Im a metalhead, and I -apparently like every other stereotypical metalhead- have my pedals cranked super tight
. I like em tight because to me they feel more responsive and less like trying to push the pedal through a tub of butter. I sit lower than most (not by too much) and my bass drum heads are LOOSE. Thats my preference atleast.
On a side note, i think the whole metalheads like tight springs thing comes from people like george kollias. The belief is that the only way to get the pedal to move faster is to increase responsiveness, which you do by tightening your tension. You know, because theres no way you can catch rebound from the pedal
But like pocketfullofgold said, people setup way different. George Kollias uses a super light super tight fancy-shmancy axis pedal, Gene Hoglan uses some beat to hell and back again cheap single chain tama camcos. They are both great, both can cruise well over 200, so it really is all technique and personal taste.
Hmm... Yes, cranked tension is a stereotype in the metal scene (I'm a metalhead myself, coming from the guitar). BUT if you're going for speed then be aware that cranking up the spring tension does make the pedal more responsive, thus changing only the _feel_ of the pedal (which might be to your personal liking, or may not be to it - the most noticeable difference in feel should appear when playing bursts I think), it won't make you 1 bpm faster, just no - physically it can't make you faster. It's your feet...
Furthermore, do you know that rebounds make playing easier actually? Thus, the key is _learning_ how to use rebound to achieve more speed so abandoning rebounds means... making playing harder. Again this might or might not be to your liking... playing harder. What is wrong with rebounds? The phenomenon of rebound is inherent to the drums, I take this as "natural". Why fight it? Cranked spring tension provides for a good workout but you have to invest more energy to get the same speed... sounds logical? Not really. The increased responsiveness of pedals due to higher spring tension is "good" for a given player if he perceives this as "comfy" for his own style. So IMO the above "belief" is simply wrong.
I think ultimately, you will only know for yourself if you invested some time playing on pedals with low, average and high spring tension, only then will you know for sure. What works for others doesn't necessarily work for you. We have different feet, we even use different motions (to some extend) - in my 16 months of drumming I've noticed that even "heel up" holds a range of different feels, depending on where you place your feet on the footboard, how tight the spring tension is, whether I'm playing barefoot (I did so for the first months), with footwear or switching between barefoot and footwork (which I'm doing recently).
Now imagine that statistically metal drummers prefer a high spring tension but you, having experimented with this for yourself, learn that a medium tension actually works best for you - would you care for statistics or do what feels best to you? Well I've decided to go the "what works best for me" route. If it's really speed you're after, then as I said: Try every spring tension, play to your max and only then will you know for sure which tension gives you the highest speed. You can't know beforehand, simple as that. And nobody knows which spring tension will actually give you the highest speed - you could be surprised. Whether this identified fastest spring tension will result in "butter" or "Kollias" feel... How can we know? I never did such a speed test (relating to the spring tension) because to me the playing feel is paramount. I'm thinking "how can I play to my best if the playing feel (due to the spring tension) feels uncomfy to me?" My logic is finding the best (=most comfy) playing feel because _then_ I'll get the best results - but over time, not instantly, and without sacrificing the playing feel (because others are doing it differently and I'm copying from them but it may not work for me).
PS: On my dw 2002 pedal/medium spring tension I can hit a max speed of 240 bpm/singles. Basically I'm satisfied with the sheer speed, I'm more working on control now. I might need Axis or something superior to hit anything near what Tim Waterson can do - plus maybe 20 years of brutal practice.
Gene is a prime example of what can be done regardless of pedal hype!! Great drummer and person (as far as I can tell). Personally, I'd use different settings on different pedals - if I had several. I have only one double pedal for now, but having several pedals, it would be intriguing to dial in various spring tensions and switch between different playing feels. Try doing doubles with cranked spring tension, it doesn't really work - while it may work (for some) with singles. I'm doing both so knowing that George Kollias uses max spring tension while Tim Waterson uses average or lower spring tension doesn't really help as I have only one (double) pedal around but want to do/practice every foot technique out there.