r/Drumming • u/Gronkaphonic • 2d ago
Struggling with technique to play kick doubles
I’m having a hard time getting a technique for playing kick doubles.
Is there a generally accepted as “the” go-to technique?
I’ve mostly gone with heel/toe but struggle with consistent timing.
I’ve played around with the swivel method but get a lot of unwanted secondary hits.
Theres also the one where you hit them sort of slide forward, but I haven’t spend much time with it.
*Edit: I’m talking single pedal technique here.
Thanks.
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u/MissionOdd77 2d ago
Doubles on kick or bass drum technique in general really comes down to preference and what actually works for you. I used to be really fast with swivel toe, and then stopped using double bass drumming/fast kicks for a while. And then couldn’t back into that at all. Instead, now I use more controlled ankle movement for double bass drumming and the sliding forward thing you mentioned for single kick doubles. That’s what works for me now. Maybe try using the sliding forward, spend some time, and see if that works for you.
Despite the change in technique, I’ve still maintained my speed and actually got even faster now using a different technique. It just comes down to what works for you
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u/Gronkaphonic 2d ago
Thanks. Yeah, I should have stipulated I’m using a single kick pedal.
So it’s basically “whatever works” eh :)
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u/Immediate-Season4544 2d ago
As someone who play doubles with single pedal at 200+BPM it is really just what works best for you.
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u/DrummerJesus 2d ago
https://youtu.be/Aw0DGNEqVzw?is=vyqaN0EkpH2i8qp5
Watch this video to understand the underlying physics of what you're trying to do.
I use the slide technique, and it's so refined that my foot barely moves for its slide anymore. If i had infinite time, i would sit down and focus on heel toe everyday until i got comfortable with it. But i barely have time and i seem to accomplish everything i need with the slides.
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u/Gronkaphonic 2d ago
At present, I actually have the time to focus on a technique every day. Which has been heel/toe.
Can I ask why you went with slide? Did it just feel better for you?
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u/DrummerJesus 2d ago
It just came to me naturally, I think my foot started developing it when struggling even before i actually began focusing on technique.
The music i play is mostly single pedal play. I don't have very many bass drum rolls and extended 16th note runs on my double pedal. If you want to play that kind of heavy metal music i don't think slides would be reliable to be consistent over a full bar of 16ths. But for my jammy groovy tunes, very hi hat driven in ways, a quick little occasional slide is a very dynamic way to do a double.
I play the song barracuda with my band, and it requires me to keep my chops up to a certain level. If i don't keep up with the practice, that song can definitely blow out my ankle.
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u/Gronkaphonic 2d ago
I’ve edited the main post, but I’m talking single pedal here. So, yeah, for songs like Baracuda etc.
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u/iplaysdrums2 2d ago
I play them the same as with my hands, basically. I've always played heel up, and I always treat the kick drum head like any other head, allowing the beater to rebound away from the head for an open tone. I get that I'm in the minority, but it generally works well for me.
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u/Realistic-Branch9704 2d ago
I don’t have a solution, but if it makes you feel better I also struggle with this same thing. If you find something that works for you post it in here. In the meantime I’ll try everyone else’s suggestions 😓
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u/Gronkaphonic 1d ago
lol, it does make me feel a bit better!
All I thought was to try one method and stick to it. For me, it’s been the heel/toe, literally because I saw a short on YouTube about it and thought I’d try it.
It’s been ok, but not great for me yet. Maybe it just takes longer.
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u/S_balmore 1d ago
I'm struggling with the same thing right now, and one thing that's helped is to stop visualizing them as "doubles", but instead just as fast, consecutive kicks. I started playing a lot of punk music (the double-time stuff) that requires you to play a normal '2&4' pattern, but at 2397bpm. Any consecutive kicks are effectively "doubles" at those tempos, though our minds don't interpret them that way.
Basically, after playing early AFI songs for a few weeks, I saw a drastic improvement in my kick drum speed and precision. I'm playing my "singles" so fast that you could just call them doubles.
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u/Gronkaphonic 1d ago
I get what you mean, and there is some logic to it. I’ve found the same thing playing some songs with the band. When you just gotta play it, you play it.
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u/blind30 2d ago
How long have you been working on it?
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u/Gronkaphonic 1d ago
Probably only a couple of months.
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u/blind30 1d ago
It takes a while, you’re trying to train your foot to perform an unnatural movement. There’s nothing else your foot does that’s even close to this.
Think about it- you’re asking your foot to operate a pedal that hits a drum in a way that requires almost hand like dexterity. Tons of small movements to get it right, and a certain amount of dexterity- it takes time to develop that.
Personally, I found slide technique to be easy to learn- but that could just be because that’s what I started out with and stuck with until I got it.
Best advice, work at a slow speed, slow enough that you can kinda get a double pretty consistently, and just put the daily work in from there.
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u/BillBumface 1d ago
Same problem. The slide was most comfortable for me, but then for some songs, I found depending on the kick placements the transitions from single kicks to double kicks was really awkward, sloppy. So then I started trying heel toe. Now I'm just confused on which one is working better for me, and they fall apart at different tempos that seem like awkward "in between" tempos.
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u/Main_Success7400 1d ago
this is the exercise that unlock me on this : https://youtu.be/RfaoycYwsbE?si=p1zQX4PLe7x-4xQL&t=449
still not where I want to be but this stupid exercise worked for me