Heel/Toe Problem... PLEASE HELP!

B

Blood For Blood

Member
Hi guys, so yesterday I got my brand new DW 5000 pedal and played it on an acoustic bass drum an a Yamaha KP65... The pedal worked absolutely fine on the acoustic bass drum, no problems with the heel toe technique in fact, better than it had ever been. I was able to whip out some nasty doubles with that one. On the other hand, I played it on a Yamaha KP65, an electronic kick tower I just bought today, which I didn't get good results of. Just a FYI, I have a crappy DTX400 practice kit for my electronic kit which came with a silent kick which is just a pedal that has a trigger to pull the sound off whenever the footboard hits the trigger, no pads or separate pedal or anything. Surprisingly, that silent pedal was awesome and I was able to do the heel toe technique very smoothly, probably the best pedal so far before the DW 5000 that I played. Anyways I thought replacing that silent kick with a kick tower and a high end bass drum pedal would be way better for my electronic kit, but I was completely wrong. I kept missing my doubles and the bursts I was able to do with my silent kick turned into either 1 stroke or 2 separate notes. From what I know, the kick pad felt waaaayyyyy too loose when I touched it if that means anything... My spring tension is fairly loose and my beater angle makes about a 60 degree. I don't know what my problem is here...

1. Technique?
2. Pedal Adjustments/ Pedal?
3. Kick Tower?

Thanks guys!
 
Blood For Blood said:
.... Surprisingly, that silent pedal was awesome and I was able to do the heel toe technique very smoothly, probably the best pedal so far before the DW 5000 that I played...

..... From what I know, the kick pad felt waaaayyyyy too loose when I touched it if that means anything...
Click to expand...


If you have both an acoustic and an electronic kit, the obvious solution is to use the silent pedal with the electronic, and the DW with the acoustic.

A kick pad and an acoustic bass drum are going to feel different with the same pedal.
If you mean the kick pad feels loose or floppy when you press it, maybe you could put some firmer rubber over or under the pad.
You don't want to get it too thick though to where it changes the beater angle a lot.
 
I'd say if everything else works fine, take the advice above and get your money back on that kick tower.

There could be a triggering issue or a communication issue between the tower and brain. I'm not sure why though as it appears they're made to work with each other.

I had to adjust my technique when playing an e-kit. Fortunately we played very simple, low key stuff in that venue, so I could afford to be relatively slow and deliberate with bass hits without the pads driving me nuts.
 
How sturdy is the kicktower? You may need to shore it up with some weights or extend the legs out a bit more for greater support.
 
Blood For Blood said:
Hi guys, so yesterday I got my brand new DW 5000 pedal and played it on an acoustic bass drum an a Yamaha KP65... The pedal worked absolutely fine on the acoustic bass drum, no problems with the heel toe technique in fact, better than it had ever been. I was able to whip out some nasty doubles with that one. On the other hand, I played it on a Yamaha KP65, an electronic kick tower I just bought today, which I didn't get good results of. Just a FYI, I have a crappy DTX400 practice kit for my electronic kit which came with a silent kick which is just a pedal that has a trigger to pull the sound off whenever the footboard hits the trigger, no pads or separate pedal or anything. Surprisingly, that silent pedal was awesome and I was able to do the heel toe technique very smoothly, probably the best pedal so far before the DW 5000 that I played. Anyways I thought replacing that silent kick with a kick tower and a high end bass drum pedal would be way better for my electronic kit, but I was completely wrong. I kept missing my doubles and the bursts I was able to do with my silent kick turned into either 1 stroke or 2 separate notes. From what I know, the kick pad felt waaaayyyyy too loose when I touched it if that means anything... My spring tension is fairly loose and my beater angle makes about a 60 degree. I don't know what my problem is here...

1. Technique?
2. Pedal Adjustments/ Pedal?
3. Kick Tower?

Thanks guys!
Click to expand...

This could also be an issue with your threshold and retrigger settings. I've found that heel-toe needs a much lower threshhold setting than you would set for just a single stroke, because the second hit tends to be weaker than the first. As far as retrigger, I find drum modules like my Alesis DM10 don't have settings that mirror a real drum pad. On an acoustic, there is no such thing as a retrigger setting: if you hit a bass drum pad a second time without any space from the first hit, it will still make a sound. On an electronic kit, if that setting is high, it will reject the second hit, which can be extremely vexatious. This usually happens when playing at fast speeds, when the space between two hits could be as little as 250 milliseconds, for example if you're playing at 240 bpm.

Also, for heel-toe, I've found that a tighter head helps with the technique, since we rely a lot on the bounce. Is this a mesh head kick pad? Try tightening it a bit to get better playability.
 
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