The drummer who built her own kick drum pedal from scrap metal

In a cramped rehearsal room behind a share house in Montréal, drummer Mara Venn keeps a small pile of discarded steel beside her kit. Bent brackets, bicycle parts, washers and a length of flattened bar have become the raw materials for a kick drum pedal that looks half workshop experiment, half punk relic. It is rough around the edges, yet its action is quick, firm and surprisingly musical.

Venn’s homemade hardware is more than an unusual bit of gear. It reflects the resourcefulness running through independent music: repairing instead of replacing, learning by doing, and finding a distinctive voice in limited circumstances. In this interview, she explains how a broken commercial pedal led to a hand-built alternative, what she learned from metalwork and why inventive drummers can find an audience far beyond their local scene.

The sound begins before the first beat

The original problem appeared during a late rehearsal. Venn was preparing for a small club show when the hinge on her kick pedal cracked. A replacement was outside her budget, and borrowing one meant adapting to a different spring tension just days before the performance. “I had already spent the afternoon looking at the broken parts,” she says. “The shape was simple. I thought, surely I can make something that moves.”

Her first attempt was far from stage-ready. The footboard twisted, the beater struck unevenly and the spring flew loose during a run-through of the band’s fastest song. Venn laughs when she recalls it, but the failure gave her useful information. She stopped trying to copy a factory model and began designing around the way her own foot worked.

The finished pedal has a narrow steel frame, a salvaged bicycle spring and a beater shaft cut from an old piece of machinery. The footboard came from a scrap aluminium sign. Every component carries evidence of its previous life, and those marks remain visible beneath a thin coat of black paint.

Building a pedal from the odds and ends

Venn began with a cardboard template, tracing the path of the footboard through its full range. She then transferred the shape to mild steel and cut it with an angle grinder. The work was noisy, dusty and slow. “The hardest part was accepting that millimetres matter,” she says. “A tiny change in the axle position can make the pedal feel completely different.”

The axle sits in two reused bearings pressed into homemade brackets. The spring attaches to an adjustable hook, allowing Venn to change the resistance without taking the whole mechanism apart. She also added a small stop beneath the footboard so the pedal would not collapse under a heavy heel-down technique.

There was no specialist fabrication studio available, so she worked with basic hand tools and advice from friends. A welder at a community workshop helped reinforce the frame, while a bicycle mechanic showed her how to check the alignment. The process recalls the practical spirit of garage bands everywhere, from Montréal basements to Melbourne rehearsal rooms where musicians often share equipment, cables and repair tips.

The mechanics behind the noise

A kick drum pedal converts a small movement from the ankle into a controlled strike. Its feel depends on several relationships: the length of the footboard, the position of the axle, the spring’s tension and the beater’s weight. Venn’s design gives her a shorter throw than many commercial pedals, which suits her compact, fast playing style.

She also paid attention to the angle at which the beater meets the drumhead. A straight strike produces a concentrated attack, while a slightly altered angle can soften the note and bring out more low-end bloom. “I wanted a kick sound that stayed present without sounding like a typewriter,” she explains. “The pedal is part of the tone, not just a mechanism.”

Useful details from her workshop include:

• A straight axle keeps the beater movement predictable.
• A replaceable spring makes touring repairs easier.
• A broad footboard gives better control at slower tempos.
• Rubber washers reduce unwanted rattling on stage.

The result is not perfectly silent. At close range, the pedal makes a faint metallic click before each hit. Venn considers that a feature rather than a flaw. In an indie rock arrangement, small mechanical sounds can sit alongside guitar buzz, room ambience and the human irregularity of a live performance.

A workbench lesson for independent drummers

Venn does not suggest that every drummer should immediately dismantle their kit. She recommends starting with one replaceable component, such as a beater holder, chain guard or footboard hinge. That approach makes the process safer and reveals how the hardware behaves before a player takes on a complete build.

Her basic workshop principles are simple:

• Measure moving parts before cutting metal.
• Round every exposed edge that could catch skin or clothing.
• Test the pedal slowly before playing at full force.
• Carry a commercial spare for important shows.

The last point matters in Australia’s spread-out touring market. A drummer playing a weekend run from Sydney to Canberra, or from Brisbane down to the Gold Coast, cannot assume that a replacement part will be available after soundcheck. Venn keeps spare nuts, bolts, cable ties and a compact multi-tool in her hardware case. Homemade equipment can be dependable, but preparation remains part of the design.

She also records short videos of every adjustment. Watching the footboard in slow motion helped her identify lateral movement that was difficult to feel while playing. That habit has become useful when she shares the project online, where other musicians can see the pedal working rather than treating it as an ornamental piece of scrap sculpture.

Why handmade gear matters in the local scene

For Venn, the pedal belongs to a larger culture of independent music where limitations often create identity. A drummer without expensive equipment may develop a different touch, a different setup and a closer relationship with sound. The object becomes part of the story listeners carry away from a show.

That connection is familiar in Australian venues, where a Sunday arvo bill might place a new electronic act beside a folk duo and a loud guitar band. Small rooms in Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide often reward musicians who can make a strong impression with minimal production. A handmade pedal will not replace rehearsal or songwriting, yet it can give a live performance an individual physical character.

Venn is also careful not to romanticise being underfunded. Independent artists still deserve fair pay, reliable equipment and safe working conditions. “Making something yourself should be a choice,” she says, “not an excuse for people to expect free labour.” That distinction matters to community-driven music platforms, including Lady Indie, which has long focused on overlooked female and female-fronted artists.

The same spirit appears in stories of performers reshaping difficult experiences into unusual sounds, such as this genre-defying album story. For Venn, the scrap pedal carries a similar transformation: a broken object becomes a working tool, and a technical problem becomes part of an artistic language.

The beat that travels

When Venn first played the pedal outside her rehearsal space, audiences did not know what they were hearing. At a tiny venue, the difference was felt rather than identified. The kick sounded immediate, with a firm front edge and enough looseness to preserve the room’s natural boom. After the set, another drummer asked where she had bought it.

“I told them it was made from a sign, a bicycle part and a bad decision,” Venn says. That answer captures her humour, but it also points to a wider truth about music equipment. Commercial products offer consistency, which is valuable. Handmade tools offer a conversation between the player and the mechanism.

Australian musicians understand that conversation through the country’s strong repair, reuse and DIY traditions. In regional towns, a touring act may rely on a local music shop, a borrowed amp or a pub technician who can solve a problem with whatever is in the van. In larger cities, makerspaces and community workshops give artists access to tools that would otherwise be unaffordable.

Venn hopes other drummers will approach gear with curiosity rather than fear. She has posted measurements, sketches and short demonstrations for players who want to experiment, while directing listeners towards independent releases and free MP3 downloads when they ask how to support emerging artists. The pedal is useful, but the exchange around it may be more important.

She still carries a conventional pedal for major shows. The homemade version comes out for club dates, recording sessions and any performance where she wants the kit to feel especially personal. Its surface is scratched, the spring is visibly mismatched and the welds are uneven. Every mark records a decision.

That is what the drummer wants people to remember: distinctive sound does not always begin with expensive equipment. Sometimes it starts with a broken part, a pile of scrap metal and the patience to listen closely to what the mechanism is trying to become.