Double bass problems

AgainstTheGrain

Junior Member
Hey everyone.
So a couple weeks ago, my double bass skills completely vanished literally overnight.
I used to be able to run 170-180 for a few minutes straight before getting tired.
Nowadays I can barely run 130. The pedals just feel awkward, and my throne height feels weird...it feels like I'm not getting the power I need. I played around with pedal tension, beater height, distance, nothing seemed to help. I played around with my throne settings too, and no dice. It's VERY frustrating. Has anyone ever had this happen to them?
 
yes! first thing is throne height. get it to where your legs form slightly more then a 90 degree angle with the pedals, (no mathematician but maybe around 110 or 120 degrees heheh)

then take your pedals completely apart. lube and clean everything. put them back together.

set yourself up just a bass drum. play several speeds adjusting the pedals until they are comfortable with you, then practice your way back up! sort of like a fresh start. hope this helps!!
 
Hm odd? Do you mean literally overnight, or had you not played for a while? And when you got back to playing did it feel awkward every time, or did you just try and play once then rush to post here. Everyone's had an off day or couple of days of playing, where they just can't seem to figure out stuff that seemed simple before. I guess just practice more and maybe it'll come back to you. It would be very weird if it was an overnight thing, but I've taken even a week off and find myself struggling sometimes.
 
Same thing happened to me recently, I used to have a fairly smooth, even feel, but recently my double bass just sounds awful. So uneven. So I've put double bass on hold for a bit to work on my single pedal technique. When that's good enough I'll come back to double pedals and try to apply what I will (hopefully) have learned with my right foot to my left.
 
Hm odd? Do you mean literally overnight, or had you not played for a while? And when you got back to playing did it feel awkward every time, or did you just try and play once then rush to post here. Everyone's had an off day or couple of days of playing, where they just can't seem to figure out stuff that seemed simple before. I guess just practice more and maybe it'll come back to you. It would be very weird if it was an overnight thing, but I've taken even a week off and find myself struggling sometimes.

Yes, I mean literally overnight. :(
 
Remember that it isnt just your drumming skills that change.

Perhaps your listening skills made a quantum leap and you are just hearing problems more efficently...which feeds back to your playing..."self fulfilling prophecy"

Do you have a recording of yourself to compare against?

The main suggestion I would give is to try to forget the 'problem' and just play...see if it resolves itself...easy to get obsessed without realizing.

If it dosent, then you have a great opportunity to reinvent and improve your double bass playing!!

The more 'problems' we see as 'opportunities', the easier it is to stay motivated...which is the real long term task in playing drums.(IMHO)
 
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