MusicRadar

Split cams make for easy, quick fettling of feel – you hardly need to shift position to do so

1 of 2 » View in gallery

• Review
• Manufacturer's Description

Wow. Look good, don’t they? Believe us, they’re even more impressive in the flesh. Initial aesthetic impressions are of a cross between precision measuring devices and surgical implements. But these are ‘just’ bass drum pedals. So let’s not get carried away, shall we?

After all, it won’t do to be blinded by the level of, ahem, trickery present in Trick’s Pro 1-V pedals – the CNC machining, the stealthy appearance, the innovative design. These units are going to have to earn their living battering the hell out of a kick drum, responding to every flex of both feet. Good looks are only going to get the Pro 1-Vs so far…

Spring into action

Let’s deal with the design specifiacs first. There’s plenty of diverting stuff going on here.

For starters, the pedals are driven by internal compression springs rather than the typical expansion springs. Trick cites faster ‘recycle’ time and energy efficiency as the reasons behind this. It also means that there’s no increase in tension as the beaters approach the head, as you’d normally get with a spring that’s working more and more against you as you stretch it, which in turn means a more consistent feel across the full range of travel.

The use of compression springs has also allowed Trick to build in a design feature that allows for extremely quick and easy tension adjustment. You see those big knurled knobs on the top of the left hand side of the Pro 1-V’s frames? Grab hold of them and give them a turn in order to firm up or slacken pedal feel. It’s that simple.

Speed check

That’s just the beginning of the cleverness. The pedals also have split cams with a useful degree scale marked on each side, which makes for pretty accurate adjustment of both the pedal and the beater cams. In practice, this means that both beater and pedal angles can be tweaked to suit with the minimum of fuss, and used in conjunction with the Pro 1-V’s ‘adjustment cluster’ it makes for a remarkably tailor-able unit.

Ah yes, the ‘adjustment cluster’. That’s the section at the end of the footplates that attaches to the beater cam and looks a bit like a knuckle duster. For villains with only three fingers, clearly.

Playing around with the settings here simply involves loosening and removing a single bolt and replacing it in another notch of the cluster, thereby increasing or decreasing the speed of response. Add to all the above the low-profile machined billet aluminium beater heads that can be positioned anywhere along the beater’s titanium shaft, the silent operation and the 12,000 PSI rating of the footboard itself and the Pro 1-V presents itself as a very full-featured, truly ground-breaking unit.

The Pro 1-V double is, well, doubly so. Essentially two Pro 1-V singles coupled together, there’s less of a sense of the left-hand pedal acting as a ‘slave’ unit. Trick even manufacture a ‘double-up’ kit to convert your single into a twin-foot machine should you decide you want to do a Vinnie Paul.