How to Make an Effects Snare Drum

Step 3 Port Holes and Jingles

If you have access to a router or a Dremel, and you aren't too concerned about the well-being of your alternate snare, you can try to take a page out of the book of DW (see picture below) and port your snare. Yes thats right, it sounds crazy (in theory) but actually sounds awesome (in application). Different shapes and sizes will obviously give you different sounds, and this transitions into our options for the next idea.

Tambourines started out as nothing more than a one-headed drum with little metal jingles attached. While some models have lost the head part, you can still find many around that have the sound of both drum and tambourine. Now, if you were ambitious enough to actually try porting small holes on the shell of your snare, you can further attempt to install tambourine jingles into this slot. Buying and breaking apart a cheap tambourine can give you all the parts you need (basically just the jingles and the small metal rods - bottle caps work well as a replacement for the jingles). You can either drill into the shell or simply glue or tape the rods on so that the jingles sit sticking out of the port holes.

If you dont have the machinery or will-power to gut the shell of your snare to install port holes but still wish to experiment with the jingle effect, no worries. Using a guitar string (you dont want to use the thickest gauge possible, but it is a good idea to use at least the A or D strings so that they have more texture) you can thread a few jingles onto the string and then feed it through two of the small port holes on opposite sides of your Evans Dry snare head. This offers you the ability to have jingles right on the head of the drum (a very cool effect) while also giving you a string to play with. The sound of a guitar string sliding in and out of the port holes on the head is actually pretty cool, and gives an interesting ethereal effect. Just be careful when you do this, because it can be easy to tear the head.