Double bass
Doublebass is a two-legged technique when playing drums , which enables a fast, driving rhythm and has been used primarily in metal , but also in hardcore punk . This form of drumming was first developed in the 1940s by Louie Bellson as part of the big bands .
The drummer either uses two bass drums ( large drums , bass drums) or uses a so-called double pedal which directs the sticks of two pedals onto one drum. By alternately stepping on two pedals , the drummer can achieve a bass drum cadence that is about twice as fast as when playing with just one foot. Particularly fast pedaling frequencies can be achieved by alternating stepping with the toe and heel of both feet ("heel-toe technique"). Appropriate training makes it possible to achieve speeds that those who are not familiar with the technology can often no longer assign human pedaling. Using two bass drums has the advantage that the heads of the two drums can swing out twice as long and thus sound better. In addition, the feeling of playing is increased, since the left foot now hits its own bass drum and is not diverted to the other by a mechanism. The disadvantage here, however, is that it is very difficult to tune two bass drums to exactly the same pitch, so that the second bass drum is often only used for optical reasons at live concerts. The game is played with a double pedal, the modern, high-quality representatives of which hardly show the weakness of the sluggish left, so-called slave pedal . In addition, the alignment and configuration of the drum kit is more complex than playing with just one bass drum.
However, since different tunings of the drums can be desired when playing with two bass drums, these are often tuned to two different pitches or two different sized bass drums are used. This is used to make the sound more dynamic and interesting when playing double bass.
The Canadian Tim Waterson is considered to be one of the fastest double bass players in the world; For several years he held the record in the "single stroke" game with over 1000 beats per minute, which corresponds to more than 16 beats per second.