If you were told there was an inexpensive way to improve the action of your bass drum pedal, you might be a little skeptical. Canopus offers just such a product called the Speed Star Bearing. The product is an add-on bearing/rocker hub that goes between the spring assembly and the pedal. By adding another set of bearings at that point, the Speed Star Bearing reduces the friction between those two parts, increasing the smoothness of your pedal’s action.
I was able to test it out on a pair of pedals. Note that there different models of Speed Star bearings for specific pedals, so you’ll need to check which model fits on yours. On my Iron Cobras, installation of the bearing (SS-900 IC) was easy. There’s a simple set of instructions with photos to make the process quick. It took just a few minutes to install the unit. My IC’s already felt good to play and are in great shape overall, so I wasn’t expecting to see much difference.
Before the installation of the Speed Star Bearings, when using my finger to pull the beater parallel with the floor and release it, my Iron Cobra would move forward and backward about 16 times on average. After the installation of the bearing it increased to 17-19 times. So the unit seemed to improve the response somewhere between 6% and 18.75%. If you play bass drum intensive music, like metal, that can be significant. All my pedals are relatively new and all are of high quality, but if you’re playing an older pedal that has seen better days or an inexpensive bass drum pedal, you could expect even greater improvement than what I found.
I also experimented and received similar results when using the model designed for my Pearl Eliminator pedal.
If you’ve thought of getting new pedal the Speed Star Bearing might save you the expense of upgrading to a new pedal.
If like your current ones, but want to get a little more out of them, these might be just the thing to help. Best of all they’re a very affordable upgrade that improves the ease with which you play.