Foot pedal question

minorchords

Member
I do not like like loose feeling or light pedals. Meaning: I want to work for the beats. I feel this has always held me back a little. With everything I have always needed to feel every note naturally. The pedal is more obstructing to your natural motion than a stick I feel.

So I need advice here on how to make the pedal a little more work on my part, instead of letting the pedal itself taking on more of that. I need to feel in control.

I know this is simple to some but a proper feeling with my pedal is something I have not had much luxury with except for a couple weeks with a stolen pair of pearl eliminators. Some junky train-hopper brought them over back in college and took them with him to the unknown. They were set perfectly for me somehow...
 
I find a nice loose pedal to feel the most like an extension of your foot. I like the old direct drive pedals with the hinge in the footboard inwards a bit (Premier 252, Premier Swingmaster, Speedking). If you can play heel down and just rock your feet back and forth with the pedal as loose as possible it feels like you dont even have a pedal under you! Almost like you were tapping your feet.

But that's just my preference. Hard springs just dont make sense to me... would you attach a bungee to the ceiling and your wrist so you had to exert force to bring a stick down? No, didn't think so.

Kick drum finesse is a dying art.

bu-bu-bu-boOM! over BAM!-BAM!-BAM! for me any day
 
With most of the modern pedals today, you should be able to make adjustments until it feels just right (or wrong) for you. Everyone has their own preferences. That's why they make them adjustable.
 
So I need advice here on how to make the pedal a little more work on my part, instead of letting the pedal itself taking on more of that. I need to feel in control.

Like Fuzrock said, most modern pedals feature a comprehensive array of adjustements possible, foot board angle, beater shaft angle, beater height, beater weight, some pedals offer differents cams too, different drives (single chain, double chains, strap, direct drive), you should be able to find one that fit your style.

However, the pedal is only a small aspect in regard to your foot/feet technique, and other "settings" such as your seating height, legs angle, distance from the pedal, using the "sweet spot" on the footboard, which technique(s) you use (heel down, heel up, heel toe etc), wherever you bury the beater into the batter head or play with the rebound, the tuning of the bass drum and so on, is all related to feel in control of your bass drum strokes at all dynamics level, but having a pedal that you feel confortable with is a good starting point, but there's no magic pedals out there, you are in control of what you do, not the pedal. :)
 
These days pedals are extremely adjustable. I can take three or four different pedals and adjust each one of them exactly to my liking. The thing is, there will always be one or two which stand out as a better feeling and playing pedal than the others no matter how they are set-up.

Dennis
 
Hard springs just dont make sense to me... would you attach a bungee to the ceiling and your wrist so you had to exert force to bring a stick down?

You dont need to because your picking the stick back up, but your foot doesnt control how fast the pedal comes back up, the spring does and if the springs are too loose on a pedal when you try to do fast doubles and triples your foot comes off the board and then slaps back down as the pedal is still coming up and just makes a mess of things. Personally I need my springs quite tight so the beater can come back as fast as I move my foot.
 
Not many people on these board have this problem. Footpedals are built like tanks these days and if you can't find a setting that you like....maybe you need a different pedal.

The thing I think the least about is my foot pedal. DW 5000. I think I adjusted it once when I first got it in 2003, and maybe one time since.
 
If you want a pedal that is a lot of hard work to play- for some crazy reason- get yourself an old Tama King Beat. Those things are a nightmare. Or maybe a Ghost pedal. In the 70's/80's there were a bunch of attempts at innovative/heavy-duty pedal designs that are very difficult to play.
 
Not many people on these board have this problem. Footpedals are built like tanks these days and if you can't find a setting that you like....maybe you need a different pedal.

The thing I think the least about is my foot pedal. DW 5000. I think I adjusted it once when I first got it in 2003, and maybe one time since.

same Larry

I have 2 DW5000 pedals ...one I got 12 years ago and one I got about a year ago

the 12 year old one ...which has been on multiple nation wide tours for months at a time .....is in just as good of working condition as the year old pedal

and I honestly dont think I have ever touched the spring adjustment on either of them aside from replacing the spring on the old one once on tour ...they feel perfect right out of the box to me

I simply change the beaters to my Danmar felts and im off to the races

these things are truly tanks and I dont think Ill ever use another pedal
 
I never have too much of a problem. I find my foot adjust to the pedal after awhile. I have a cheap mapex pedal that came in a hardware pack and a dw 9000 and i can't really tell the difference. Never adjust ether one. Both play the same to me after playing for a bit. My teacher has a cheap pedal(don't know the name) it feels ok to me. At one show I played a guys kit and when i first put my foot on the pedal it stamped down. His pedal was really loose. But my foot adjusted by moving back.
 
Thank you for the response.

Something is up. The left beater swings back way faster than the right does. It is surprising I am even "good" on the current set up.

Today I was about to discover some things about double bass for myself that I already knew were important.

On a pair of badly messed up pedals I was about to increase 16th note speed today by closing my eyes and breathing slow and deep while playing. It worked really well actually. When I ran out of water internally is when I started going backwards until I stopped. Productive day.

But now I can see just how uneven these pedals are so I can try to fix it.
 
Back
Top