Double Bass Drum Speed: How to Train It and Track Your BPM

Double bass speed isn't a talent you either have or don't — it's a tempo number you raise the same way guitarists raise picking speed: short patterns, a metronome, clean reps at the current tempo, then a 5 BPM bump. The drummers who get fast are the ones who run that loop for months and can prove it with a log.

The training loop

• Pick one short pattern — say, one bar of sixteenth notes, alternating feet.
• Set the metronome where the pattern is genuinely clean: even spacing, even volume, relaxed legs.
• Play it 4–10 times in a row without a flam or a dropped note.
• All clean? Move up 5 BPM. Any rep falls apart? Stay — or drop back down.

The rule that makes this work is the same one that governs all speed practice: clean reps first, tempo second. Sixteenths at 130 with even spacing beat sixteenths at 160 that sound like a landslide.

Tension is the ceiling

When the tempo outruns your control, your legs stiffen — and stiff legs are slow legs. If you feel your quads locking up or your ankles going rigid, you're past your clean tempo, and every rep at that speed is rehearsing the tension. Drop 10 BPM, let the motion get loose again, and rebuild in small steps.

Burst speed and sustained speed are different fragments

A one-bar burst and a full minute of sixteenths are different skills with different ceilings — endurance drags the sustained number well below the burst number. Track them separately: log "1-bar burst" and "60-second sixteenths" as their own fragments, each with its own tempo and its own chart.

Why drummers especially need the log

Perceived foot speed is unreliable — fatigue, fresh legs, or a good monitor mix can swing how fast you feel by 20 BPM. The metronome number you actually held, written down, is the only version of the truth that survives the week.

Crank. works for feet as well as hands: add each kick pattern as a fragment, set a target, log the clean max every session, and watch the chart climb from 130 toward 180. Free on the App Store for iPhone.