MrWriter
Active Member
My thoughts on these recent pedals that I bought and, in most instances, returned for a refund.
Ok guys, you might remember that I recently posted a ‘Which of these 3 pedals for speed and easy of playability?”. Well I thought I’d put up a fresh post with my experiences and findings of several pedals I’ve owned, returned and tried in shops recently to perhaps help other drummers.
First up I owned a Tama HP200P that cost around £65 (UK prices, sorry, Google is your friend for other currencies) and I felt it was ok, but perhaps a little sluggish and after trying out and owning and returning a few other pedals my suspicions were right. The Tama HP200P feels a bit sluggish due (I suspect) to the Glide cam that is not circular, but more L-shaped and thus doing double-kicks was a bit problematic for my various kick techniques.
Next up I bought three more pedals, a Tama Speed Cobra HP910L and a Yamaha FP-9500C and a Yamaha FP9C.
Now, remember I was looking for a light speedy pedal to make double-kicks easy and fluent and smooth.
I found the Tama Speed Cobra HP910L to be excellent, but compared to the Yamaha FP-9500C the Tama felt a little rattly and ratty tatty under foot and the footboard had a bit of sideways play and the spring on the side was a bit rattly also. Although the footboard was nice and long, something I’m a fan of due to being a size 11 (UK) I did not like the deep cut-out grooves that run up either edge as I sometimes practice at home in either socks or bare-foot and when playing bare-foot I don’t like the way these two grooves dig into the ball of my foot and shred my foot when doing the ‘slide’ into the peddle technique for double-kicks.
The Yamaha FP-9500C felt silky smooth and incredibly quiet, quiet as a mouse’s tea party in fact. Very smooth and silky feeling and very light (given it is a chain model and not direct drive) and I instantly felt that I liked the pedal. The footboard is nice and smooth so great for bare-foot playing was there are no grooves or horrible ‘DW 5000-type’ cutouts in the metal to give you bare foot a pedicure while playing . However, I would have liked the FP-9500C’s footboard to be half an inch longer for my personal foot size. With this in mind I recently bought the Yamaha FP9C (you know, the one that looks like a Yamaha sports bike) - see below.
The Yamaha FP9C got me excited after I phoned a dealer and asked them to measure the footplate, which I had to do as drum pedal manufactures don’t consider this important fact important enough to list on their specs on their sites. Turns out the footboard on the FP9C is about an inch longer and half an inch wider than my FP-9500C, and from the pictures it looks shiny smooth too. I was excited so bought one.
But after a few hours I was seriously disappointed in the FP9C. If feels like Yamaha have tried to re-invent the wheel, a wheel that did not need re-inventing, and they failed, miserably. It looks and feels like a pedal that Yamaha have tried to squeeze every feature and option onto and some not that well designed either.
Remember, these are my personal thoughts. I did not like the spring adjuster knob on the FP9C. It felt plastic and cheap and the way it turns and locks feels clunky and not very ‘Rolls Royce’ like in operation, just slightly tacky in fact. If you are going to make a pedal at Rolls Royce prices it has to feel and operate like one too. I could not get the spring setting light enough. After adjusting the spring tension knob to the point that it was hanging on by about two screw threads the spring was still too tight so I angled the footboard and moved the beater angle closer to the drum head, but this did not help. It felt tighter and harder - by far - than the FP-9500C ding a side-by-side test just pushing them both with my fingers and then putting them both onto my kick drum pad. I also found (and I’ve read about other people complaining about this) that the beater angle drum key adjuster keeps working loose and this happened to me after just 10 minutes of playing. I tightened it as tight as I could by putting a cloth over the drum key and using a monkey wrench to get a good tight lock on it, but that whole mechanism just didn’t feel right to me with the metal block behind it. Bad design for a motorcycle company and this pedal comes out of the same factory.
After faffing around with the many settings for beater angle, footboard height, cam adjustment (3 positions) and spring I could not get this pedal to feel light and whippy, nowhere near as good as my Yamaha FP-9500C. Also, the footboard felt sort of sticky. It gripes like hell to rubber trainer soles, which makes sliding on it hard. I suspect it would be great with socks on though with the mirror shiny finish. Anyway, disappointed in the FP9C and even the salesman (a drummer) says he did not like it and none of his drummer friends did either. Dave Weckl doesn’t even use it, he sticks with his FP-9500C, but replaces the chain with the strap, but this is only die to an old injury on his right knee. Yamaha FP9C went back for a refund.
Out of curiosity (because my drum teacher owns two and I find them easy to play) I went to my local store and tried out a Mapex P600, which only cost £65. Holding it in the hand and shaking it around it felt a tad rattly, like the Tama Speed Cobra HP910L, no more, or no less, about the same. Playing the Mapex P600 was really nice. It was easy to set the spring to a nice light whippy action making double-kicks easy and I would have bought it but the reason I didn’t was because of the way it attaches to the drum hoop, or in my case, the Roland KD-10. The The Mapex pedal does not stay fixed to the KD-10. There is an adjuster where the metal top part of the pedal that goes over the loop can be moved back and forth, but even in its furthest forward position as soon as the tightening knob reaches a certain torque it just pushes itself forward towards your and off the KD-10. I suspect, if I took a hammer and hammered flat a 2-inch section of my KD-10 where the pedal attaches, it would stay there, but I did not want to butcher my KD-10 and thus I decided to leave the Mapex P600 pedal - shame.
The salesman at my local store (after listening to my requirements of a speedy whippy pedal for fast double-kicks) recommended the Tama Dyna-Sync, but this is direct drive and my foot uplift is not the most rapid so I would hinder the return of this pedal and thus I suspect it would screw up my technique so that is out too.
The only pedal left for me to potentially try is a DW 5000 XF (Extended Footboard). This looks really nice, but the the only thing putting me off this pedal is the DW 5000 logo cut into the board, which might make my bare-foot practice a bit. Painful and the heal rest looks like it would take the skin off a crocodile.
So, I have to see if I can get my local dealer to get the DW 5000 XF and the Tama Dyna-Sync into store so I can sit on the V-drum kit with them both for an hour to see how they fair up.
Ok, guys, that’s it, my feedback on some decent pedals. For now, I’m sticking with my Yamaha FP-9500C, with the chain on but at some point in the future I’ll certainly be trying the DW 5000 XF version and the Tama Dyne-Sync.
Hope anybody looking for a decent pedal could take something away from this post.
Ok guys, you might remember that I recently posted a ‘Which of these 3 pedals for speed and easy of playability?”. Well I thought I’d put up a fresh post with my experiences and findings of several pedals I’ve owned, returned and tried in shops recently to perhaps help other drummers.
First up I owned a Tama HP200P that cost around £65 (UK prices, sorry, Google is your friend for other currencies) and I felt it was ok, but perhaps a little sluggish and after trying out and owning and returning a few other pedals my suspicions were right. The Tama HP200P feels a bit sluggish due (I suspect) to the Glide cam that is not circular, but more L-shaped and thus doing double-kicks was a bit problematic for my various kick techniques.
Next up I bought three more pedals, a Tama Speed Cobra HP910L and a Yamaha FP-9500C and a Yamaha FP9C.
Now, remember I was looking for a light speedy pedal to make double-kicks easy and fluent and smooth.
I found the Tama Speed Cobra HP910L to be excellent, but compared to the Yamaha FP-9500C the Tama felt a little rattly and ratty tatty under foot and the footboard had a bit of sideways play and the spring on the side was a bit rattly also. Although the footboard was nice and long, something I’m a fan of due to being a size 11 (UK) I did not like the deep cut-out grooves that run up either edge as I sometimes practice at home in either socks or bare-foot and when playing bare-foot I don’t like the way these two grooves dig into the ball of my foot and shred my foot when doing the ‘slide’ into the peddle technique for double-kicks.
The Yamaha FP-9500C felt silky smooth and incredibly quiet, quiet as a mouse’s tea party in fact. Very smooth and silky feeling and very light (given it is a chain model and not direct drive) and I instantly felt that I liked the pedal. The footboard is nice and smooth so great for bare-foot playing was there are no grooves or horrible ‘DW 5000-type’ cutouts in the metal to give you bare foot a pedicure while playing . However, I would have liked the FP-9500C’s footboard to be half an inch longer for my personal foot size. With this in mind I recently bought the Yamaha FP9C (you know, the one that looks like a Yamaha sports bike) - see below.
The Yamaha FP9C got me excited after I phoned a dealer and asked them to measure the footplate, which I had to do as drum pedal manufactures don’t consider this important fact important enough to list on their specs on their sites. Turns out the footboard on the FP9C is about an inch longer and half an inch wider than my FP-9500C, and from the pictures it looks shiny smooth too. I was excited so bought one.
But after a few hours I was seriously disappointed in the FP9C. If feels like Yamaha have tried to re-invent the wheel, a wheel that did not need re-inventing, and they failed, miserably. It looks and feels like a pedal that Yamaha have tried to squeeze every feature and option onto and some not that well designed either.
Remember, these are my personal thoughts. I did not like the spring adjuster knob on the FP9C. It felt plastic and cheap and the way it turns and locks feels clunky and not very ‘Rolls Royce’ like in operation, just slightly tacky in fact. If you are going to make a pedal at Rolls Royce prices it has to feel and operate like one too. I could not get the spring setting light enough. After adjusting the spring tension knob to the point that it was hanging on by about two screw threads the spring was still too tight so I angled the footboard and moved the beater angle closer to the drum head, but this did not help. It felt tighter and harder - by far - than the FP-9500C ding a side-by-side test just pushing them both with my fingers and then putting them both onto my kick drum pad. I also found (and I’ve read about other people complaining about this) that the beater angle drum key adjuster keeps working loose and this happened to me after just 10 minutes of playing. I tightened it as tight as I could by putting a cloth over the drum key and using a monkey wrench to get a good tight lock on it, but that whole mechanism just didn’t feel right to me with the metal block behind it. Bad design for a motorcycle company and this pedal comes out of the same factory.
After faffing around with the many settings for beater angle, footboard height, cam adjustment (3 positions) and spring I could not get this pedal to feel light and whippy, nowhere near as good as my Yamaha FP-9500C. Also, the footboard felt sort of sticky. It gripes like hell to rubber trainer soles, which makes sliding on it hard. I suspect it would be great with socks on though with the mirror shiny finish. Anyway, disappointed in the FP9C and even the salesman (a drummer) says he did not like it and none of his drummer friends did either. Dave Weckl doesn’t even use it, he sticks with his FP-9500C, but replaces the chain with the strap, but this is only die to an old injury on his right knee. Yamaha FP9C went back for a refund.
Out of curiosity (because my drum teacher owns two and I find them easy to play) I went to my local store and tried out a Mapex P600, which only cost £65. Holding it in the hand and shaking it around it felt a tad rattly, like the Tama Speed Cobra HP910L, no more, or no less, about the same. Playing the Mapex P600 was really nice. It was easy to set the spring to a nice light whippy action making double-kicks easy and I would have bought it but the reason I didn’t was because of the way it attaches to the drum hoop, or in my case, the Roland KD-10. The The Mapex pedal does not stay fixed to the KD-10. There is an adjuster where the metal top part of the pedal that goes over the loop can be moved back and forth, but even in its furthest forward position as soon as the tightening knob reaches a certain torque it just pushes itself forward towards your and off the KD-10. I suspect, if I took a hammer and hammered flat a 2-inch section of my KD-10 where the pedal attaches, it would stay there, but I did not want to butcher my KD-10 and thus I decided to leave the Mapex P600 pedal - shame.
The salesman at my local store (after listening to my requirements of a speedy whippy pedal for fast double-kicks) recommended the Tama Dyna-Sync, but this is direct drive and my foot uplift is not the most rapid so I would hinder the return of this pedal and thus I suspect it would screw up my technique so that is out too.
The only pedal left for me to potentially try is a DW 5000 XF (Extended Footboard). This looks really nice, but the the only thing putting me off this pedal is the DW 5000 logo cut into the board, which might make my bare-foot practice a bit. Painful and the heal rest looks like it would take the skin off a crocodile.
So, I have to see if I can get my local dealer to get the DW 5000 XF and the Tama Dyna-Sync into store so I can sit on the V-drum kit with them both for an hour to see how they fair up.
Ok, guys, that’s it, my feedback on some decent pedals. For now, I’m sticking with my Yamaha FP-9500C, with the chain on but at some point in the future I’ll certainly be trying the DW 5000 XF version and the Tama Dyne-Sync.
Hope anybody looking for a decent pedal could take something away from this post.