Gibraltar Catapult

I hereby vote for Les as the unofficial drum gear historian/consultant.

You must have devoted some time to this. To not only know about current equipment but also the relevant history is no small feat. Do those old pedals in the photos belong to you? If so, you are one serious collector as well.

BTW, if that spring holder looked like plastic then it was an excellent anodizing job. I actually own an anodizing shop and I know what it takes to get that look.
 
No, not my pedals. Here's the link to 'Crazy Pedals'

http://home.hetnet.nl/~winnie-/gallery/pedals/pedals1.html

Like it or not, we are witnessing drum hardware history unfold here with Catapult. Any tweeks Mark makes to the design (assuming they make it to production) will create a collectable In the years to come. Hold on to your first run piece, in years to come it will be worth more than $110.
 
Anyone 'burn'n with a Catapult yet?

I sent Mark (the designer) a PM asking for an update, we'll see what he has to say.
 
Well, I'm gonna raise the dead here. I originally saw this thread back in October of '09 when I was looking for info on the Catapult. I ended up getting it as a Christmas gift and have been using it ever since. I gotta say, I love the thing. I'd been shopping around for a few months back then, and it seemed like all these other new pedals were coming out. That sexy dark grey and orange Pearl, a slick looking Taye, they were all over the place. I tried out tons of double and single pedals at all price ranges at Guitar Center. Of course they never had a Catapult for me to try out, so I was pretty skeptical. If I hadn't gotten it as a gift I'd probably still be using my old pedal.

Anyway, I'm glad I got it. To me, it's every bit as smooth as the high end Pearl and DW's I tried out, and has a slightly different feel. The conventional pedals seem to have a whippy kind of feel on the upstroke. Especially the chain drives (I'd always used a direct drive). The Cat' just feels more solid to me. I use heel up and heel down depending on what I'm playing and it feels very "natural" with both. I don't know how else to explain it except to say that it doesn't really feel like a pedal to me anymore. With my old pedal, I was always fully conscious of the fact that I was stomping a metal object. With the Cat', I'm just tapping my foot to the beat.

Believe it or not, I'm also noticeably faster with it than my old direct drive. I could never do a fast, Bonham-esque one-footed bass triplet before. Not on my old pedal, and not on any of the ones I tried out. Right after I set this one up I just started goofing around to see if the hype about it being faster was true. Five to ten minutes later my wife heard, "Holy shit! C'mere, check this out!" I learned two lessons that day. 1) Don't interrupt my wife to show her a "stupid bass triplet or whatever." 2) I'm faster on a Cat'.

I don't really fiddle around with settings on anything so I honestly haven't noticed any of the aforementioned limitations. It didn't take any getting used to either. I just set it up and started playing. I did have to adjust my ride since the bass drum has to be a little further away due to the extra length of the pedal.

All in all, I think it's a great little pedal. I'd say it's easily worth the $132 they charge for it at MF, and would definitely recommend anyone on the market to give it a fair try.
 
I [also] realize this thread is older than dirt, but just wanted to share.

I love this pedal. Completely agree with everything motojt said especially..

With my old pedal, I was always fully conscious of the fact that I was stomping a metal object. With the Cat', I'm just tapping my foot to the beat.

What really works for me is that it basically merges a solid footboard (with it's forward pivot point rather than a hinge) with a longboard with a direct drive pedal that has none of the rebound lag.

Awesome pedal!

Beater sucks. Replaced it with a Tama felt something or other.
 
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