Lately

Last night I sat down to try and play "Always Touched By Your Presence Dear." It's a Blondie tune that didn't make the set cut...and it was just as well because I couldn't get it. The thing that tripped me up was the hi hat foot. It's one of those things that, if we'd played it, I could have faked that part. But it bothered me that I never was able to do it. I did better at it last night, though still not perfect.

I haven't yet really figured out how to balance myself when playing the left foot. I think that I lean that way a bit and stabilize myself with my left leg being planted into the floor. If I only need to open the hi hat every so often, I can...but if I have to open it on every 8th note even for a stretch of three or so I lose my balance. I've been trying to work on playing all 8th notes on my left foot and on getting the independence with my other limbs while doing it...though mostly I've been air drumming this. To do it on the kit is still just so daunting and ridiculous.

I've also been trying to do some pad exercises. I've been having a hard time forcing myself to go to the kit over the last few weeks...so instead I've at least demanded a bit of practice pad time. Just the basic shit...paradiddles...singles...doubles...triplets. Trying to get my left hand to catch up to my right. Get it stronger and more consistent...and improve the technique. Not PC I know...but my left hand is retarded...truly. It is a spaz.

The saga of the bass pedal continues. I thought for sure I'd posted about this already...but maybe not. So I went along forever just fine using a Pulse bass pedal on my kit at home. And then one day it stopped working so well for me. It started feeling like I was bottoming out. Like I was banging metal against metal and the bottom of my stroke...and it was making my leg and knee hurt. I checked...and indeed that is what was happening...I was wearing the metal away. I tried various things to adjust the pedal, but came up that the chain needed to be shorter, and since it was a cheap pedal, that wasn't adjustable. So I got a different pedal. I had been eyeing up this Tama Camco 30th Anniversary Limited Edition pedal (at like $130), but ended up going with this Gibraltar Velocity 3311S strap drive pedal instead...on sale for like $29 at Guitar Center. I really like strap drive and I really like an open bottom frame pedal...so it was a no brainer.

I like the new pedal a lot. It's great. But now...I'm having a bounce issue. Basically my bass drum (and the attached rack toms) is bouncing too much. It's either the puffy carpet underneath or the bouncy old floor boards...but the thing is out of control. I've tried all kinds of adjustments and have managed to minimize it by raising the front spurs up so that the front of the hoop is off the ground. It works okay for mid-tempo songs...but for a fast punk tune with double kick type stuff...it's really hard on my leg. There's a bunch of energy dissipating in the bounce...it's like you hit the bass...it moves away from the beater...then it comes back. I'm debating some kind of riser or platform to press down the carpet, but I worry that it is really just the floor itself. I don't get why this started happening all of the sudden...it wasn't a problem literally for about 5 years.

Anyway, that makes me not want to play at home and makes practicing fast pedal work difficult.

Update: Huh...this is interesting. They talk about muffling with blanket, etc (have one small blanket) and adding a port (already got one) to reduce bounce. Also they mention that if you bury beater (I do, unfortunately, as it isn't great technique) bounce will be worse. I had already though that if I could bury it less the bounce would be more tolerable. I hadn't thought about adding more muffling to increase the WEIGHT and hold the thing down. Might be worth trying. They also talk about loosening pedal spring.

Hmmm...they also talk in a different place about using a two ply head to reduce bounce. They are talking about beater bounce more than kit bounce...but still. I totally forgot that I not only changed my tuning (I think I've tuned up...which will increase bounce)...I changed my drum head. I used to have a coated Emperor...that's a two ply head. Now I have a Powerstroke 3 (it came with a set of Pinstripes in a propack)...which is a single ply...and not coated. That might have made a difference. I have a falam slam on the Powerstroke3, and also had one on the Emperor, but it wasn't affixed as tightly because there was a sticky patch from using other brands of dots that didn't stay stuck.

A Powerstroke 4 would be two ply...or just going back to a coated two ply. Interesting.

So before I build a whole freaking new floor:
1. Detune batter head a bit. Screw around with different resonant/batter tuning combos (maybe test on that little 12 inch tom I have to see how bounce changes with different combos...cause tuning the bass drum is a pain with all the shit on it)
2. Add stuff to inside drum
3. Loosen pedal spring (don't really want to do this though)
4. Return to a 2 ply head.
5. Go with a fuzzier beater (but might reduce volume too much)