cram

Hi guys,

Clearly I'm a noob here but I've been a fan of Virgil's for sometime, and obviously am not the only one. I'd like to talk about single strokes on two individual Pearl Eliminator Pedals. Bare with me.

I very recently purchased two single Eliminators and have been playing/experimenting with various spring tensions, foot board positions, cams, and beater positions. Until now I've never really experimented with pedals because I was absorbed in my hand studies. I don't know much about heel toe techniques, but I get the impression that their use does not far extend Speed Competitions like the WFD. The WFD is fine, I love going fast too, but I don't have a need for speed that sounds sloppy, uncontrolled, muted, and as a result, like ****.

I've searched this site and I've read all kinds of discussions and arguments about which pedal is best and heel toe versus slide versus singles. What I'm interested in is single stroke technique. I use heel up technique, though sometimes try to keep my heels in contact with the butt of the foot board. Recently I've been using the blue cams with the foot boards in the closest position (size eleven feet), the beater rests about six inches in front on the head, and the spring tension is moderate-light, I can see a few threads under the little tightening bolt thingee. With this and about a weeks practice (hour or two a day) I'm pretty comfortable with sixteenths at 105 BPM.

Under these settings the pedals are decent for where I'm at now, but I feel like once I get to say, 150 BPM their performance will fall off, when I do short bursts the pedals feel ... light?? almost as if I'm punching the footboards into the floor. I stay relaxed, I don't tense up and I don't force the pedals, and I have tried much experimentation. I've tried upping the spring tension and that feels really..not good for me. I have tried every cam combo with every different beater position and I have found the beater position which is optimal for me, like wise with the position of the footboard although that makes a much more subtle difference so I'm still fooling with that. My ultimate double bass goals are nothing crazy, I'd like to be comfortable with thirty seconds at around 100 BPM and obviously dexterous with little thirty second triplet bursts and ostinatos amongst other things.

So my questions are:

What kind of setting do YOU use for your Eliminators or comparable pedals ?
(DW9000, Axis, you name it)
What kind of single strokes techniques do people like Vinnie Paul or Virgil use to get those clean single rolls?
What tips or techniques do you have for single strokes?
What kind of pedal adjustments/settings do you use?

I practice and practice and practice but what's the use if I'm not practicing the proper methods? Any advice, experience or comments would be greatly appreciated

thanks so much for taking the time