The Snare Trap is a drum box sketch pad, a rhythmic backing track configured to inspire musicians of all kinds. It incorporates a bunch of effects to enhance and transform the beat, and uses useful shortcuts to help quickly create your drum track.
It’s a hybrid of analogue and digital technology; the bass drum, sidechaining and low-pass filter are all analogue, while the snare and hi-hat, delay and tap tempo are all digital.
CONTROLS
SHAPE; In the ‘snare’ section, this adjusts the length of the snare sound, making the snare short and sharp, or with a handclap-like thickening.
DRY; This button switches the snare from roomy-sounding to more hard and dry.
HH 4s; The Snare Trap defaults to ‘8s’ on the hi-hat, but push this button in and it does only off-beat ‘4s’.
BD2; With this knob at fully CCW, the second bass drum is on ‘3’. Turning it CW moves this drum later and later, at one point it’s so late it happens in the following beat — in effect happening earlier in the bar; this way BD2 can be adjusted to go anywhere in the bar.
SEND; In the ‘delay’ section, this knob is turned to send the snare — only — to the delay circuit.
RATE; The knob adjusts the timing of the repeats.
FBK; This adjusts the amount of delay feedback.
INSTR SIDE CHAIN; This pushbutton activates the side chain effect on the instrument that’s plugged into the Snare Trap input.
CUT OFF; This large knob adjusts the cut off frequency of the low-pass filter.
LFO RATE; this changes the speed of the LFO that automatically sweeps the cut off frequency
up and down.
ON; This blue pushbutton activates the LFO.
PAD; This pushbutton changes the operating mode of the big rubber pad, from tap tempo programming to snare drum fills and white noise bursts.
MIX; This large knob adjusts the blend between all instrument (CVV) to all beats (CCW).
VOLUME; This knob adjusts the overall output volume.
LEDs; The left LED shows the unit is getting power OK. The middle is the tempo indicator, and the right one shows the LFO speed.
SOCKETS
IN; Connect your mono %” jackplug instrument cable here
(SYNC OUT); this minijack socket outputs the Snare Trap tap tempo pulse to any external unit.
I/P Hi/Lo; this pushbutton attenuates the input signal volume, to accommodate high-output instruments (eg synthesizers)
DC in; Connect 9v power supply unit here (centre earth, sleeve +9v).
‘Trigger in’ sockets; these minijack sockets can be used to trigger BD, SN and HH sounds externally.
OUT; these %” and minijack sockets output the same mono signal
ABOUT THE TAP TEMPO The Snare Trap has an incredibly useable — and ground-breaking - tap tempo. It’s possible to sync by ear so the unit works in time to an external music source for several minutes.
With the ‘PAD’ switch pushed in, tap the big rubber pad and the ‘4s’ LED will come on steadily — showing the pedal is recording your tempo. Tap the pad again and the LED will go off, but continue flashing at the tempo you just programmed. This tempo can be adjusted at any time; you can tap it once or as many times as you want to correct the tempo.
To erase the tempo, press and hold the pad for one long second.
NOTE: if you try and correct the tap tempo to a very different speed the circuit may get confused! In this situation it’s best to erase it and start again.
