How Beater Length Affects Spring Tension - Bass Drum Pedal Settings

Drum pedal spring tension and beater shaft length are interrelated and both affect the overall feel of you pedals. Shortening or lengthening the shaft causes your spring tension to change proportionally.

[@jtnoodle]

Best, conceivable video on the subject.

[@jphifer2848]

Really helpful. With so many adjustments now available on most pedals, it’s important to understand how they interact. Otherwise, you can get the pedal really goofed up and not know the path back. Thanks!

[@mug7703]

Seriously under-rated channel here. Please keep uploading your content. It's gold.

[@beetlejews]

Well done Ryan. You always make videos on what some of us drummers think of but don’t know how to articulate. Thank you

[@Mike-oz5pp]

Ryan's gotta be the most thorough & intelligent when explaining the things (like this!) that he does, dude knows drums for sure 👍

[@thiagoj.7900]

Tk you so much, Ryan. I was struggling with this subject for a while... u just cleared it up.

[@Sixfootdig]

Absolutely awesome video. So helpful

[@JustinKeithD]

I've loved your videos for years. Was lucky enough to live near you at one point for a lesson...but sadly I forgot most of it haha.

[@remotexpolde]

40 seconds in and Already it's helpful! Thanks so much for posting this!! Cheers man ^_^

[@jonhattanrai]

Great content man!

[@cj_ssfsm]

Love that pedal sub!😍

[@wagohowardmusic]

New to your channel plan on watching every video. I’m a novice drummer and an experience music teacher on a multitude of instruments. I’ve always loved drums got myself a small kit. Bought your book gonna be working from it with my students. Said you might get the request for topic ideas I got a couple. I do a breakdown on zappa Drummer‘s Frank Zappa to be exact. So much to pull from Terry Bozzio Chester Thompson Chad Wackerman the list goes on and on

[@RyanAlexanderBloom]

Glad you like the content. I’ve got 6 books with publishers and 4 more that I put on Amazon myself. If you are interested. You can see them all at my website. I’ve had private students who were teachers of other instruments and it’s always different teaching drums and percussion. Totally unique experience.

[@erictorres4889]

Awsome you use the same bass drum heads I use and the same impact patches lay double bass drums too !!!!

[@garryranara6040]

Thank you so much man😊

[@aviezek3072]

thank you, it is helpful.

[@TheDrumminMan08]

Thanks so much!

[@DailyDrumLesson]

that was very interesting.. lots of stuff I have actually never thought about, but I should have! haha

[@RyanAlexanderBloom]

I think that almost nobody ever thinks about extremely technical side-points of drumming like this. Like maybe 1 in 100 drummers ponder it, maybe 1 in 5 of those understand it. For most, it just doesn't ever matter... its a thing that exists, but a lot of people just play whatever settings come out of the box, and let it be. Only if you find you are having trouble do you usually worry about this stuff. That or you get people asking you questions about it all the time, like me.

[@DailyDrumLesson]

nails it pretty much.. I am one of the 99. But I am going to play around with it more.

[@Sqwaush]

THANK YOU SO MUCH

[@spencerj]

This is incredibly helpful, thank you. Ideas for future videos: Covering batter head rebound at various tightnesses, particularly between the tightness of snare and floor tom, where you start getting irregular rebound during double stroke rolls Relative tuning between batter and reso and how that effects rebound And comparing the rebound of size 2, 5, & 7 sticks

[@RyanAlexanderBloom]

Spencer Jessee these are good ideas.

[@spencerj]

Ryan Alexander Bloom thanks!

[@jayburd4225]

Inconceivable

[@razersedge2k974]

Very helpful video. I have a question i have both my pedals (double pedal) set to max spring tension, both lengths and angles identical but my left pedal feels much more tension and easier and better to play while my right one feels like the tension isnt quite there. Any ideas on what can cause that?

[@RyanAlexanderBloom]

Hard to say without being able to mess with it myself. Try swapping the springs and see if they’re actually the same.

[@treatb09]

not really the same since the acceleration of the longer beater is different from a shorter beater. this then alters the sprung mass, velocity, and acceleration of the beater head. all offering different variables such as return speed, and resistance. i've found that the best way to set up a pedal is to one's resting foot weight. the closer your beater is to the drum head, the quicker the pedal will be. as it will take 1 muscle to get the pedal to a near hit, and 2 muscles to accelerate the pedal. this can then be tuned to make the pedal double, triple, and fly in sink with the leg. less work is resultant from the distance and thus ease of the pedal's last push to the head. this is how you get pedals to fly. the greater the distance the beater is from the drum head results in more muscle needed to finish pushing the beater to the drum head. so a longer, and farther beater distance would need a lighter spring to use the leg's basic mass as an advantage. . so it'll make you work harder. you set your spring around this, and the beater is set relative to the drum's center, if you have a single, center,, if you have a double slightly off center so each beater hits the same radial points. the mass of the beater is then chosen here. wherever your pedal is or how you mount the bass drum with the pedal, but a pedal is usually designed and shipped around it'd purpose of how itself mounts to the drum. iron cobras have lighter mallets for a reason. they allow a shorter throw for more acceleration, which makes the lighter mallet produce a nice sound when tuned to the center of the drum. compared to a dw, with a heavy mallet, that long swings where people can throw the beater almost from the initial point of touching the pedal. . spring tensions are more of a dampener for the reset of the beater. like in a car. depending on the camber of your connection to the beater a pedal will require dramatically different pedal heights to achieve different styles. at a specific point the mass of the beater's head will balance with the throw distance, and leveraged height. the spring at this point acts like a balancing spring. to pendulum the beater. this distance with the lift of your foot keeps the beater under control. the longer the beater swing though, the more sound. less distance to travel, and you can have a quicker pedal. but it won't sound good. i find that a good start are 32nd notes. once a pedal is tuned to your foot to achieve 32nd's, then 64th's are just an extra bit of effort you saved up from the proper pedal tuning.

[@RyanAlexanderBloom]

Here’s the thing about the length of stroke, you can’t get volume or control on a tiny short stroke. Sacrificing power for speed is an unacceptable trade off to me. And spring tension is directly related to how much effort it takes to return your foot to the top of the stroke. So I think looser tension hurts speed for many people.

[@ryanbedell320]

You know what's really cool?My name's Ryan Alexander Bedell, and I play drums too.

[@mmjuuno]

yo Ryan, I took my beater off and realized how stiff my pedal is. how can I fix that?

[@RyanAlexanderBloom]

You can’t really assess how a pedal feels with the beater off. It only matters how it feels with it on in a normal playing position for you. But anyway if you mean stiff as in spring tension you just loosen the spring. If you mean stiff as in not moving well I suggest oiling the moving parts. And I mean oil, not WD40, not silicone lube, nothing aerosol basically.

[@waynejones3428]

✊ 😎 💥

[@Mike-oz5pp]

Are u endorsed by any companies Ryan?

[@RyanAlexanderBloom]

No. Technically nobody is. Artists endorse companies, not the other way around. But still no. I was asked to endorse gloves, sticks, and cymbals… but the gloves were weird and they wouldn’t let me try them first, the sticks sucked, and the cymbals they offer to anyone. You could get that deal easily, but you have to buy only those cymbals and I don’t own any already. It’s almost a scam. Not quite. But almost.

[@The_Other_Ghost]

Like running around a track.

[@LeeStoneman]

Great work, Kylo Ren.

[@TheSilverGate]

Super Sayan III

[@remotexpolde]

Heya! SO... I'm actually going mildly batshit regarding Not being able to find one of the most simple, fundamental freaking aspects of a bass drum beater.. : "Felt Density". No major chain I've spoken to can give me Any answers about how much 'give' they have. O_o? Seriously?!?!? .. unless its about some fancy Tama rubber thing or starts with the word LO.. ~ I just Recently ordered a Gibraltar "felt" beater. When it arrived, I had to register it as a "Lethal Home Protection bludgeon". It was compressed concrete on a stick! Made out of a neutron star fragment, apparently. If there is ANY WAY on this Green Planet you could just tell me where that Actual Felt-looking, Not-Concrete Felt beater came from, 0:50 (the taller, 'cloud-white' looking one) I would be genuinely grateful. ..You would think asking a music store drum dpt. person if they had medium-soft/medium-weight felt beaters in stock that weren't 'Poodles on Sticks' wouldn't be a complete stumper. Ack!! Lol.... Thanks so much. Cheers!!!

[@RyanAlexanderBloom]

That, I believe, is the stock beater that came with my early 2000s Mapex single pedal. The ones they included with their drum kits. It is rather nice for gigs where you need more than a half a sheep on a stick and less than a rock hard hyper-compressed felt sound. The only time I've gigged it was for a musical in the pit. But I get what you're saying. I don't know what exactly you'd need to buy in order to get that aftermarket because I rarely need one and I randomly already have this one. So... not helpful. My suggestion would be to go to a craft store or something and pick up a small sheet of felt that is the density you think you want, so you'll know for sure, then just glue or sew a strip of it around a harder felt beater. That's basically what the manufacturers do. There's a harder core and a softer jacket around that. You can add layers if its not soft enough. DIY hack, but it might get you the specific sound you want faster and cheaper than ordering 5 or 10 beaters by total guess and check.

[@remotexpolde]

@@RyanAlexanderBloom You are a prince among drum pit drummers. Thanks So much for the reply!.. and Yes.. about 20 minutes after I left this comment, My brain exploded a bunch of gummy bears and proceeded to raid the small boxes of weird, Not-My-House, household bits of rubber... and FELT CIRCLES! Freaking SCORE! Lol... I am, as we speak, about to make an ever so slight inverse wedge shape ( as my 1929 Ludwig 26" kick drum keeps the base of the pedal out just far enough to not work with Some beaters). I recently snagged a little P930, "Demonator" (hilarious name, but cool pedal) which is great for what it is.. and realized today that the beater is just about perfect with a weight or two on the top. (which is what I like about standard beaters.. All the newer ones seem to be so light.. it just feels weird. (to me anyway. ;) THANK YOU VERY MUCH for the suggestions!! Great minds apparently.. :) ((Or, I got your message before I actually read it, through the Harry Potter machine)). Take care and Stay safe!! Cheers and Gratitude from Boston! ^..^

[@mohdamiruddinsulaiman1383]

Didn't realise Cillian Murphy plays drum

[@HexPanozDrums]

It's like math and Science

[@RyanAlexanderBloom]

Indeed. There’s certainly some physics equations that would describe the pendulum motion and the spring tension interactions. Much too hard for me to quantitatively describe… so I go with the feeling.

[@Joshholbrook2024]

Sounds like Napoleon dynamite

[@RyanAlexanderBloom]

I'm basically a cross between a more awake Napoleon Dynamite and a non-midwestern TJ Miller

[@Joshholbrook2024]

That’s hilarious

[@jayburd4225]

No explanation. Just "this is what it looks like"

[@davegeorge7094]

Moths attack/eat holes in the beater wool. Moths eat holes in wardrobes too. I'm not playing enough, right.