My Iron Cobra's are feeling sluggish

jwildman

Senior Member
Just picked up some Iron cobra double pedals today and have been playing on them for about an hour. They feel really heavy and sluggish (as compared to my Gibralter Avenger II) and it's a bit concerning. They were like this at the store but I figured I could work them out. How can I fix this? It is the rolling glide version with cobra coil.
 
thats a general characteristic of ICs and one reason why i dont like them.
 
My IC is anything but sluggish. Everything is completely adjustable! Adjust stuff. I go with quite lite spring tension but if you have very fast feet you will need a bit more. There is about as close to zero resistance in these pedals as you can get.
 
I bought some cobras about a year and really got on with them, but when it comes to getting a bit more technical with bass notes they started to feel a bit sluggish and let me down.

Now i thought this may be my playing, this was proven wrong when i could play far more complex stuff on my teachers dw 9000.

So i bought a dw 9000 yesterday without a question and am selling my cobras, as whatever i did to them i could not get them to feel lighter in any way.

George.
 
The thing with the Cobras is that they're meant to be heavy; Tama never marketed them as lightweight pedals. The best suggestion I can make is to watch this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e27bylzdSTA

Jon Karel is paid to endorse Tama's products, but he's also a monster drummer and REALLY knows his stuff about the drums, particularly the bass drum; he does some of the most amazing bass drum polyrhythms I've ever seen. He talks about the weighted footboard of the Iron Cobra starting around 3:44, you should definitely check that out. Everything I was going to tell you is stated in that video, why not just check that out :)

I was going to go for either the new Yamaha pedals or Eliminators, and while they have a LOT in common with the Iron Cobras, the Cobras just... win. The relationship between the weight of the footboard and the weight of the beater is ideal. Heavy footboard, small, light beater. Since the footboard is heavier, naturally you'll get a harder hit, but since the actual volume of the beater is so small, it'll be able to pick up speed a whole lot faster than, say, Pearl quad beaters or DW beaters.
 
A heavy footboard is a dead end, and once reached foot/leg technique must be advanced, the catch 22 is the weight of a heavy board won't let you advance. The COBRA COIL may help a little, but your still stuck there, easier maybe, but no advancement. Karel's theory leaves no room for improvement, you get there and its easy, but you're stuck at a dead end. If it really made sense, TAMA would put COBRA COILS on HH stands too.

A lighter board lets you advance your foot/leg technique. Beater weight can easily be increased. Spring tension strengthens the foot, the weight of the foot board can't do that. The stronger the foot gets, the more spring it needs. You 'can' develop enough strength in your foot to 'over-play' stock springs.

The last place you want the most weight on a lever is at the handle. A pedal is a lever, the idea is to easily move the most weight after the fulcrum with the least weight behind it.

A weighty beater will have more inertia than a light (COBRA) beater in motion and thus produce a harder hit. Its the strength of your foot that sets the beater in motion, not the weight of the footboard. Overcoming footboard weight (especially when the board is moving) is an unneeded obstacle.
 
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Well I guess my question changes to what should I get instead of the cobras if I want a lighter pedal? I was thinking the Falcons?
 
My recommended ones are these :]

The cheaper options are Pearl eliminators or iron cobras (i find them about the same speed wise),
The stage up being dw 5000s,
The stage up being mapex falcons,
The final stage being dw9000's or Pearl demon drives,

The dw9000's are chain drive and mega fast, the demon drives are direct drive and also mega fast, although some people do not like the feel of either,

The best thing you can do is go and try some new pedals out and see what you like :]

Hope this helps, George.
 
I have an IC single pedal that was getting sluggish feeling so I cranked the spring as tight as it would go and that helped. What really did the trick, was replacing the stock (long black) springs with shorter ones (not black).

I don't know anything about weighted footboards and I don't get too wrapped around kick pedal axles, but it seems to me that balance is the key, not so much the weight of the individual components, but I could be wrong. Tighter springs are a cheap and easy test to see if you can get that sluggishness to go away.

The other thing is that the Roller Glides and Power Glides don't respond the same way. If you haven't checked out the differences in a side-by-side test, you should. The Roller Glides have a rounded sprocket that gives you a 1:1 beater movement with respect to footboard movement, whereas the Power Glide sprocket is cammed to accelerate the beater wth footboard movement.

I prefer the Power Glides myself. I have a DW with the round sprocket that I can't get nearly as much power out of.
 
My recommended ones are these :]

The cheaper options are Pearl eliminators or iron cobras (i find them about the same speed wise),
The stage up being dw 5000s,
The stage up being mapex falcons,
The final stage being dw9000's or Pearl demon drives,

The dw9000's are chain drive and mega fast, the demon drives are direct drive and also mega fast, although some people do not like the feel of either,

The best thing you can do is go and try some new pedals out and see what you like :]

Hope this helps, George.

Ya I don't want to go over $450 on these so the demon drives are definatly out of the picture.
 
Well i would go for the dw 9000's but i think unless their used they are slightly out of your budget,

I would go for the dw 5000's or the mapex falcons, out of the two i would pick the dw 5000's i think.

Hope this helps, George.
 
Well i would go for the dw 9000's but i think unless their used they are slightly out of your budget,

I would go for the dw 5000's or the mapex falcons, out of the two i would pick the dw 5000's i think.

Hope this helps, George.

Have you gotten to try out the Falcons?
 
I believe it was a falcon, definately a mapex and looked very similar to the falcon,

It a sort of dw 9000 feel to it if that makes sense??

If you wanted to know a bit more i can try and ellaborate on the pedal itself :p

George.
 
The "fastest" feeling IC pedal I've tried is the Flexi glide with the strap.
The other two feel sluggish to me like you have experienced.

If you want direct, immediate response with a nice feel, I'd suggest checking out the Axis pedals (try different beaters with it too).

Also, for a more traditional feel, but NOT sluggish with some power, check out the Pearl Eliminator.

Switching the cams will get you any feel you want, and the adjustments are really nice.
The spring assembly and the piece that holds the spring to the shaft reacts better than the IC pedals (IMO) too.

It seems to really bring the beater back into place better than other pedals I've played.
It feels pretty similar to a direct drive pedal to me the way I have mine set up.
 
i got an iron cobra a little while ago, and i also thought they were sluggish, but then i realized i should probably stop sucking. After about a week they felt amazing and still do. For me, it was all a matter of getting used to.
 
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