Rainger FX Snare Trap

The Rainger FX Snare Trap is a mini drum machine you play guitar or other instruments through. Instead of loading drum samples, it generates its own bass drum, snare and hi-hat internally, and your instrument runs through the box alongside the beat, with a side-chain circuit and a low-pass filter tying the two together¹. It is designed to be used either on the desktop by hand or on the floor by foot, in a custom enclosure¹.

The name comes from the Clap Trap, a foot-triggered handclap effect that was around in the 1980s; Rainger FX says the Snare Trap is "vaguely reminiscent" of it¹. Designer David Rainger is known for adding unusual controls to his pedals, and the Snare Trap follows that pattern².

How the beat works

The Snare Trap runs a fixed internal pattern rather than programmable patterns. The first bass drum is always on the "1", and there are two bass drums, with the second movable anywhere in the bar. The main snare drum is always on the "2" and the "4". The hi-hat is either 8-to-the-bar, or 4, but on the offbeat¹².

A pad on the unit adds drum fills and white noise effects, and it also doubles as the tempo input: you tap it to set the beat¹. The pad is a switch, not a pressure-sensitive controller like Rainger FX's Igor pads, though it uses the same rubber material¹.

The tap tempo is correctible, the same circuit as the one used in the Deep Space Pulsar, so you can nudge the tempo with correcting taps to hold sync with other tracks or instruments over long periods¹². To stop the internal rhythm, cancel the tempo by pressing the pad for one long second, or turn the volume control to off¹.

Individual drum sounds cannot be muted while running from the internal tap tempo¹.

Analog and digital split

The Snare Trap is an analog/digital hybrid. The bass drum, the shaping of the snare and hi-hat, the low-pass filter and the side-chain circuit are analog; the tap tempo, the delay, and the white noise part of the snare and hi-hat are digital¹. The shape of the snare hit can be adjusted, adding a handclap-like effect¹.

Controls

Guitar Pedal X's review lists the full control set³:

There is also a "hi/lo" input switch to cope with the higher signal levels from active instruments and keyboards², and the snare delay has wet or dry options².

Connections and external triggering

Each of the three drum sounds has its own minijack socket for external triggering: an approximately 5V spike does the job, so a modular synth or other CV source can fire the bass drum, snare and hi-hat individually¹. Externally triggered sounds are all at fixed volume and cannot be individually volume-controlled¹.

A sync out minijack puts out the internal tap tempo clock for syncing to external sound sources: a 2.5V spike, less than 1ms long, four to the bar¹.

What reviewers said

Guitar Pedal X reviewed the Snare Trap alongside other Rainger FX devices in 2023, pricing it at £299 at the time and noting it is "a little limited by its Mono output"³. On the sound itself:

Guitar Pedal X's reviewer, 2023³

The same reviewer found the style of the drum beats reminiscent of the "Electro" era of drum sounds, and particularly good for Electro and Space Rock styles of music³.

Compared with other drum pedals

Most drum pedals in this lane, such as the DigiTech SDRUM or the Singular Sound BeatBuddy, play back sampled or modeled drum kits with selectable patterns. The Snare Trap instead synthesizes a small set of drum voices itself and runs your instrument through the same box, with a side-chain and filter interacting with the beat. Players looking for a programmable, sample-based machine can compare it with the Mooer Micro Drummer or the BOSS RC-10R Rhythm Loop Station; players who want analog drum synthesis and CV triggering might also look at the Vermona Kick Lancet or the VERMONA twinCussion¹.

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