Snare Trap

The Snare Trap is a drum machine you play guitar or synth/keyboards through! It’s designed to be used either on the desktop – by hand – or on the floor – by foot. The drum sounds are bass drum, snare, and hi-hat, and these can be individually triggered externally by a CV – so it’s very useful for modular synthesists.

It has handy shortcuts to get a beat going quickly, plus a bunch of inspiring features and effects, including delay, low-pass filter (manual or LFO-controlled), side-chaining and correctible tap tempo. There’s a pad for adding drumfills and white noise effects, which also doubles up for inputting a tempo.

Sounds

The Snare Trap is an analogue/digital hybrid, and creates the sounds itself internally – no pre-recorded samples. With the tap tempo, delay, and the white noise part of the snare and hi-hat all being digital, the bass drum, shaping of the snare and hi-hat, the low-pass filter and side-chain circuit are all analogue.

The main snare drum is always on the ‘2’ and the ‘4’, but the delay effect moves ghost snare beats wherever you want. There’s wet or dry options, plus the shape of the snare hit can be adjusted – adding a handclap-like effect. Snare fills (and white noise bursts) can be added live with the main pad.

The first bass drum is always on the ‘1’ (the most important accent – as Bootsy says!), while the second (there are two) can be moved anywhere. The snare Trap can do any kind of swing feel you want.

The hi-hat is either 8-to-the-bar, or 4, but on the offbeat.

The tap tempo

The tap tempo is correctible (the same as the one used in the Deep Space Pulsar), which means that with one or more correcting taps on the main pad the tempo can be adjusted to sync with other tracks or instruments for long periods.

The Snare Trap is fantastic for any electric instrumentalist who plays to a beat, where live drums aren’t convenient. The beat and your instrument are blended together – so the Snare Trap is great for single-input amplifiers. There’s a ‘hi/lo’ input switch to cope with the higher signal levels from active instruments and keyboards. It runs off a regular 9v pedal power supply.

SNARE TRAP MANUAL

How do you trigger the sounds externally?

Each of the three sounds has its own minijack socket. A 5v (approximate) spike does the job.

What does the ‘sync out’ minijack socket do?

This puts out the internal tap tempo clock, for syncing to external sound-sources. It’s a 2.5v spike, less than 1ms long (very short!), four of them to the bar.

Are the externally triggered sounds volume-controllable individually?

No they’re not. They’re all fixed volume.

What is the current draw of the Snare Trap?

About 65mA

Why is it called ‘Snare Trap’?

Because it’s vaguely reminiscent of the Clap Trap – a foot-triggered handclap effect that totally ruled for a time in the 1980s. Though the Snare Trap has developed further in its own particular way…

Is the large black pad an Igor?

No it’s not. The Igor is sensitive to variable pressure, while the Snare Trap isn’t – it’s a switch. Same rubber material though.

How do I start and stop the internal rhythm?

To start, tap in your tempo and off you go. To stop, cancel the tempo (by pressing the pad for one long second). Or alternatively turn the volume to off.

Can the Snare Trap work with my high output synthesiser?

Yes – it has a ‘hi/lo’ input switch specifically for this.

Is the sidechaining effect adjustable?

No – it’s set for the most useable setting (we reckon).

Can you mute individual drum sounds when using the internal tap tempo?

No – sorry