| I've read this in an interview with Barker (he said "They're kind of too smooth.") and seen it for myself. I let a friend who uses an old Yamaha mid-grade pedal use my 9000 pedal, and he was crazy-nuts for it. I was using a middle of the road Pearl pedal when I got it, and the difference was so shocking. Even the guitar players in my band were impressed- they kept just tapping the footboard and watching it move.
The "Too smooth" issue comes from the fact that with some resistance you can feel the pedal under your foot. You know where it is and wokring against the resistance gives you feedback on your foot. The 9000 is so smooth that is for the most part gone. A player who is already extremely fast and well coordinated with his or her foot will more then likley not need, nor like the benifits of the 9000.
Remember, the ONLY difference on the 9000 vs the 5000 is whats mounted on the pedal towers. The pedal board and pedal board hinge are the same.
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So, seriously... Can the IC be tweaked enough to achieve this kind of smoothness? I've not had much experience with them. The only one I did play felt essentially like my old pedals.
Not likley. The 9000 gets its super smooth feel because they doubled the number or bearings. On the IC, Eliminator and other pedals the chain cam and beater holder are fixed tight to the horizontal shaft which is supported by bearing at the top of each pedal tower. So you have all the motion riding on those two bearings.
On the 9000 the horizontal shaft is supported in those bearings and then the cam/beater holder assembly as well is being supported by its own set of bearings. So its essentially "Floating" on bearings. Ball bearings are smooth because there is very little surface area contacting each part. If you sit small ball like a marble on a table, you will notice since its round only a very small part is touching the table. That small surface area equals very little resistance.
Ball bearings work the same way. The weight is evenly supported by these very small balls and all the balls together still are making very little surface contact with the components. That equals less drag and less drag = more speed. So thats how the 9000 does it. Twice the number of bearings on all its supported points.
Making an Iron Cobra or any other pedal for that matter as smooth as a 9000 would be a difficult task and as its already been posted, sometimes a pedal can be too smooth.  |