Musician's Friend: Stupid Deal of the Day

Thursday, September 1, 2011

Premiere Gemini 241 Bass Drum Pedal



This is a bass drum pedal that is not only a rare collector’s item but it’s just a plainly odd pedal. I actually own one that I purchased off ebay 6 or 7 years ago.  I’m not sure which pedal came out first, the Gemini 241 or the Dualist, The Gemini made its NAMM debut in 1998 and didn’t really do much after that.  This is basically a single pedal that has two beaters and is supposed to allow you to play double bass patterns with one foot…let’s explore.

This is a pretty sturdy pedal. Well built and solid. The way it operates is one beater is controlled by the foot board like a regular bass drum pedal and then the other beater is controlled with a heel operated pedal.  So basically, you have to rock your foot to get a double bass effect out of the pedal.  For players who play heel down, this isn’t too much of a problem but for those who play heel up, I can see a problem with trying to use the heel. Never mind you’re going to have to learn to rick your foot in a perfect rhythm to get a good sounding double bass pattern going.

The footboard flips up to allow access to mount the pedal to the hoop which is kind of cool. Once on the hoop, it’s kind of difficult to get the double bass going…at least for a sustainable amount of time. Triplets are a real pain in the butt to accomplish as well.

As a “double bass playing” single pedal, it fails. It’s just too difficult to get it going. For a neat collector’s item, win.
I like to refer to this pedal as the 241….A Bass Oddity.

Sorry peeps, I’m not giving this one away! I did see there’s one on ebay right now though! 

Until next review…