Trick Drums Pro-1V Bigfoot Double Bass Pedal

mechanevil

New member
Hey guys, here's my review of the Trick Drums Pro-1V Bigfoot double bass pedal. It's a longboard, direct drive pedal, with some interesting features. I moved to this pedal from a Trick Dominator double pedal, which I kind of foolishly sold in order to finance a Mapex Falcon double pedal. Anyway, on with the review.





First off, the construction of these pedals is great. They are extremely solid, having been machined out of aluminium rather than die-cast. The direct drive linkages are extremely well designed, just applying a bit of pressure and the beater moves into the drum head. If you're not used to direct drives, the pedal can be a bit hard to control when you first start using them, but persevere and it will pay off.

I got the latest version of the pedal, which has different footboards from what used to be on the Bigfoot, those used to be tapered toward the hinge. This footboard is exactly like the Dominator, one rectangular piece. Have no idea whether the tapered board was better, perhaps on account of lower weight, having never played one. The footboards are extremely smooth, which is great if you use a lot of slide in your playing.

Another big plus is the ability to set the beater angle and pedalboard height separately. I think this is something that all pedals should have to be able to maximise player comfort. I don't think I will ever buy a pedal again where I cannot do this. I can also do it with my Mapex Falcons. It just feels plain better than being locked to a beater angle/footboard height setting.

One of the great features of this pedal is that if you remove the direct drive linkage and shift the second beater to the slave pedal, you have two independent single pedals, which is great in case you want to play on two bass drums. No need to shift any parts to either pedal either. Just move the beater to the slave pedal.

As far as the direct drive linkage, it is virtually zero lag, so it doesn't feel like there's any difference between the master and slave pedals. You'll notice that the linkage is the same one that's used on the Pearl Demon Drive, which is because Trick licensed the direct drive linkages to Pearl. It's a really hefty bar of metal, with no chance of the bar sliding out. Really easy to connect and disconnect too.

One of the cool features of the pedals is the way you adjust spring tension. You just turn a knob on each pedal clockwise or counter-clockwise to raise or lower the spring tension, which saves you a lot of kneeling on the ground if you want to make on-the-fly changes. A life-saver at a gig.

It's also important to note that the Trick pedals use compression spring technology, rather than an expansion spring. This means when you press down on the footboard, a spring in the post is compressed and as you release, it expands. This is opposed to an expansion spring on normal pedals, where the spring is expanded when you push down and compresses in order to pull the beater back to the original position.

Being able to move the hoop clamp is also a great feature, especially with the extremely crappy Roland bass drum I own, which makes it extremely difficult to attach a direct drive (I couldn't do it with my Mapex Falcons with the direct drive attachment because the link would crash into the rim of the bass drum, though the link wouldn't have hit the bass drum head, just that stupid rim that's floating in the middle of the air). I was able to move the clamp all the way back and still get the beater to strike at a 0 degree angle.

One major difference between the Bigfoot and the Dominator pedals is the cluster adjustment on each pedal. This allows you to change the attack from aggressive to more of an even roll to a more powerful strike. I like to set it in the middle position, which is the same as the Dominator, but I'm sure some users who prefer eccentric actions may prefer one of the other actions.





When I had my Dominator pedals, I had bought the SB-1 laser triggers that Trick sells for them. Pretty happy that I couldn't find a buyer for them after the silly sale of the Dominators. I could easily slide the laser triggers onto the Bigfoot housing, though I had to order a different set of "fins" that the laser trigger uses to register a hit. Once that was sorted out, I was really happy with the the responsiveness. It's also great to be able to just hook up the pedals directly to a module and just trigger on any bass drum without having to worry about double triggering or having to stuff pillows inside.

If anyone is considering these pedals versus the Axis, I think I'd have to say that it's kind of like comparing a Pearl Eliminator against an Iron Cobra, where the Axis is the Eliminator and the Trick is the Cobra. I say this based on the "feel" of the pedals - the Trick is heavier, but this does not mean it can't go fast, just like the ICs. It also takes very little motion to propel the beater into the head.

The beaters that come with the Trick are really light, maybe too light imho. I swapped them out for a pair of IC rubber beaters. Also, I find it a bit screwy that they have a beater face that can be screwed out, but there aren't any options other than a plastic face. They did come with some stick on felt, but then I'd only have felt beaters and those couldn't be used on my ekit. Seriously thinking about buying another pair of Dominator beaters, I used to love those.

Anyone else use these pedals?
 
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