DRUMMER CAFE

Hello,

It should not be too loose or too tight It is more a question of your leg weight. With heel-up you can go only up to moderate tempos (probably 16s at 160 bpm).

When you go faster than that, you have to switch to heel-down (or something in between), otherwise muscle tension kills your legs too fast.

You CAN play that fast heels up, but for a bar or two. If it is not the case, you will have to relax your feet more when you go faster, which means that your heels will go down... or way down (same as with hands - the faster, the more relaxed).

At fast tempos you have to rely more on the momentum control than on forsing the beaters (again, like with hands). I would recomment to try different positions of your toes along the pedal boards - this creates different momentum, so you may find it easier to play at fast tempos when e. g. your toes are right in the middle of boards (not close to the chains).

All of the above is my personal view of the problem and can't be treated as an absolute truth Hope it helps.

Agree.

I would like to add that usually I start with tightening springs only that much that permits comfortable playing of doubles (usually less tension makes beaters too uncontrollable). More tension gives you more speed at cost of more physical effort (when you play heel-up), so you need to find your sweet point.

I wasn't sure if I was going to respond to this thread, but feel I should give my input. I mean no offense at all to Andy Gone but I definitely disagree with saying that playing heal up will only allow you to play at moderate tempos. I don't find that to be accurate for myself nor have I seen evidence of that with others.

In response to the original questions about spring tension, there really isn't a single right answer that fits everyone. I think there needs to be a balance. Too loose and you won't get a very good response from the pedal, too tight and you will have to use a lot of force to move the pedal. Experimentation is the key to finding the right balance.

I like Bart's approach of setting the spring tension to where when you rest your foot on the pedal board, the beater will then rest half way between its starting point and the bass drum. That is a good starting point.

Some more tips that have helped me, work with a metronome, start slow, and play at a comfortable tempo for an extended period of time before moving up the tempo. I did that for a while just playing 16ths for 5 minutes and would then move up as I could and it helped me a lot.

It seems my heels drop the faster I go.  In fact my feet act alot like my hands in that they have a slight rocking motion which resembles a whip stroke, reduced moeller whatever they are calling it these days.

The really really fast guys have probably eliminated alot of this motion or double with heel toe technique.

BUT in response to the original question.  Double kick is something that needs to be practiced every day- a minimum of 1/2 hour per day on nothing but dbl kick.

I knew a swedish guy in school who would literally grind out 16th notes for hours every day, increasing and decreasing speeds on his drum machine 1 bpm at a time.

Some people are genetically prone to being faster if not just more solid/better kick players than others.  I guess talent or gifted are other words we can use here.   

That would explain my complete suckiness with double pedals!
 

I'm actually waiting a bit for the chance to setup my e-kit at home so I can take the pedals and do just that at home without having to subject any living organism to my attempts to practice on the real thing.

If I may say so, I'd like to offer a different approach to ADD to what's already been suggested.

I've noticed that the better my hand technique gets, or rather, the stronger my hands get (and the closer my left hand's strength gets to my right's), my footwork feels easier.  I think it's because I relax more, which is the KEY.  Drumming is not a forced activity by any means.  The first time I experienced what it's like to truly play 100% relaxed is when I had a practice where I got so mad at the band mates that I just played with a very "I don't care" attitude, and I completely stopped trying to play well.  Unfortunately, instead of playing worse, I played much better, and it made me more angry because I didn't get what I wanted!  And so, for me, if I want to play totally relaxed and get the best performance, I must avoid physically TRYING to be good.  I need to recreate that feeling of "I just don't care.  I'm not even going to TRY and play well for you.  You can forget that crap." (it was a baaad night for me).  And if I can do that, which is currently a bit uncommon, I can play at levels I thought I was never going to be capable of.  It almost feels like a counter-intuitive approach to good solid drumming (that is, the approach of actually NOT trying to play well).

But getting back to the hands, one thing I learned is that I must at least keep my pinky and ring fingers wrapped around the stick, or at least in constant contact with the stick at all times.  When I do this, I feel like I have much more control over the drums, and my feet just relax, and I find myself able to do things that were previously a bit more difficult, or things that I had to force out before.  It's very neat for me to see how my hand technique improvements can help me play better on the bass drum as well.  Even double bassing feels easier and more controlled.

I can't explain exactly why this works for me, but I know it does.  So, check these ideas out and see if they help.  If you're like me and your left hand is very weak and pathetic but your right hand seems to have no problems, then focus on using your pinky and ring finger on left hand to keep the stick under control.  That's how I have to think of it anyway.  Perhaps if you think of it that way, it may cause your hand to do something differently than mine.  But like I say, check these ideas out.  They might help!

That is the reason I say the throne is the most important part of your kit!  You can play much better when you are comfortable.  You should spend a lot of time test sitting thrones before you buy.  Never buy a cheap throne, it will bite you in the butt eventually.