Drum kick pedal set up with acoustic guitar?

[birddog01]

I've seen some solo players, acoustic guitar and harp mostly that have a kick pedal set up to accompany their playing and am looking for tips and examples for putting one together.
I've seen a couple that I remember loosely, drum kick pedal with a tamborine and another with a somewhat duct taped cowbell set up.

Anybody put something together like this or have an idea or photo?
Also a recomendation on a decent kick pedal to look for would be appreciated.

Thanks

[tjalla]

Approach with caution. Once you start pounding four on the floor, you'll get people up and dancing. They'll love you. You'll love your new sound.

You can never return it. Your crowd will hate you if even so much as drop a quarter note.

Here in Western Australia we call it Fremantelitis.

But you can also buy boards/stompboxes with mics in them, ready to plug to PA.

http://ellisguitars.com.au/stompbox.html

http://www.peterman.com.au/music/puckn_stompa_tok

[Bongocaster]

Latin Percussion makes the Gajate bracket, and other drum hardware manufacturers make similar pedals. You provide the kick drum pedal. I have the Gibraltar SC-CBPM Cowbell Mount. I use it when I play congas and not guitar.

Once you have that you can pretty much attach any percussion thingy that has a mounting bracket. I did make my own beater for a mounted tambourine to get it the way I wanted. I just bent some hardware store rod and epoxied concentric metal collars on it. It strikes the rubber padded part of the tambourine, and is longer with a bend in it to clear the tambourine body. About $5 worth of stuff.

You might have to fool around with beaters - either purchased or home made - to get the sound that you want. Felt can be too soft. Maybe try a hard wood or plastic one and glue some type of rubber or foam rubber on it. I'd rather fool around with the beater than put nasty tape all over my bells. For playing bells with hands I've got jillion different beaters and sticks and use some home made sticks made out of softer wood dowels when I want to tone things down on bells that are on a rack.

I bought a real cheapo pedal to start and it wasn't satisfactory. Unless you are going to get real fancy doing fast rolls a "decent" pedal will do. Talk to drummers with nice stuff and get them to sell you the pedal that came with their kit for $20. They bought a super nice pedal and have the perfectly functional pedal that comes with a decent kit laying around somewhere. Mines a Tama. The guy I bought it off of had three laying around and was happy to get a few bucks for it. He threw in some different beaters too.

I'm guessing that if you are standing up and playing you will want to crank the spring tension up a bit.

[muudcat]

I've put kick mics under stages ala, Neil Young, but a lot of places don't have stages so the Ellis pedal would be handy. I wonder if a location mic could be built into a small box and eq'd. Thanks TJ for the link, some great performances

[MiloCroton]

You can build yourself a box to stamp your foot on, it seems this is popular with blues/resonator guitar people.

Or you could simply stick a piezo into a block of wood and then stomp on it.

[Murky]

There are a lot of how-to instructions for stomp boxes on you-tube. I was looking some of them over a while back. I was surprised to see many use a small speaker as a microphone.

John Hartford used a big chunk of plywood and poured sand on it to get a good scratch sound with his feet while plucking his banjo at a concert I saw years ago.

Check the Groanbox Boys for some interesting percussion, particularly the Victory Boot. They do a song called Hobo Heaven that is a favorite of mine, btw.

I've seen people use the kick pedal with a variety of mini-drum and cymbal combinations. I get along pretty well with some good boots and a stompable floor. Still thinking about a victory boot though. Just need to drink myself a sackful of bottle-caps.

[simonc]

Originally Posted by tjalla

Approach with caution. Once you start pounding four on the floor, you'll get people up and dancing. They'll love you. You'll love your new sound.

You can never return it. Your crowd will hate you if even so much as drop a quarter note.

Here in Western Australia we call it Fremantelitis.

But you can also buy boards/stompboxes with mics in them, ready to plug to PA.

http://ellisguitars.com.au/stompbox.html

http://www.peterman.com.au/music/puckn_stompa_tok

hahaha! Fremantleitis....get a weissenborn for full effect.

seriously though, the ellis stompboxes are what you're after.

http://experimentalistsanonymous.com...p?topic=1929.0

This thread details how to make one. I wouldn't dare use one myself, its a bit of a cliche around these parts ( ie - Fremantle ). As the link above states " there are a few makers out there, mostly in Australia for some reason..."
The reason is, there's a heck of alotta John Butler wannabe's around. YMMV.

[birddog01]

Thanks for the links and suggestions.
That Ellis looks interesting, some good vids.

Got a drum kick pedal coming, I'll have to play around and put something together.
This is for a mostly acoustic set up, sitting playing acoustic guitar and harp in a rack. Just looking for a little more.

[SamClemons]

It would look pretty funny on stage, but I occasionally sit at my drum set and play the bass drum
and hi hat with my feet while playing the guitar or bass.