Bass pedal fast notes not played

[Nuno]

Hy all.
I bought aerodrums 1 year ago and love it. It's the perfect solution to play in apartments, and great to teach to my kids.
I've been trying to improve my technique (my main instrument is guitar, not drums) and the problem, for now, is playing fast notes with the bass pedal.
The top left square is green, the graphics mode is #3 and sometimes #4 (without image), but the result is the same: when I play 3 notes, sometimes last note does not make any sound. The same when I play 2 fast notes.
I can hear my foot kicking the floor. Is it bad technique, or is this a common problem related to hardware or configuration?
Tried to search the forum, but didn't find any solution.
Thanks.

[Richard]

Aerodrums will detect a bass drum hit when the reflective foot piece moves down and comes to a stop (as a result of your foot contacting the floor). As such, if you try to execute a hit by tapping your heel while keeping the ball of your foot on the floor, the foot piece will not move enough to register a hit. The easiest way to execute the required motion cleanly is to play with heel down technique (the heel stays on the floor and you tap with the ball of your foot) though it is also possible to play with heel up technique (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSYlz9K-2NM).

You should also make sure the sensitivity of the bass drum in your kit is not set too low (the preset drum kits will not have this problem) and you may want to try set the 'Drum hit sensitivity' setting in the Aerodrums Latency menu screen to 'Expert' to see if that helps.

Feel free to share a video to demonstrate the problem if you still can't get it to behave the way you would like.

[Franky_Jr]

Hello Richard,

I bought my Aerodrums yesterday and played around a bit with it.

I found out I have the same issue as Nuno describes above. When I play heel down the 32nd notes are not audible while the pedal on the screen moves a little. I am jealous on the 32nd notes you are able to make in the video you link to.

Can you tell me what the settings (sensitivty and volume) are for the bassdrum of the kit you used in that video?

Thanks so much,

Franky

[Richard]

Hi Franky, if I recall, the settings were the same as those used in the preset drum kits.

Did you check that the 'Drum hit sensitivity' setting on the Aerodrums Latency screen is set to 'Expert'?

Also, I assume you're not using MIDI - let me know if that's not the case.

[condordontsurf]

I am a guitar player who likes to drum to songs for meditation/listening. I am a two year plus aerodrum user at this point, and the kick drum is definitely the weakest link in my drumming game. I have had nights where my kick drum foot feels alive and doing all the things a drummer would do. I have other nights where I don't even play the kick drum.
The kick drum is something you really have to feel and feel connected to. I live on the second floor and my neighbor will complain about a pulse, although he doesn't know what it is.

Having done a lot of experimenting I can say try wearing different shoes and also roll up a towel and put it under your foot to create a ramp.

[Nuno]

Finally found what was wrong with the drum kick and fast notes: I was placing the foot too back.
Moved the right foot forward a little bit and it worked just fine.
My technique is heel down.

I've been using aerodrums a little more during last days and tried to understand what was causing the problem. Drum pedal was lacking sensitivity and I had to raise the toes too much to get a good response. That was the problem with fast notes, because having to raise the toes higher required faster speed to keep tempo.
Bass pedal on the screen had a little of the blue bar when toes were down. Moved the foot forward (closer to the camera) with toes down until the blue bar stoped showing and it worked. That seems to be the sweet pot.
Aerodrums started to detect bass drum hits better.

Aerodrums is a fenomenal product and I'm a happy user.

[Richard]

Hi Nuno, thanks for the update. Good to hear you're getting better results now.