Bass Drum Pedal Bouncy of 18" BD head

[kaosotis]

My son has a Tama Stagestar with an 18" BD. With the stock pedal or my old Camco pedal from my Tama set the beater always bounces off the head. Now I don't mean a normal bounce, but similar to if you forced a stick down on a snare head. The bounce only happens if you make a full hit and stay on the pedal some, if you let the pedal bounce back quickly it's fine.

Tried tuning differently, took off resonant head (which helped a little), and as I said tried 2 different pedals. Putting on better heads, and retuning has helped a lot (it used to be awful) but the bounce is still there and it's annoying.

Any suggestions? Been playing 30+ years and I've never seen this, but then again I've never had an 18" BD.

[=^-..-^=]

Does he normally hit the kick and let the beater rest on the head?

On an 18", you might want a little more resonance to make up for the small size, so if he doesn't let the beater rest on the head, it might be okay. I let my beater bounce back about 1" on my full-size kick so I get the full resonance sound.

Other than that, maybe get one of those leather stick-on kick pads.

[Bish]

Just curious as to what material is being used for the beater? Is it wood, plastic or felt?

[fiacovaz]

There is going to be some bounce reaction with the beater striking the head. I noticed this more so when I began using the Tama Iron Cobra PowerGlide pedal a few years ago. It made me think that I had not noticed this happening with my Speed King pedal. When I used the Speed Kind again, I noticed that there was a bounce but not as pronounced as with the Tama pedal. I ascribed this to the size of the beatehead. The Tama is much smaller and makes a more forceful impact whereas the beater on the Speed King is larger. Removing the reso head, tuning etc. is only going to affect the tone and pitch the bassd drum, regardless of size. The tension on the batter head will have some effect with the beater bounce. With my Tama pedal, I finally learned how to cope with the bounce and to utilize it with my playing. I have to say that I like it so much better this way. BTW, welcome to the Forum and hope to see you here more often.

[kaosotis]

Thanks for all the feedback. I took off the resonant head to see if letting more air out on a hit helped. It seemed to, but not a huge amount. The bounce happens with both the new style beater (plastic on one side, felt on the other) and a traditional felt beater as well. Not really much difference.

He's only been playing like 3-4 years, so he's not quite at a point of being able to adjust his playing.

I think I might change the beater head and see if that makes a difference. The local store we go to is great, and they said to bring the drum and pedal in to see if they can figure it out. Maybe I'll start there.

Thanks again, glad I found a place the "chat" about drums. Been playing the same Tama Crestar's (lacquered not wrapped) since '85, but since my brother got a new Gretsch set, getting into the technical side of things again.

[backtodrum]

Welcome kaosotis, to the forum!

[cadesonT14]

have you tried adjusting spring tension?

[kaosotis]

have you tried adjusting spring tension?

It's happening with different pedals. Gave him my pedal, which worked perfectly on my 22" BD, and does the same thing. It's probably a function of the size of the drum, so not a whole lot I can do from what I gather.

[jjc44]

from what i've heard it's more about your technique than the tension of the heads. i'm also experimenting with a port hole now to see if it cuts down on unecessary rebounds because its going to let more air out of the drum.