Talk about your first bass drum pedal upgrade

I went from an old style Pearl strap pedal to a Tama Camco single chain as the action on the Pearl was not the greatest.
Better ,but not an ideal pedal.
When I went to double bass ,got another one ,but it's feel was not the same as the other.
Turns out the sprockets were different.

I'm using a Pearl P530 these days and for a cheap pedal,it does all I want it to do.
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pgm554 said:
Turns out the sprockets were different.
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Yeah, in the beginning of the 90s, Tama actually changed the sprockets of the Camco, switching to a cast aluminum one. I assume this was to have a cheaper production line, because since then, the Camco (named Tama HP35 from then on) essentially was a Tama HP20 just with the Camco footboard, but with the same frame, axle and sprocket as the HP20.
 
opentune said:
check this Tama Hp50, VERY adjustable for its price point, fast, and cheap, less than 100 CAD where I bought it. Pillar height adjustment for 18 inch bass drums.
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Surprise, I called another nearby store and they had the HP50 on the floor directly, I drove there to tested it on one of their bass drums.

I loved its smoothness instantaneously, at the highest setting, it's a bit lower then my Gibraltar which is really perfect for a 18" bass drum, the beater can even slide a bit higher.

Seems like they had one just for me? I bought it. :)

It's very pleasant and comfortable to use, thanks for the suggestion @opentune it's going to be a perfect pedal for me at a reasonable price.
 
marratj said:
Though it's still a downgrade build-wise from the Iron Cobra, it's an upgrade to me feeling-wise.
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I'll take this all day long over "This pedal has 25,790,532 possible combined adjustment settings and transforms into a helicopter in case of an emergency. Nothing is faster because we said so, and (insert unknown metal god here) uses one. If you dont already have our pedal you suck."

At some point, that Camco pedal had a similar advertising structure. And it's still a fine pedal even today.
 
My first pedal was a base model Mapex. I hated it, the cam stuck out too far and would scratch and rip my batter heads.
I then upgraded to a single chain DW5000, as that's what my teacher played. From there, I moved to the double chain model, and eventually the 9000. Now I play the Yamaha 9500 and I absolutely love them. I still have a set of DW9000's that I keep just for backline gigs where I may not be able to play a Yamaha kit. DW/PDP specifically has really thing bass drum hoops, and unfortunately my Yamaha pedals don't clamp tight enough to them to prevent them from unhooking.
 
I started with a generic cb700 pedal, whatever came with the kit back then. Then a Pearl double pedal with the wide aluminum that was then later an Eliminator double pedal. I now use a 90s strap drive DW 5000 with Danmar beater which I upgraded with a Canopus speed star bearing which was a notable improvement. Not of a fan of the pedal board design, it is pretty dated. I like what I what I see on Jojo's PB pedal such as a smooth cam, foot board design and the spring on the left for the range of foot positions and techniques....pretty cool that it folds too, but it is pricey and would probably swap that beater.
 
Two pedal changes made a difference in how I play.
First was switching to direct drive, and second was getting a double bass pedal.
I don't really use the double bass pedal now, but exploring the different techniques changed how I use a single pedal.
 
So I started out on my Dad's Speed King pedal. He had a Ludwig Vistalite kit. Then I got a Tama Camco Pedal. I know Speed Kings are pedals many swear by, but I really thought the Camco felt much better. Then, after a few years, my father knew I was serious, forked over a boatload of cash, and got me a double bass set of Tama Granstars, and they had Tama Pedals. Don't even remember what they exactly were, but I do remember the "smart" guys at the music store gave me 2 different pedals when I unboxed them. I didn't care, I was so stoked about having a birch double bass kit at 15 that you could have duct taped beaters to my chins and I would have practiced all the time. Then I got 2 DW 5000 pedals maybe a year and half later and I never looked back. I've been a DW pedal guy ever since. I tried other pedals for short duration's when I played, and some of them felt great, but I always had problems with maintenence or parts breaking and would always come back to DW. Sorry if I went too long everyone.
 
I went from the awful piece of junk that came with my Pearl Roadshow (it broke after a month) to the Pearl P930 which is very serviceable and utilitarian.
 
Went from a Pearl 902 double set to a DW5000 Accelerator set. Once I got them adjusted right, they were gold for almost 10 years.
Then I put a Trick shaft on them...

Game changer!!!

Smoothness greatly improved & the lag on the aux pedal is gone! I'll never go back to stock. Sometimes I'd like to adjust them at the pedal a bit more like a 9000, but I don't need it enough to trade them in.
I have what I like & that's good for me.
 
First pro pedal was a Speed King which I still have. Got it in 2002. Great pedals.

After that moved onto DW5000 strap drive in 2005 and there I've stayed.
 
I went from a maxtone which fell apart every 30 minutes (not an exaggeration) to a dw4002 double pedal and it was one of the best moments of my drumming life.
 
Early DW5000 double, around time slave side fell apart got a double bass kit with Pearl 100s. Later got a pair of IC PGs & an Eliminator double. Went to Axis A Longboard singles & a double about 15 yrs ago. Bought a Camco double as a backup a few yrs back, retrofitted it w straps a year or 2 ago, recently gave to a friend as a fixer upper, if I can get me those Flexis back. Currently love/hating a 1st Gen Speed Cobra, I’ve been trying to dial in
 
I like my new pedal very much, I can do more faint stuff with it that was more difficult to do with the other pedal, it's more fun to play the drums now. The extra precision with the right amount of efforts, often, I get result where in my head I say "Yeah, I nailed that, damn nice!!!"

It was of an average price, like 170CAD with taxes but a big improvement, the system is just better then the previous one. no questions.

Very fun to use with that UV1 head with 18" bass drum, the height setting of the pedal too. For the price of that bass drum it's not bad at all.

https://imgur.com/TuxRTMF
 
Update on this thread: I've used the Trick shaft that replaced the stock DW5000 one for over a year now.
Still a night & day difference.
 
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My first pedal came with my (used) Royce kit, and it was a complete POS.
The footboard and the spring were held on by coat hanger wire after the links broke.
I wasn't playing too heavy on the stuff, it just broke.
I could tell that it was a pretty sad excuse for a pedal even when it was new.
The hi hat stand wasn't much better.

The first real pedal I got was a Speed King. An Atlas hi hat stand was the first real hat stand--both were used.
I got a few (ha!) others along the way (DW, Camco, Iron Cobra, etc...), and I used Pearl Eliminators for many years. The Strap DW 5000 too.
A few months ago, I took a chance on the "new" Speed King, and I LOVE it.
It's a no nonsense, easy pedal that reacts to exactly what I want to do.
It also lets me bury the beater if I want--which was not really possible with other pedals because of the way I liked them to feel, and they just had a lot of snap back, and it was a trade off. I prefer playing of the head anyway, so I never thought much about it--until I did it again, and now I like that too, sometimes.
 
KarlCrafton said:
My first pedal came with my (used) Royce kit, and it was a complete POS.
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My first kit was a Royce as well. A great beater kit for this high school kid who flipped mass burger at McDeez to buy it. :LOL:
Came with a Tama King Beat pedal.
 
My first one was a single Yamaha pedal that came with a Power V Special kit in the mid 90's. I think it had double chain drive, but can't remember correctly. Upgraded to a Yamaha DFP-880 double in 2002, which served me well to learn basic double pedal work. Upgraded to Iron Cobra a few years after, but missed the lighter feel of the Yamaha, the IC's felt more heavy to me. Swapped them with Pearl Eliminator and basically have not looked back ever since. Feels about perfect for me. Kind of curious about the new Yamaha pedals, but seems foolish to swap the Elims which just works. I also have them in both two singles and a double pedal (for the times I play with or without two bassdrums), it's nice to have both options on the same pedals, it would cost a lot of money to exchange all of them...
 
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