visit to my Doctor this morning. Good news in about a week I should be sorted.

Still digging the rolling glide but now I have a gig that will take me out of town for a couple weeks before I get to return to my home kit. Might try to pack the pedal if I can fit it just to work it in.
 
The show went ok! I have been super sick lately and the cold meds I am on did not allow me to perform at my best.

Glad your show went well!

That being said here is my take from playing it last night: 1. After sound check I added a little more spring tension.

I do that quite often. It helps. Especially when You're kicking it at a speed of 210-220BPM, the power of the pedal keeps getting better along with a killer smack on the bass drum with it's amazing beaters. Do you use a cobra coil? :)
 
Glad your show went well!



I do that quite often. It helps. Especially when You're kicking it at a speed of 210-220BPM, the power of the pedal keeps getting better along with a killer smack on the bass drum with it's amazing beaters. Do you use a cobra coil? :)


Yes I use the cobra coil! I am honestly loving my rolling glide pedal the more I use it. I will take up double bass playing again soon and will also opt for the rolling glide version double pedal. What I enjoy about the rolling glide is the level of control. So even playing my little 18" Jazz bass drum I can play with dynamics on a level not possible with my Power glide.
 
Rolling Glide - The cam on this one is round. I come from an old school (Camco) pedal background so I had been used to the round cam for a long while. Having replaced my Power Glide version with this one I found naturally it does not hit quite as hard. For me this is a non issue; I can lay hard onto a bass drum even with a cheap pedal. More importantly this pedal follows every nuance of my foot. It almost feels like a natural extension of my foot. I was playing 16th notes steadily at 92bpm within a few small adjustments. I had bursts up to 110 but I am still dialing it in.

I have the DW9000, which has an adjustable cam. I found out the same thing, that I felt more comfortable with a more round-shaped cam (less acceleration, better sensitivity). For years I've owned this pedal but only recently became aware of the various settings. And before I made the changes, when my pedal had alot of acceleration, my doubles would often end with a third extra hit from the beater. That doesn't happen anymore. And my doubles seem clearer than they used to be.

Steph
 
I've got the double pedal Power Glides myself. One thing I've noticed about the Iron Cobras vs my DW 3000's is that I feel A LOT of the impact of the beater hitting the drum head through the DW 3000 footboards compared to the IC's. I can really really dig in with the IC and barely feel anything while after about 10 minutes with the DW3000 my leg starts to wear out from the vibrations and having to work a bit harder as the DW 3000 is a bit sluggish on the stroke and return.

The IC is a fantastic pedal but I too am left wondering if I would like the action of the Rolling Glide more. Oh well, I'm just glad to be able to have the IC's.

I am assuming the problems you are experiencing is because the 3000 and the IC are not in the same ballpark. Iron Cobras are a legitimate professional level pedal. The DW 3000 are entry level pedals. The only pro level DW's are the 5000 and 9000. Go play a set of 9000's and I think you will find them to be every bit as smooth as an Iron Cobra.

I own both sets of pedals, I practice with the 9000 but gig the IC. I get a better "feel" off the IC and that is why I play it in high volume situations where I cant always hear the bass drum very well.
 
Go play a set of 9000's and I think you will find them to be every bit as smooth as an Iron Cobra.

Oh I would love to try the 9000 for a while to see if I like it. Matter of fact and I don't know if you seen my thread recently but they had the older 9000 double pedal on sale for $299 and I didn't make it up to GC on time! It was only a 3 day freakin sale lol!!

I'm actually really thinking of buying a used 9000 single just to try it out for a while and then return it. Two things that bother me is, I don't like buying used as you really don't know the condition of it or how "clean" a person was when they owned it and then you really don't know if you're getting the true performance out of it when it's used. Even ones in excellent condition, you just never know if it's at it's optimum working condition. Though I suspect it should be good enough. It's not really fair to buy things brand new to test them only to return them. I would think it hurts both the drum company and GC. Probably best to try used as they have a 30 day return on them usually.
 
Oh I would love to try the 9000 for a while to see if I like it. Matter of fact and I don't know if you seen my thread recently but they had the older 9000 double pedal on sale for $299 and I didn't make it up to GC on time! It was only a 3 day freakin sale lol!!

I'm actually really thinking of buying a used 9000 single just to try it out for a while and then return it. Two things that bother me is, I don't like buying used as you really don't know the condition of it or how "clean" a person was when they owned it and then you really don't know if you're getting the true performance out of it when it's used. Even ones in excellent condition, you just never know if it's at it's optimum working condition. Though I suspect it should be good enough. It's not really fair to buy things brand new to test them only to return them. I would think it hurts both the drum company and GC. Probably best to try used as they have a 30 day return on them usually.

Unless your used DW9000 found it's way on the Titanic, at the bottom of the ocean for 100 years, it should work fine. I bought mine used off ebay for $300 or so, I forget. That was seven years ago. Albeit I have not used the slave part of the pedal at all until recently.

Now I know why you hate me :)
 
You can also find good used IC pedals out there. It's easy to tell which ones are beat up. For the most part they are solid you should have little issue. After over a year with my IC Powerglide the only thing I had to replace was the screw that held the speedo ring together. I spent maybe $ .20 or so at home depot and used some thread locker at I had a home to fix this.
 
I own and play both the PG and RG. They don't feel that different to me. Once I'm a few measures in I don't really notice a big difference. Both are good pedals. I like using mine with a lighter beater. I also switched out the footboard on the PG to one from a first generation IC (the silver one). I like the it a lot more now.

Care to post pictures?
I just adore the first gen footboards. Hands down, the prettiest design ever :)
 
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