When I started building my very first vibe some 15 (or was it more?) years ago, I made a smallwidth pedal for it.
With that pedal I got quite some problems:
- the damperbar was pulled down unevenly
- eventho it was only a 3 octaves with narrow bars, I didn't feel comfortable always having my right leg on the same spot.

To solve the first issue, I connected a Y-shaped pulling-rod, but then discovered that I had to place 2 springs ISO 1 (there has to be a spring as close as possible to any point where the damperbar is connected to a pulling device).

I've been recording myself playing tunes solo the last couple of nights. I play several versions of the tune, listen to it, critique it and then play a few more.

What I like about that is you play for about 30 minutes and then listen for 30 and then play again. You get a good chance to really check yourself out. I don't know what I'd do if I couldn't record myself. It helps me so much!

i was a little upset that i did not manage to play the head right on my first post.i kept practicing and took care of all the advises from the first post. so here´s another version of the song, i´m much more pleased with. still not perfect and after listening i thought, wow i could do some rests and play much cooler instead of doing those 8th notes chain scale licks but at least i can play something that fit´s over the tune and sounds more or less a bit be bop style.

tarik

How about we build a list of Essential Blues heads. The must knows.

Billies Bounce
Bags Groove (of course)
Sonymoon for Two
Straight No Chaser
Footprints
Berks Works

I'll stop there. what others? it would be great if we had a list of 20 of them, major and minor

I once again learned a valuable lesson. I learned about instrument sound. Using soft sticks and playing loud creates a lot of instrument noise.

I was in the studio with Diane Monroe playing duo. So nothing covering up my sound. I was hitting hard with my soft mallets. And we heard noise from the instrument. Partly from me playing over the damper bar. I had to switch to harder mallets to get the sound I wanted!

Here's a clip of Joe and I playing my original composition Hope. Joe plays a beautiful solo introduction on it as well as great lines over the Gb drone. Here's a copy of the lead sheet in case anyone wants to follow along: http://www.edsaindon.com/documents/hope.pdf

OK, so here is another related post with some images of my current setup... To even keep a trio going, unfortunately I still find it a big pain to transport vibes around. I have really refined my case situation over the years (packs into 3 cases, plus the end-frame), but I really wish it was lighter! The Yamaha YV3710 is a great pro instrument, but it is not very light.