Double Bass Pedal to Trigger Different Sounds - Can it work?

Hey there

Let me start by saying this might be a question that has already been answered, but I searched the forum and didn’t see it. If I missed it, apologies in advance.

A bit of background - I’m in the process of evaluating buying a Sensory Percussion setup. I’m all in with the tech, but I need to fit it in the budget. This isn’t a make or break question, but something I’d like to know in advance.

The question is about the possibility of using a double bass pedal to trigger different sounds. My idea is that each of the two pedals would be able to a different sound based on the software. My thoughts on how this might work are:

Use a zone that would normally for a different type of “hit” - I’m thinking “kick open” and train it with the second pedal using a different type of beater. If you set up the first pedal with a standard beater and the second with a wood beater, they should make different sounds on the head. If the second pedal was used to train the “kick open” zone, that might work. I don’t know enough to know if the training is sound dependent only or also location dependent which could affect if this works.

The second idea would be to use one of the parameters in the standard kick zone to trigger a different sound with a second beater. This is a less well formed idea but something I wanted to bring up.

Thanks in advance for reading and responding. I love the idea behind this product and am looking forward to joining the family.

Hi Chris,

Glad to hear you’re interested in Sensory Percussion! Interesting idea with the kick pedals. In theory this should work fine. As long as you’re able to get different tones (timbres) from the different pedals, you should have no problem training different pads to recognize those. Unfortunately, we don’t have the pedals and beaters to try this out for you here at the studio.

I don’t quite follow the second idea. Could you try to explain it a little further?

Best,

Tenoch

It definitely works. I did it using the method you describe, one felt beater and one plastic, set one to “closed” and the other to “open”. Make sure you turn off any blend between the two and when training each pad make sure you only hit it with that one foot and beater, then same thing for the other side/pad. My double pedal just got so much more useful…

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